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The major decision for the route to Portsmouth was whether to go through the Looe Channel or stay outside of the Owers shoals. While the forecast looked favourable, after consulting Reeds and the pilot books, the sensible approach seemed to be to wait and see what the conditions were like once we were south of Shoreham. In terms of tide we opted for a departure at HW Dover +3hrs (0600) which would give us fair tide round Beachy Head, tide against as we passed Newhaven and Littlehampton (where we had the option to go inshore to slacker water if required) then fair tide for the trip passed Selsey Bill into Portsmouth.
Some temporary repairs at Eastbourne saw the Genoa re-hoisted on the spare halyard. The problem had been that the angle with which the halyard met the swivel at the top of the sail had been too steep following the rigging of a new headsail the previous year. We were concerned that we still hadn't got this right so were watching the furling action carefully to see if further work at the top of the mast was required.
We'd been looking forward to a fairly fast passage in the forecast S F4 wind however that never materialised and most of the time we had a SW F1/2 which meant that if we were to make anything like an acceptable speed we had to motor. As a result this was our poorest sailing to motoring ratio of the trip. However, the sun was shining and the conditions perfect for the shortcut through the Looe Channel and with good visibility we had no problems in identifying the East Borough Head ECM. The wind finally filled in and we were sailing nicely as we passed Selsey Bill. A mile or so from the Boulder and Street buoys (HW Dover -1hr) we were hit with a strong NW tide which proved challenging in the light winds under sail. We persevered and with the fair tide made good speed into Portsmouth. The volume of traffic was far less than we had envisaged and although a careful watch had to be kept for fast moving vessels we felt more comfortable at using the main shipping channels than anticipated.
We chose Haslar Marina simply because they were by far the friendlier when we checked availability the night before (the choice had been between Haslar and Gosport for ferry access). The facilities and set up at Haslar were great and we were allocated a berth as we rounded Horse Sand Fort. At £29.50 per night the berths were getting ever more expensive as we progressed along the South Coast.
There's a lot to do in Portsmouth and the highlights for us were the Submarine Museum (10 minutes walk from Haslar) and our trips round HMS Victory and HMS Warrior.