Yesterday I spent the day sailing on the Humber.
We left Hull Marina on the ebb tide and sailed down towards the estuary mouth. We shifted from the north side of the Humber to the south side, We saw the exotic-looking Grimsby Dock Tower (which, I was told, was modelled on the Saint Mark’s Square tower in Venice).
We got fairly close to a couple of World Ware Two estuary forts. We saw some seriously huge ships heading into Immingham to discharge various cargoes.
It was a terrific day. It’s been a very long time since I did any serious sailing, but yesterday, out on the Humber in a fairly stiff gusting 30-knot wind, really made my day.
Mark (skipper, owner, instructor) said some complimentary things about how I hadn’t lost the touch. We changed sail shape, put in reefs, we tacked, we ran before the wind, we sailed close to the wind, we trimmed the sails so that, at one point, they were vibrating as if the boat was being driven by a powerful engine. I suppose it was.
At the end of the day we moored up, Mark checked the log and said we’d covered 30nm. Considering we were just mucking about that’s a fair bit of sailing distance.
It was a great day.
