Caught out

 I had been promising to go out on Chris's Stornoway for a while, Gerard couldn't make it, so I agreed to meet Chris at the Warmies on Tuesday and ship as crew on his boat "Ysolde", a Stornaway18.  The weather forecast looked ok, the green arrows on Willy weather all showing round 10 knot northerlies for much of the day.

We actually got caught out off St Kilda when the wind turned.  I have been running through lots of postmortem dissections in my head since, as to what we could have, might have, and should have done.  It certainly was a serious learning experience, and I have made a list of personal resolutions to hopefully avoid any repetition.

The upside was the opportunity for some extraordinary wildlife encounters.  A pod of dolphins swam with us for over 10 minutes.  After they moved on, a seal took over, and seemed almost to be guiding us back to Williamstown.  

We tacked back and forth outside the breakwater at Williamstown.  A large red tanker, the Vide Casiopia, was moored just behind the breakwater.  It took us three long tacks to move the length of the boat. With jib and main, the Stornoway is not great to windward especiallyinto that sort of wind and chop.. We were getting cold, and a bit worried that the weather might get worse still.  I had suggested, half in jest, that we could always run for Altona, and in the end, that was what we did.  I stayed with the boat, while Anne drove Chris round to collect his car and trailer. I put the spray dodger up, huddled down behind it with the end of my thermos of tea, and wondered about hypothermia.