Page 15 - Folk Boat Year Book 2021

people I knew, I found it a lovely place to
stay anchored for a couple of days.

Dropping Rupert off at Plymouth, I took
Spiritus home alone. It’s always the
return across Lyme Bay, and ambitions to
make Lymington in one go that scuppers
me. Even leaving Dartmouth at dawn you
end up fighting a foul tide after Portland
bill and I found myself on the ledge off St
Albans Head. I realised I shouldn’t be
there. The sun was going down and I was
making half a knot over the ground with And I plan to do it all again this year but
four knots on the log, rolling madly with onward to the Scilly isles!
the spinnaker set. The engine wouldn’t
have done any better, so I dropped the Spiritus FB605 is a classic wooden
kite and rushed out to sea on a broad Folkboat, beautifully built in 1983 by the
reach. As usual the counter intuition of late John Perry who was featured in the
heading away from where you want to go last yearbook. She is currently berthed in
paid off. Soon the sea was calmer, and I Lymington Yacht Haven.
could make better progress past the
marked mile posts which took all of an
hour to pass. In the enveloping dusk, I
turned in for the calm of Studland Bay
eschewing the charms of Swanage.
Licking my wounds and sorting out a very
wet boat, whiskey and sleep soon catch
up with you leaving me fresh faced to
thread my way between Britain’s finest
cruise ships, back to the sanity of the
Solent the next morning.

All Photographs by Stephen Mead
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