It's one of those things that you start boat logs with "Towards" the destination, rather than assume you will make it. Yesterday was one of those days. Gus from Crewbay and I set out in a pleasant breeze and some sunshine from Portsmouth Harbour with the intention of making it to Cowes for the evening. We tacked up the Solent in the face of a strengthening Westerly wind and were close enough (near Osbourne Bay) to ring the marina to book a space, when the wind increased to the top end of a Force 6 and the tide also turned against us. We put in a reef (just in time) and replaced the genoa with the staysail but then we weren't making any progress towards the destination in the face of the strength of the wind and tide. It was time to accept defeat gracefully, put away the mainsail and fly downwind on the genoa at a good speed back to Portsmouth. Even then coming up the harbour we were faced with a very angry looking dark anvil shaped cloud the gusts from which were throwing us about. We dodged behind a redundant Royal Navy destroyer to furl the sail in relative calm before motoring the remaining couple of hundred yards to Wicor (thankfully being blown on to the berth).