What a Day!

I think everyone with boats on the water in the Solent area yesterday must have felt nervous. Storm Imogen smashed into the South coast with probably the strongest winds since the beginning of 2014.

I went down to the boat no fewer than three times yesterday and with all the other owners at Eastney there was a flurry of Facebook updates keeping each other abreast of the status during the day.

I went down before work and noted we'd lost at least one boat from the pond. I drove up top the end of the spit at Eastney and saw that one of the big yachts on the deep water moorings had unfurled a jib sail and it had been shredded by the wind. Looking over to Hayling Island I could see at least three small boats blown up onto the beach.

At luchtime I nipped out of work and had a quick look. Luckily everything was ok, but it was pretty blowy. A few people were down there lashing stuff down:

As the wind continued I got updates from Nicky and Jim on the status of the boats. At one point Chimet was recording F11 gusts and a solid F10 breeze. In the afternoon a small red fishing boat broke it's mooring. But luckily by that time the tide must have been low enough for it to ground out. Unfortunately it stopped right next to Jim's boat.

I quickly posted a note up on the Solent Sailors Facebook group and the owner was contacted. The Solent Sailors group sounds rather grand, but as yet it only seems to have us guys at Eastney on it. If you have Facebook, search for it, it would be nice to have more people as part of the group.

While at work I kept in  touch with everyone. This is one of the occasions where social networking shows it can be more useful than for posting videos of cute cats.

I went back after work and checked on Nicky's boat as she asked me to check her boom was ok. But by then the wind was decreasing and down to a more reasonable F7/F8.

I went back at lunchtime today and the red boat wasn't there. Jim had come down earlier and had seen the red boat on a trailer being towed home, so it looks like it was recovered either last night or earlier today. Lazy days, the boat that had disappeared yesterday lunchtime was back on it's mooring this lunchtime, so it looks as though he was able to recover it on today's tide.

But what a day!