The Day We Did Not Sail To Alderney (Yet Again)

Everything was perfect. The weather forecast, the planning, the start at 04:00 from Haslar Marina in darkness. We successfully negotiated our way along the planned route with our pilotage plan out of the marina, out of Portsmouth harbour. We successfully avoided being run down by 3 cruise liners in their final miles into Southampton and did not catch one single lobster pot off Bembridge and we were at Bembridge Cardinal on time as planned at 05:00. An enjoyable sunrise and just when we started to relax things turned sour. The wind veered from east to south (as forecast) and we had it on our nose. So on went the engine and the trouble started. To cut a long story short, under the impression that we had a performance problem with our engine we decided to return through the Needles to have this fixed. Only to find out the next day, after a night in East Cowes Marina, and after having joined SeaStart (the RAC on water), which included the attendance of engineer Matt, that the apparent performance issue of our engine was caused by an algae which grew in front of the paddle wheel of our water speed log with the result that the latter constantly under-read our speed through the water, suggesting a performance issue with the engine. Skipper embarrassed, crew disappointed, we returned into Haslar in a Westerly F6-7 (under engine). #Sea start #Volo Penta #Haslar # Portsmouth #East Cowes #Needles #Sailing #Alderney #passage planning