That got your attention didn't it!?

So I wrote my last post while sat in Bembridge. We spent a couple of nights there. The kids enjoyed the beach. Great location for kids. Beach a stones throw from the walk ashore pontoon. Cafe on the beach. Fry ups, beer, tea, coffee, cakes, sand, sea. Not bad eh?

Arranged to meet up with some neighbours of ours at the Master Builders House Hotel in Bucklers Hard on the Beaulieu river for Sunday lunch. John used to be area manager for the company that runs it, so it's a place close to his heart. And another great location for kids.

So just after lunch on Saturday we set off. It was pretty breezy and it was the first day of Cowes week. With a fresh wind on the stern as we left Bembridge I opted to simply roll out the genoa and keep things simple.

We trucked along pretty nicely like that. With main we would have needed a reef and with the wind off the bow she sailed just fine.

As we headed round towards Rye we could see the Cowes Week racing fleets tacking back and forth. We hardened up onto a close reach, still with genoa only. The boat sailed well like that and I figured we'd probably have to make lots of detours to avoid race boats anyway, and with kids I'm essentially sailing short handed, so the one sail is ideal.

Sure enough we did a fair bit of dodging. Mostly when the race boats had right of way, but annoyingly also when it was our right of way. I think some people assume that if they're racing they automatically have right of way. That isn't true. Sure, I'll do what I can not to impede someone racing, but sometimes, it can't be helped, and if it's my right of way. Well, enough said. We had a couple of dodgy situations caused by some bloody minded racing skippers who should have known better. But I've been there before.

Not to mention a marshal in a power boat who decided to sit idling in my path, and a small trip boat, obviously taking sight seers out to see the fleets who clearly didn't draw 25m and wasn't showing anything suggested he was impeded by draft who never-the-less caused me to tack in front of him because he was damned if he was going to alter course by 5 degrees or slow down a knot. I dunno.

Still we made it all the way to the entrance to the Beaulieu river where the Western Solent was funelling the wind and sending some pretty steep chop.

I started rolling in the genoa and half way it jammed. Wouldn't roll away. It was flogging violently in the wind and I wanted to get it away so, stupidly, against all my own advise, put the furling line on the genoa winch and wound.

BANG!

Suddenly it gave. I looked up and the genoa halyard had snapped about 10 inches from the top of the sail. Yikes.

Well I got it rolled away and there wasn't much I could do at the time, so we went into the river to leave inspections for later.

On Sunday after lunch with John and family John came over to the boat to help me up the mast. I was able to fix and rethread the halyard easily but to my horror there was a twist in the forestay above the foil, with the wires parting, like a spring.

Not good. Really not good.

What had happened was clear - the roller had jammed, the halyard had started to wrap around the forestay and by winching it I had started to twist the forestay. Thank heavens the genoa snapped. Had it not we could have broken the forestay and lost the mast.

NEVER PUT A FURLING LINE ON A WINCH!

Ok, so the forestay needed replacing, fast. Actually I could have got back to Poole safely. We have a removable inner forestay for the storm jib which could have been snapped into place to provide extra support, plus support from the new genoa halyard with sail in place.

But I wouldn't have felt confident sailing back and the I would have the hassle of getting it sorted in Poole. We keep the boat on a swinging mooring so would have to book rigger and marina berth and lose out on sailing time. It seemed to me that it made sense to try and get fixed while in the Solent.

Bucklers Hard has a boat yard, but I don't know how well they set up for rigging services. Just a long the coast is Lymington Yacht Haven where there's a fully kitted out rigging ship - Ocean Rigging - with on site machinery for swaging etc.

So at 8.30 on Monday morning we slipped down the river under engine and along the way I gave Ocean Rigging, one hand behind my back with fingers crossed that they could do the job at short notice. No problem they said!

Half an hour after mooring up in Lymington Yacht Haven a rigger was up the mast disassembling the old forestay. Brilliant.

Three hours later, after we'd had lunch in town, one brand new sparkly forestay. And the price wasn't quite as bad as I had thought. Kudos to Ocean Rigging.

They also increased the height of the furler by a notch and put an attachment on the mast to give a better angle for the halyard and ensure it can't wrap around the forestay again.

I was very relieved to have it fixed and safe again.

We were considering ambling home via Keyhaven and Christchurch but the forecast wasn't looking too good for the end of the week. We decided that it made sense to sail back to Studland before the wind went West and picked up the next day.

So on Tuesday we had a really nice reach back to Studland. The boat sailed really well. Possibly the fastest average speed I've seen El Nino sail.

So the holiday ended the way it started: swimming, beach, sailing the Optimist. And on Wednesday morning we motored back to our mooring in the harbour. Jamie decided he wanted to helm and did a great job helming all the way from the anchorage to our mooring. Cracking job.

Now back home working out how to earn the money I'm going to need to replace the rest of the rigging!