David and goliaths

Went sailing up Southampton Water with the Dinghy Cruising Association on Saturday. Winds were light to nothing at all so almost everyone relied to a considerable extent on secondary propulsion, in my case oars.
The fearless David Sumner went between the Isle of Wight ferry (r) and a monster container ship (l) which looks totally death-defying in the picture I took from a nice safe position behind the channel markers. But the distance between the ships was larger than apparent, and I think he was running the motor so he was under control at all times.

I got fed up sitting there going nowhere so I took to the oars (picture: Tom). Then I felt a breath of wind and put the sail back up again, whereupon it died. This happened about a million times before I got fed up with that too and decided to get stuck in and row back. From Hythe to Warsash. Snarleyow  is quite heavy but under oars she was faster than all the sailors.

Here we are getting the boats out.

The absentee was Tom, the guy who took that picture of me. His motor would not start, then he broke a rowlock. He eventually managed to lash the oar on and got back after dark. Bad luck, Tom!

When I got home I lay on the sofa drinking wine and watching TV. Exhausted.