Well, as some of you know, I bought the Shakespeare 720 demo rib from Steve, the one he posted the build story on a year ago.
Took her out both Saturday and Sunday last weekend.What a blast.
Saturday, with myself and crew of two on board, left Drivers dry storage and made our way into Southampton water. with conditions slightly rougher than expected, the run down to the solent put three huge grins on faces and removed all those feelings of "oh my God, what have I done"!
Conditions were smooth at best on the test run with Frances and Dave, but a bit different last Saturday.I reckoned sea state was similar to that of the March Medina Muster, which Biggles confirmed. She handles fantastically (not that I have much to compare to) and my worries of going for a 7.2m boat were instantly dismissed.
Anyway, over to Cowes and up to The Folly for another great pub lunch. Moored on a buoy with Nauti Buoy and another charter rib mooring up after me, who both seemed to be out on business. Should have a nice photo, but crew number two, who took loads of digital video which turned out to be useless (it was off when thought it was on and on when thought it was off
) managed to cock up taking a simple still picture too. Dad's really should know better
Fuelled up after lunch at cowes (£1.19 a litre - ouch) for a run up to pompey, then back to Southampton passing a group of Zapcats training for the coming season by the looks of things,and the wander back to Drivers. Made it back just in the nick of time before they supposedly closed at 5pm, and off to the campsite still buzzing from a fab day on the water.
Up and packed on Sunday, departed Drivers for another afternoon on the water, this time over to Yarmouth for lunch. Conditions much smoother on the Sunday, opened he right up, noted 47mph on the handheld GPS before had to stop looking, played around on wakes of passing cruisers and got more of a feel for what she can do. Dave was right - what a tight turning circle. Stopped in Yarmouth for lunch, fuelled up and filled the tanks at a much more reasonable (compared to Cowes) 1.09 per litre and made the trip back to Southampton Water. Saw Evolution (I think) coming out and making her way back to Pompey I guess, recovered a floating log that I nearly hit but just about saw in time, and back upto see all the cruise liners in dock.
A couple of pics attached, but as neither crew seem to be competent in the camera department, severely lacking.
Looking forward to a good few more trips this season and beyond, and finding a name...decisions decisions...
through the solent chop and I don't know how many sailing boats, with both hands on wheel instead of one with the other on throtlle, cos doing it the proper way was "too difficult without a backrest"
