Having abandoned plans of France because of the roaring southerly winds in our face and the time spent getting repairs and recovering from a ‘man injury’, no time to mention Nina’s trip to the local NHS Minor Injuries Unit with deep cut finger, a week had passed. During this period, I’d taken the eye off the ball which is more than enough time for ‘Anemoi’ ( the God of Wind ) to turn it 90 degrees and now found it blowing in our face from the East which is sort of where Brighton is.
Undeterred we set off from Portsmouth, grabbing a cheeky look at our new Aircraft Carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, some £6 billion quids worth of fighting machine. We then said goodbye to the Spinnaker Tower, Spice Island and Gunwarf Quays and headed for the forts and out of the Solent.
Sir Ben Anslie popped over to say goodbye as he flew past in the Landrover BAR boat. I told Nina to lower the sails and slow down as didn’t want our knight of the realm to feel too overwhelmed by the mighty Le Jouannet.
Bashing into wind and a bit of tide is never fun and our back up plan was always Chichester Harbour. I reckon Brighton Marina will still be there tomorrow, so we sneaked in, grabbed a visitors buoy at Itchenor and were rewarded with our first sunset.
10th April 2018
Mileage covered 38