Tuesday, 27 August
Today we delivered La Bamba to Hamble marina for her to be polished up for the Southampton Boatshow (14-22 September).
La Bamba will be a permanent resident of Lymington Yacht Haven which is perfect because it is just round the corner from Jess, David’s sister and her family.
And we also love walking on the sea wall.
The sail to Hamble was delayed until Tuesday as the weather was very blustery on the bank holiday Monday. On Tuesday it was glorious with 9-12 knots most of the way.
We avoided the enormous Yarmouth ferry in the Lymington river
We were somewhat amazed to be going down wind as most of our journey from Sweden was into the wind. The tide was with us and of course we overtook anyone else on the water.
Lots of boats were out enjoying the sailing including a huge dingy regatta.
We saw a Clipper boat doing sail training just outside Southampton Water and were delighted to recognise it as CV9, or ‘Qingdao’ – the exact boat David sailed when he did both the Southern and the Pacific Oceans in the 2011-12 Clipper Race. She is now appropriately called ‘Courageous’.
I wrote a poem for her circumnavigation which starts:
‘There was once a mighty racing yacht
Sixty-eight feet stern to bow
CV9 was her calling sign
Her friends call her Qingdao’
…..it goes on rather (all around the world!) so I’ll stop there!
Parking in Hamble was one of our trickiest so far as it was a bit windy and we had a narrow berth next to an enormous motorboat.
SE Yachts staff were there to go through the short snagging list and they will lift her out of the water on September 4 to make her look her very best for the show. If you want to see her she will be on the Arcona yachts stand.