So, having failed to get the Baltic this year, we instead took Puffin out on the South Coast for a few days. This was the first time Jo and I had a boat as skipper and first mate with no-one else experienced on board. We didn’t lose anyone, so it must have been fine.

Wind was patchy, so we didn’t get as far as Lulworth Cove as planned, but instead stopped at Studland Bay. The next day we spent moseying around Studland and Poole Harbour. We may have found the bottom on the way into Brownsea Island. On the way out, a communication error lead to slightly too much sail being hoisted. Chaos ensued as we avoided buoys and dinghies sped around us until we found a spot to reduce the sails again.

We were enjoying listening to the tireless efforts of the coastguard, so it came as some embarrassment when we came close to calling them out ourselves. I’d been getting a bit close to the land a few times (according to my crew – the chart and the depth were fine). Once, after turning away from the shore, the tiller came off in our hands.

After some messing around we eventually managed to manoeuvre the boat to point into the wind, where we had a race to reattach the tiller before being blown onto the shore. We managed a bodge and got the sails down, and motored round the corner to fix it properly.

My proudest moment of skippering was anchoring for lunch just in time to miss a rainstorm. We never had to put waterproofs on all weekend.

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