Sailing

So a quick round up of this weekend's sailing trip. Hugo and I sailed his yacht Matchmaker from its home at Hoo Marina on the Medway out into the Thames to the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery¹ then east around the outside of the Isle of Sheppy, admiring the new wind farm in the Thames on the way.

There was a decent wind but as we were heading downwind until we turned into the Swale we didn't have to reef until we started to beat up towards Harty Ferry where we anchored for the night.

After an early supper at the pub we went back to the boat for more beer and got to watch a quite stunning sunset over the Swale.

On Sunday after a lazy start and a good fried bacon roll breakfast we motored up the Swale around the back of the Isle of Sheppy to the lifting bridge at the far end. We arrived just before 2pm which was good timing as it opens (on demand) on the hour and half hour so we only had to stooge about for a couple of minutes, with a big Belgian boat, before we got to go through.

The bridge starts to rise

We starting sailing again as we approached Queenborough and tacked back and forth past the moored boats but in the end we put the motor on again as there was so little wind.

We tried sailing again when we got out onto the Medway and drifted up river along with various other boats doing the same thing. Eventually the wind died completely and slowly each boat gave up and put their motor on and puttered off towards their destination.

Anyway an interesting weekend's sailing. Proper sailing on Saturday and sightseeing on Sunday (I'd not done the whole of the Swale before). There's more photos here here (all taken with my K800i mobile phone which continues to surprise me with how well it takes a photo).

1. Photos of that from a previous trip here. It's a Liberty ship which sank off Sheerness and is still loaded with perhaps 1,500 tons of explosives.