First Blood February 2004

Date: 07/02/04
Boat: Fizzgig; Westerley 33

Trip:
Chichester; Nab Tower; Sparks; Chichester

Days: 2
Skipper: John Alden
Crew: Guy Fowler, Nick

My first proper sailing trip on board Fizzgig a Westerley 33 and the weather was not great. Cold and grey with intermittent rain. I am kitted out in my skiing gear, not exactly sailing attire but it's fine, warm and waterproof-ish. The wind is strong and we headed out to the Nab Tower along with fellow club boat Lucrece (Camper Nicholson 32 see image below). It's rather choppy to say the least but I feel great and it's all new and totally confusing even though I am halfway through the day skipper theory evening class. Everything is different out here, not like the charts and books at all! We have lunch on the go, John rustles up hot pasties and tea and I eat like a ravenous dog despite having done chuff all. The boat is rising up and crashing down over the significant swell but we are all quite jolly and the tower is looming from the grey sky. Jolly that is until we round the Tower and head back towards our overnight destination of Sparks Marina Hayling Island.
The wind is now behind us and the boat takes on a whole new and dynamic rolling gait like some drunk on a pinball walk back from the pub. I am not feeling so good, but the others, all old hands at this lark are fine. Suddenly I find I can't function, my stomach churning like a washing machine and I feel so so tired, I want desperately to close my eyes, but every time I do I feel sick. God I feel awful, John regards me with a knowing look, his pipe sprouting from stubbly beard he looks every inch the salty sea dog and I suspect he has noticed I have gone very quiet and probably the colour of my face is not the most flattering of shades. He maneuvers me to a new place in the cockpit and I notice they are all watching, I suspect they are waiting for something, like some spectacular news event or football result- and indeed here it comes, I scramble quickly to edge of the cockpit, the boat is rolling and it's now raining as lunch makes a spectacular reappearance over the side. John has hold of my arm and Nick hovers ready to give assistance while Guy handles the helm. I can hear the wind wailing but nothing else, Lunch sure don't look so good now as I settle back, but if anything I feel worse than ever and am now really cold. How long till we get in?, 3 hours!! you have to be kidding me, I think I want to die, maybe I could slip over the side, but no I barely have the strength to raise my chin from my chest let alone stand up. My head feels crap, dizzy and numb and It's a nightmarish struggle to keep my eyes open, I don't want to be sick again, but I am not going to get the choice and I lean again over the cockpit side. I thought we would never reach Hayling, to me we must surely have rounded Cape Horn or some other such legendary sailing benchmark, but no we barely tinkered into the Solent and back.

John has taken us back early for my benefit but this means we are at the entrance to Sparks at low tide and we will be very very tight for depth when we negotiate the channel. Really we should wait but John decides to try for my sake. Unfortunately we don't make it and come to a sudden halt as the keel engages the soft muddy bottom. This however is to my fortune as the boat is now quite still and steady and I begin to recover some semblance of a human being. John tries everything to get us off the mud but to no avail, we even inflate the dinghy and take a line to a nearby pontoon and try to winch ourselves off but it's no good and we have to wait out the two hours or so until the rising tide lifts us off and we enter Sparks in the dark and meet up with some other club boats. The other skippers rib John mercilessly over running aground, but I am glad he tried.

The following day we take an easy trip back up Ichenoor creek, stopping to practice picking up buoys and coming alongside various pontoons. John gives me a chance maneuver the boat around various moorings and take up to a mooring buoy. Today is much more like it, flat calm, warmer and dry. I start to see some appeal to this sailing lark at last and just maybe it won't be my last trip!