Graham Broadway's blog

The early season booze cruise was organised because three of my shipmates had booked for their Yachtmaster exam in May but two of them had not done all their 60 mile passages as skipper.

The fourth Fast Cruise was held on the 21st January. I had been invited on board Shearwater by Andy and Avril Ormsby for this cruise.

As we near the end of 2011 I thought that I would recap on my sailing adventures over the past year. My first sail of 2011 was the January Fast Cruise to Hamble where Bill and Anne Lewis kindly offered me a berth on Musyk. I cannot remember too much about the weekend except that it was cold.

My race started in inauspicious circumstances. Whilst climbing aboard Juno I managed to drop my sleeping bag in the sea. It was quickly recovered and hung across the boom in the hope that it would dry. My second error was not to don my oilskins before the start.

Saturday 30 July was Juno's last chance for fine tuning before the big race, the Fastnet, in 2 weeks time.  The RORC channel race started at the RYS line in Cowes at 0900. The forecast for the weekend was for  variable and light winds, a complete change from the majority of sailing this year, and early Saturday morning saw winds of about 3 to 4 knots from the east

The next event in the racing calendar for Juno's qualification for the Fastnet was the RORC Cowes to St Malo race which started on Friday 8 July. A number of us were down on the boat on Thursday to prepare for the race. During Thursday night the rain lashed down on the decks and the wind howled through the rigging causing the boat to heel over even though she was tucked snuggly in Port Hamble marina.

Over the late May bank holiday weekend Juno took part in the JOG offshore race to Deauville. We normally sail with a crew of seven but this weekend we were down to six crew. Then one crew member found that the traffic at Hindhead on the Friday before bank holiday was so heavy that he would not be able to reach Hamble in time for the start!

Juno took part in the RORC Cervantes Challenge held over the early May bank holiday weekend. I am usually on board Juno on the Friday afternoon but this Friday was my wife's birthday and so I drove down after an evening meal in a local resturant which meant I arrived in Hamble at 2300 and was assigned the blow-up mattress on the cabin sole, all the berths being occupied by snoring crew.

Juno has just taken part in the JOG Salona Illingworth Challenge race from Cowes to La Trinité-sur-Mer in Southern Brittany, a distance of about 340 miles.