SHETLAND OWNERS ASSOCIATION

As promised in a previous post…

Proposed trip to Island Harbour on the River Medina, Isle of Wight

Saturday 22nd June 2013 – Monday 24th June 2013

This is not an organised event, simply a meeting of like-minded boaty enthusiasts in a safe and fun environment.
Island Harbour is a tranquil small marina between Cowes and Newport on the river Medina. There are plenty of visitor moorings available together with a camping field adjacent to the shower blocks if you prefer tenting to a cramped cabin or have additional crew. There is a small shop and restaurant on site and Newport is a 45 minute stroll away with the centre of Cowes and the famous Folly Inn easily reachable by water taxi or tender. For anyone interested I will be happy to book the berths and organise the restaurant for a group dinner on the Saturday evening (subject to availability).
We are based in Port Solent at the far end of Porstmouth Harbour and will be intending to lock out at around 9.30am on the 22nd (High tide Portsmouth is at 11am). Any boats planning to join us from the East should aim to meet just outside the main channel approach to Portsmouth by the Red Lateral Buoy “2” 50° 46.70’N, 1° 5.97’W at 10.30am. Anyone coming from the West would be better cruising across the solent and meeting us in the River Medina just South of the chain ferry at around 11.15am.

There are plenty of members based in Chichester Harbour and Southampton / Hamble so hopefully arranging company for the entire journey won’t be too difficult – please let me know your location and I will be able to suggest slipways if trailering.

Unlike previous flotillas, we will be travelling at planing speed of around 18 knots (our boat tends to fall back to displacement at any speed less than this) but will happily make a couple of stops for any boats that need to catch up.

Depending on interest I will update this thread with additional information closer to the time but for reference the Island Harbour website is http://www.island-harbour.co.uk/default.asp

If you wanted to extend the flotilla in to Tuesday I can book visitors berths back at our home port (Port Solent) but I unfortunately will be leaving on Monday evening as I have to work on 25th

Please use this forum to reply in the first instance so we can gauge interest and thereafter I would require details of boat names / type / length by email together with contact information for bookings.

Cheers
Paul

Hi Paul, would love to but will depend on family commitments, how my broken ankle is, dogs, work etc etc., keep us in the loop but as things stand at the moment it is probably more unlikely than likely, cheers, Dee and Martin

For the time being count us in. We trail to Falmouth the folowing Friday but we should be ok for Sat and Sun. Roger will see if he can get the Monday off.

sue and Swampy

Hi Paul,
Thanks for your phone message but was unable to return your call. As you know I'm sending this from Crete. As far as I can tell I'll be able to join you.

John

We are definitely out for this, I am on a course the whole of the week before and Martin has clients arriving that weekend/Monday which he is away with all week ..... enjoy and hope the weather is good for you all, Dee and Martin

Hi All,

Sorry to hear you wont be able to make it Dee & Martin, hopefully will have another opportunity during the season (the year is still young!)

I will wait another week and then try to finalise bookings at the marina etc when I know the total number of boats.

Enjoy the bank holiday weekend - weather is looking promising so far...

Paul

Hi Paul and everyone, the trip to Island Harbour sounds a great idea but there are a couple of problems from our perspective. Lucy (from whom we derived our username), our chronically ill Cavalier, sadly died last December and we now have a 22 week old Cavalier puppy (named Mr Darcy!) who is not yet sufficiently a sea-dog to make the journey and unfortunately there is no-one we can leave him with at the moment. A further complication is that we had planned to head towards the West Country that week-end to combine some days off with attending a meeting in Plymouth, so all in all we're sorry that we'll not be able to be with you.

Another thought was that we might not have the confidence to maintain a passage speed of about 17 knots, but we came accross from Chichester Harbour to Portsmouth last year with John at a fair speed, so I'm sure that aspect would have been fine for us.

As you said in one of your posts, Paul, the year is still young so hopefully there will be another opportunity for us to join in with something later in the year. In the meantime our plan is to give Mr D more sea experience and hopefully some time away at Chichester Marina.

Have a great time and best wishes to you all.

Chris & Chris.