With new friendships and new skills, the fleet disperse to their home ports
Sunday 25th June
Day 16
Position – Port Solent & fleet returned to home berths
At 0900 hrs all boats began dispersing to their various homeports. The four east coast based boats, ‘Way Ahead’, ‘Morning Star’, ‘High Tide’ and ‘Seaglo’ exited Brighton in the hope of reaching Ramsgate, perhaps even beyond. Time Flies, with Claire and Matt aboard slipped and followed out the faster solent-based boats. Calm Voyager was the last to leave with Neale and Ray aboard.
Everyone had seemed so reluctant and sad to be going home. Many new friendships have been formed and many new skills learned. I think its safe to say that all its participants have deemed the cruise a great success, and all four members of the MBM team have been congratulated. Cruise leader, Neale has been congratulated for his ‘spot on’ weather calls and cruise itinerary. Matt and Ray were fantastic assets to the team over the last two weeks.
Our thoughts go out to Princess 286 ‘Time’n’Again’ who very sadly had to be left behind in St Vaast earlier on in the cruise. They suffered a starter motor failure, and despite every effort were unable to source a spare anywhere in France. Over a week after the failure, they finally managed to get the part from the UK and were quickly up and running again. Unfortunately they were unable to rejoin the MBM fleet and made the decision to return directly back to the UK.
With everyone now reported back safely in their home berths, the MBM team has signed off. Like everyone else, there is a lot of cleaning and tidying to be done and day jobs to get back to tomorrow. They would like to thank all the participants for their company and also send a huge thank you to the Harbour Masters in the ports visited for their support.
Until next time??.
Look out for the Normandy Cruise Postcards feature in our forthcoming August issue of Motor Boats Monthly.
