I had a beautiful passage plan worked out. Sail to Littlehampton on Thursday or Friday, and then do the long haul to Dover on Saturday. The tides are perfect - I'd leave Littlehampton at about 6am, fight a slight inshore tide for the first couple of hours, then pick up the beginning of the flood round Beachey Head and ride it all the way, gaining about 2kts most of the way.

Then I got the wind forecast shown in the image. ENE to NE, 10-20kts. From Thursday til at least Sunday. Bang on the nose. Supposedly the prevailing wind in the English Channel is SW, so it figures that when I want to go east, I get an easterly wind!

Oh well. The point of having several months for the trip was to pick weather windows...