Saturday 15 May 2010 POOLE N500 42.699’ W001 590.017’

At last we are off.

The whole family – wife plus all 4 sons plus girlfriends and sinificant others – decided that they should come along to wave Dad off on his adventure or maybe to make sure he actually did set off on his much talked about plan to sail round Britain.

The idea of sailing round Britain surfaced whilst racing in the Solent last year and think about where to go for the ‘annual cruise’. The usual 3 or 4 weeks seemed too short but I have no desire to do long ocean passages and the like. Round Britain seemed to fit the bill and would allow old haunts to be revisited. Going up the Irish Sae on the Welsh Coast was to allow visits to North Wales where my Father, many years ago, had a 28 footer.

The plan is for Alcyone to depart from the Solent on Saturday 15 May returning by Saturday 7 August (i.e. a 12 week period). The basic route is to be clockwise, up the Irish Sea and into the Clyde then via the Crinan Canal to the West Coast of Scotland, through the Caledonian Canal to the east coast and then down the east cost to home. With a detour into the Scilly Isles, Western Islands, and Walton Backwaters, a distance of some 1,650 miles.

For each of the planned 12 Legs there will be different crew although some have signed on for more than one leg with crew handover on Saturday night/Sunday morning. For some legs there will be 3 on board but for much of the time, just 2.

In my capacity as Cruising Rep for the Contessa 32 Association, details of the planned cruise have been circulated to CO32 members as I keep getting comments about wanting a get together in their area; Saturday night may become party night!! Also it is not impossible that we will sail in company with other CO32s and have an extra crew on board for a day or two. They should know where the good anchorages and pubs are to be found.

So we have now made Poole, some 30 miles ticked off. Leaving Hythe was warm with even a touch of sunshine but very light North West breeze but it soon became overcast with the wind backing to South West and increasing eventually to some 21 knots – and it became cold. Altogerher not a fun start.