Saturday 12th of July

After checking out of the Pub, and hanging stopping in at the club (like we really enjoyed our time there) I got a lift with Doink back to Southampton and spent a fairly uneventful 2 weeks in Cowes, working back in the office at Newport.

I went sailing twice with guys from the office. The Island Sailing Club runs a Thursday night race with their Sonar’s (20” keel boat), the races are aimed at beginners so it all suppose to be a bit of fun (which it was), however the first week I was on a boat with 3 other engineers from the office and one of the girlfriends.

This meant we had 4 quite competitive people on board and it was quite possibly taken a bit more seriously than it should have been at times. The weather was overcast and blowing a variable 20 knots. We were instructed to put the smaller main up and told not to use the spinnakers (to all our disappointment). After running aground before the start (it took 5-10 minutes to get off) we hit the start line with speed early and reached down the line on starboard called starboard on another boat which was forced to crash tack and narrowly missed a collision on the line. We rounded the top mark second and overtook the first boat going downwind. We then went on to lead most of the race. We misjudged the tide at the bottom mark and lost allot of ground on though and ended up finishing second (out of 5).

The second time we had a few more novice sailors on board. One of which was his first time (Warwick, a fellow Australian). We had a rather pleasant 12 – fifteen knots of breeze and patchy clouds which were partially blocking the sun as it gradually dropped to the horizon. We got a pleasant sail before the start let us set up and fly the Kite once (not the smoothest but ok). We had an ok start (but had not been told the course) and rounded the top mark third (or so we thought), as we went downwind the RIB came past and informed us that the top mark was further out than the one we rounded (Everyone had done the same) we decided we would do the proper course and dropped the kite and went back upwind to the proper top mark This gave us a good lead as everyone else went around the bottom mark before they sailed to the proper top mark. We seemed to be losing ground throughout the race though; we lead until the last downwind when we sailed too close to East Cowes and ran aground with the kite up, broached and drove us further aground. All attempts to get off quickly failed, and the tide was dropping quicker than we were thinking, we just seemed to get more stuck. Inevitably we the fleet overtook us and we didn’t manage to get off without the help of too rescue boats (one holding the spinnaker halyard to lay us over and the other towing us off). We flew the kite briefly to get to the bottom mark, rounded and went and crossed the line (so we at least finished the course) although they didn’t finish us. It was still good fun though Warwick loved it which was good.

The second weekend spent in Cowes I borrowed a bike and on Saturday road out to Carisbrooke Castle, and wandered about there for some time, their main attraction is a donkey powered wheel to lower and raise water from the 160” well. It was quite impressive when they drop a cup of water down the well and you can count five seconds before you hear it splash into the water at the bottom, and that’s with 30 feet or so of water in the bottom. Originally the wheel was powered by convicts but has been run by donkeys for the last 150 years (although I found out that it’s only half powered by donkey, as they only teach the donkeys to run it one direction, so the demonstration host has to lower the bucket back down – they only demo 20”)

On Sunday I road to the Needles which are the western extremity of the Island, I misjudged how far this was a little and it consumed more of the day than I expected.
They have a small amusement park they which didn’t really interest me at all, although I got a really nice pasty (and a pretty crappy ice-cream). There is a chairlift to Alura Bay which has some very interestingly coloured sand; I walked to save a couple of pounds. There are also two old batteries up above the needles which have been used to protect the western entry to the Solent.

The first and now aptly named Old Battery was originally built in the mid 19th century for protection from French invasion. Interestingly one of the displays inside highlighted how many shipwrecks there are scattered around the area. With the fast moving tide and narrow passage the English might have just assumed that any vessels wishing them harm would not make it through.

The New Battery was built at the beginning of the 20th century and housed the arms to protect the Solent entry from invading forces through both world wars. After the Second World War the guns were removed and the new site was used for cold war development of rockets. The rockets were constructed in Cowes and trucked out to the Needles to be tested. After successful testing, the rockets were shipped Woomera for firing and further testing. The first completely British made rocket to successfully launch a satellite was tested at the site. It’s an interesting site to walk around but would probably be more-so if there were more access to the bits underground.