Sailing the Solent - Yarmouth Isle of Wight

The Senior Service on the Solent

Everyone's out on Friday night

Minesweepers - Friday night in Yarmouth - Trying to fold a mainsail (neatly) - Tortellini 

The Solent with its towers and channel markers is constantly busy, it is the M25 of shipping lanes. A naval minesweeper closes in on us, turns as away and turns around again. Did one of us leave something on the table at Heidi's?  Eventually the grey craft heads back into Portsmouth Sound. 

We made in Yarmouth, I-o-W in good time and are given prime mooring in the harbour-marina. Perhaps we are relatively tiny compared with huge tupperware craft we nestle up to and because we are graceful with it. People come to look at Rag Doll on her mooring. Tea is brewed and confections distributed. Tom, with much patience, gives Chris and I another lesson in folding a mainsail. Well, it has been twelve months since we last did it and it is a brand new sail.

Shipshape and tidy we wander into the arms of Bugle Coaching Inn. It is Friday evening on the Isle of Wight and the lads and ladies are out in force, with more tattoos than there are fish in the Solent. 


I extract the team back to Rag Doll and sit them down for supper; tortellini sauce champignon and green salad.

We all sleep well.

Rag Doll a watercolour commission in 2013 for Mark and Liz Rushall