Surfing Not Sailing!

We departed Newport, as planned at 9.30am yesterday morning. The forecast was for winds upto 25 knots from the South with scattered showers and thunderstorms. We were all so happy with the prospect of sailing again that a bit of rain didn't worry us. Our main course was west so with the wind forecast we were in for a great sail.

As we motored out of the Bay the visibility started to decrease rapidly and the wind started to gust up to 30 knots. As we neared the point the sea started to build and was certainly not like forecast! With a bit of current against us we were not going anywhere fast! We turned the radio on to listen for a new forecast and heard that the 25kts winds had now been upgraded to 40kt winds and right on queue we recorded a gust of 38kts with it steadily reading 32kts.

With this we decided that there were still things we hadn't seen and done in Newport and turned around! With the seas building we surfed our way back to Newport!


We were all so disappointed to be delayed yet again. We seem destined never to leave Newport. We were safely tied back upto our mooring buoy by 12.30pm and by early evening thick fog had rolled into the harbour limiting visibility to around 100 metres.

After listening to another forecast it was decided to wait till Thursday morning before making any more plans.