Hello everyone and welcome to our first blog post🥰 We finally made it! We moved out of our studio apartment in Zurich, packed our 8 bags (141 kg in total), flew to England, and moved onto Tremoggia on 6. September. She is our 43-foot trimaran built by Neel in La Rochelle (France) and will be our home for the coming year. So far, we had a couple of very busy and tiring first days on her boat trying to get to know her (Yes, she has a mind and personality of her own).
Although she was fitted out with all the essentials required to sail across an ocean (solar panels, batteries, water maker, etc.), we had many small boat jobs on our to-do list, as on every boat, I guess. We mounted a flag pole and (very proudly) hissed the Swiss flag for the first time. We climbed up our 19 m mast to check the rigging for any damage (including mast, shrouds, stays, spreaders, and halyards, aka the things that hold up your mast and make sure it does not drop into the water) and installed a small halyard to pull up our courtesy flags, where we are currently flying the Red Ensign (the official flag for all British ships). We very nervously drilled some holes into our (up until now waterproof) roof to install a Starlink antenna, went shopping for non-perishable food that would last us for months, and finally christened our boat in a beautiful sunset. We visited our two favorite pubs, the Jolly Sailor and the Old Ship, for a last time and said goodbye to Hamble River.
On Sunday 10th September, we had to leave our berth in Swanwick marina. We were still mooring at the commercial berth of our broker, who now expected the delivery of a new boat, which meant we had to move. The new boat was supposed to arrive on Sunday night at the earliest, so we planned to set our sails and leave at noon. However, as we got up early in the morning at sunrise and went outside to fly our flag (you are supposed to only fly it from sunrise to sunset), we spotted a power cat from Fountaine Pajot berthed opposite us, in a spot that belonged to a different boat owner who was just out for the weekend. We suspected it might be the boat supposed to move into our spot, so we went over to talk to the skipper and in fact, we were right. Interestingly enough, the two men delivering the new Fountaine Pajot from La Rochelle to Swanick were Eric Bruneel (the founder and designer of Neel Trimarans, including our boat) and Timothé Bruneel (his son, who runs his own company Go Sailing, all about sailing and boat maintenance). So instead of having the whole morning for preparing ourselves and Tremoggia for her first sail, we had one hour to quickly grab some breakfast and sail off. We had a quick breakfast at Mermaid’s Coffee Shop, a wonderful café where they roast their own coffee on-site and serve loads of delicious homemade cookies and cakes (also gluten-free ones). When we came back the two Bruneels were quite keen on us leaving, because they had booked flights later that day to return to France, so we quickly released our lines and left our home port in a hurry.
We also had a guest on board, Jenny’s sister Laura, who really does not like spending time on boats. But she still traveled down to Bursledon to visit us before we left for the Caribbean, so we were quite excited to show her that sailing can be enjoyable. We had perfect weather the whole week so far (and also the whole week after), but of course, exactly on the one day we had a guest and wanted to spend a day out at sea, it started raining. But nevertheless, we headed towards Cowes on the Isle of Wight accompanied by a light drizzle and the perfect amount of wind for a calm sail (I guess, that was the true English sailing experience). After about an hour on the Solent, we moored the boat very smoothly (as if we had been doing it for years and not just started a couple of months ago) in Shepards Wharf Marina in Cowes and headed into town for lunch. Cowes is a very nice little village with a bustling main road with lots of shops that make a sailor’s heart beat faster and a beautiful promenade with views of the Solent. But we could not stay too long, as we had booked an overnight berth in Portsmouth and had to bring Laura back to a place from where she could get back home. So we set our sails again and headed off towards the Spinnaker tower in Portsmouth, visible from afar as it thrones above the town center.
Entering Portsmouth Harbour, smaller boats like us have to use the small vessel channel on the left side of the entrance. The reason for this being that Portsmouth is a very busy harbor with loads of commercial ships, cruise ships, and ferries to the Isle of Wight and across the English Channel to France. It also is an important British naval port, where you can usually find the “always broken” British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. Gunwharf Quays Marina, where we had booked a berth for the night however, is on the right side of the channel and we were entering on the left. To get there, you first have to go to the Ballast beacon, a big red buoy in the channel, and from there via VHF ask the King’s Harbour Master for permission to cross the channel, otherwise, the navy will assume you have hostile intentions. Luckily, we were granted permission by a lovely officer calling Jenny Ma’am to cross and then docked at Gunwharf Quays Marina right underneath the Spinnaker Tower.
Although the view of the fully lit up Spinnaker tower was quite impressive (which I’m sure half of the people like and the other half hate), it didn’t provide for a good night’s sleep with its bright blue light. On top of that, there was a lot of noise and waves from the big ferries docking just a couple of meters from us all through the night. These ferries also transport cars, and since they make a very sharp U-turn coming into Portsmouth, all the cars get shaken setting off a concert of car alarms (although you always hear the announcement “Turn off your car alarm!” from afar).
Other than all the activity at night, Gunwharf Quays is a very nice marina with friendly staff. It is located in the middle of a shopping center, which makes you feel very out of place when walking to the marine facilities with your toothbrush and dirty laundry in hand. But other than the shopping center, a nice old pub and an overly expensive British naval museum (where we paid over 50£ per person last time), there is not much to see in Portsmouth. Since we still had some boat jobs to do and were in need of a chandlery (a boat supply shop), we headed over to Gosport on the other side of the channel the next day (of course, asking for permission to cross again).
Das hat ja schon mal recht aufregend begonnen. An diversen Überraschungen hat es offenbar nicht gemangelt. Das Reisen ist eben doch ein Abenteuer, auch bei noch so guter Vorbereitung :). Herzig die Schwesternfotos und toll auch die andern Bilder! Jetzt lese ich gleich die Fortsetzung!