It all started when Tor and I were talking about testsailing the 310 in Slovenia, and Rob told Tor that this time of year we should really test the boat in Poole instead, because of the poor wind conditions in Slovenia this time of year. That turned out to be a good decision, as we will see later. Click the title to read on...
I got up at 4 a.m. on tuesday, having packed the previous day, and caught a taxi at 4:30 for the train station, as the airport express train left a bit before 5. I was to meet Tor with Asbjørn and Morten at the airport about an hour before departure - they were coming along to do a "first impression" test of the 310 and are great guys. I know Asbjørns brother Øystein from before, sailing the F18.
The departure was 06:50 a.m. Whoa. Tried to catch some sleep on the plane, and arrived at Gatwick somewhat more rested. We picked up our gear and went to pick up the rental car, which wasn't as easy as we thought - walking and walking and walking...
I got in the front with Tor and took the place of the GPS mount (basically held the GPS while Tor drove), and driving on the wrong side of the street it was probably wise for Tor to focus on the driving as much as possible.
Here's a picture of us driving out of the rental car area, Morten and Asbjørn (not visible) in the back seat.
After a few near-misses in traffic we finally got driving towards Poole, where we were to meet up with Jim, who is a passionate Elan sailor (and Poole pilot). However, Tor soon thought the female GPS voice started making strange suggestions - we were heading to the wrong Poole. After some changes on the GPS we were on the right track.
Driving down to Poole we talked about expectations, rating rules and a lot more.
As we drove down to Poole we saw that there was hardly even a breeze, although the forecast said we should see about 15-20 knots of wind during the day. Crossing our fingers we drove on to Poole Yacht Club.
After we met up with Jim (great guy), Morten and Asbjørn went down to the boat while Tor, Jim and I went to buy some food and water to bring along. Driving up to the supermarket we passed the RNLI headquarters and I remembered the recent discussion about using funds to purchase the new art exhibition outside the premises. Surreal to see the sculpture up close like that.
After we stocked up we all met up at the boat and prepared to leave, encouraged by the wind picking up. As we motored out of the yacht club it was almost 15 knots....yes!
By having Jim on board we didn't have to bring all sorts of charts (him being a pilot too!), which was a great help to us. We hoisted as soon as were outside the club and were very curious to see what kind of performance this 31-footer was packing.
Here's me looking forward to the testsail....
I'll get back to the actual performance of the 310 in a later post, but I just have to say that it was extremely stabile - felt like a much larger boat! We all had our foul weather gear on and went sailing for about 4 hours.
The weather was typically english, raining but not too cold.
After sailing (it gets dark around 4 p.m.) we went back to the club, tied her up and followed Jim as he tried to navigate to our hotel. Checked in, grabbed a couple of beers and headed for a restaurant (the "Da Vinci") for supper. After eating we were pretty much exhausted so went back to the hotel to get some shut eye.The next morning we drove back to the yacht club so Morten and Asbjørn could get some better pictures, measurements and what not for their review. Here's a couple of pics from that morning:
When we were done we got started driving towards Rob Humphreys design offices in Lymington, where we had an appointment with Rob. Again, driving on the wrong side of the road can be quite a nuisance, especially when the other drivers don't understand that using the window wiper means that we are changing lanes.
Finally we arrived at Rob's offices in Lymington, here's a picture of us walking towards the entrance.
We had some coffee while discussing a lot of interesting topics, and were also invited to lunch along with the whole design team. Wow. What a treat! We went to a local pub and had traditional steak and kidney (except Asbjørn), and had a great time. I'll remember this trip a long time.
After this we drove to the airport, had a really close near-miss in a roundabout (still wondering why the englishmen don't understand the windscreen wiper-indicator when changing lanes) and arrived at Gatwick with time to spare.
What a great couple of days.....(and a great little, big boat).
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