Arriving at Torbay at sunrise Friday May 3rd

Arriving at Torbay at sunrise

3D view of Bonita's overnight track  - note signal loss in centre (CLICK FOR HI RES VERSION)

Weymouth

Resuscitating the Avon

A slow sail from Portsmouth yesterday due to little wind. However it picked up in the evening and we had a good sail along the Dorset coast in the dusk and got into Weymouth at 0030 this morning.

I haven't been to Weymouth by sea before and it's always tricky entering new harbours at night. We were puzzled for a bit by a very prominent red flashing light near the north breakwater. I couldn't find this on the chart, chartplotter or almanac, which is always a bit of a worry.

It turns out the light is on a tourist attraction on the seafront. 

We wake up to a bright sunny day in this lovely little town and the wind still in the easterly sector.

Pictures taken by our on-board creative, Jane Giles, with her keen eye and a fast shutter...

Old and New

Weymouth's U shaped lifeboat berth - designed by Beckett Rankine - has some notably large roller fender units on the securing piles which enable the lifeboat to get in and out of the berth in any weather. The berth also has an unusual S shaped brow connecting it to the shore. Weymouth's Severn Class lifeboat, with a displacement of 41 tonnes, is the largest class of boat operated by the RNLI.

Just tied up Weymouth 00.30 Thursday May 2nd

Sailing into the sunset coming into Weymouth Bay 

Heading West

In Gosport last night after a light wind sail from Brighton. We are supposed to be at the Hamble on Saturday for the formal start to the OGA round Britain rally. However we have been seriously tempted by the current unusually prolonged spell of NE winds. Getting down Channel can sometimes be quite a struggle and I have in past years spent days walking around harbours waiting for SW gales to blow themselves out.

So we have given way to temptation and this morning sees us heading westward in bright sunshine south of the Isle of Wight. We shall of course be sorry to miss the gaffers gathering on the Hamble, but making progress down Channel is more important in the overall scheme of things. I shall be particularly sorry to miss the entertainment on Saturday night which will be provided by cousin George and his inimitable band, the Blunt Instruments. I have enjoyed listening to these fine musicians before and can strongly recommend them to anyone fortunate enough to be able to get a spare ticket.

Sent from Samsung Mobile

How to put Bonita on your Desktop

Simply paste, drag or place this link on your desktop or links bar:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?mmsi=235098433&zoom=10
If Skipper Mike has whipped the crew in to action and Bonita is at sea and not out of range of shore stations, you'll get to a screen like this:

Click the cross at top right of the info to see more. Use zoom on left side of screen too.

If you're up late (or based in Canada like Trevor our technical wizard), try using this link:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?oldmmsi=235098433&zoom=10
to show Bonita's track so far that day:

There are other OGA50 Round Britain Challenge vessels using the AIS tracking system that you can also follow; to make things easy you can add them to the 'My Fleet' function. Bonify, Cine Mara, Leonora 3 and Annabel J can also be tracked this way and hopefully there will be others to be added soon.