Often we leave Haslar and turn west into the Solent — Cowes, Lymington, Yarmouth. Familiar ground. Easy decisions.
Today, George — designated navigator and mate aspirant — had other ideas. East. Destination Itchenor.
Out through the small boat channel we head, towards the submarine barrier. A narrow gap — half a cable. Built as a defence, though not just against submarines. More… submerged. Anything unwelcome, really.
At West Pole we bear away and turn north. Light winds. A gentle run towards the sandbar guarding the lagoon east of Hayling Island.
With Overlord’s 2.3 metre draft, this is no place for inattention. Stay in the channel. Avoid an accidental gybe. Keep clear of shifting spits and mudbanks. It requires concentration.
We count the buoys down, then turn to starboard into Chichester Harbour National Landscape.
It doesn’t disappoint.
Early season — and we have it almost to ourselves. A rare thing. So close to Portsmouth, yet somehow removed from it. Silently cocooned.
Hazy hills on the horizon. The South Downs faint in the distance. A Constable sky.
We drop sails. Twenty metres of chain flakes out on deck. Head into the tide. Ease back. The anchor bites.
Engine off. Birdsong on.
Black-headed gulls provide the soundtrack to lunch.
An hour later, we recover the anchor — the Richard way.
‘That’s four crew, not three, on the chain.’
We haul in rhythm, somewhere between effort and theatre, contemplating sea shanties we never quite commit to.
Anchor stowed, we continue towards Itchenor.
A fleet of children in dinghies race across our path. Small sails, sharp turns, total focus. It’s uplifting. You cannot scroll and pull a sheet at the same time. Sailing still teaches things that matter.
We approach the jetty. Lydia threads us through moorings with quiet precision.
A perfect moment for some impromptu buoy pickup practice — executed by Tim with aplomb.
We circle. Assess options. Settle on the riverside berth to suit our draft. It looks unofficial. Fishermen’s territory. No harbour authority in sight — the office closed at four.
We rig lines and come alongside anyway.
Lifejackets off. Cockpit reset.
Time for that most important of maritime institutions — the Overlord sundowner.
Then, along the pontoon, she appears.
An elegant older lady. Purposeful. Yorkie terrier on a string. Authority without announcement.
‘I saw your mast come in. I had to come down and have a look at you.’
Richard, ever practical:
‘Can we stay on the pontoon?’
She doesn’t hesitate.
‘Yes.’
Not information. Permission.
‘You’re welcome. We never wanted the bloody thing anyway.’
A pause.
‘I hope you enjoy it.’
‘We used to have a beautiful yacht like this one. She was called Musketeer. We got her off a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron. So many white ensigns on board we used them as dishcloths.’
Overlord has this effect.
‘We went on our honeymoon on Musketeer. Been married fifty years.’
She isn’t really talking to us. She’s watching it play back.
Musketeer. A 47-foot yawl, built in 1963 by Camper & Nicholsons. The elegant racing lines of Overlord have triggered something.
‘We had great times. Did the Fastnet. Came fourth.’
‘Then we took her chartering in the West Indies. Made a fortune entertaining the rich and famous… the Rockefellers.’
She rolls with it now — past waves breaking again.
‘Never use the vang as a preventer. We regretted it.’
Fragments. Lessons. A life in sentences. Her eyes narrow, looking not at us but through us — into another time.
She had not come to look at the boat. She had come to see herself again.
‘May I come aboard?’
Rhetorical.
Dog under arm — not entirely convinced — she steps aboard without hesitation. No handhold, no help. Muscle memory. The twenty-year-old still present.
Richard gives the tour.
Back on deck:
‘I still race Mirror dinghies, you know.’
What an inspiration.
Itchenor, it turns out, has one of the largest Mirror fleets in the world — over a hundred boats. Children and adults racing together. A game of chess on a board that never stops moving — wind shifts, tides run, mudbanks move.
She leaves us as she arrived. Quietly. Purposefully.
We settle into the cockpit. Gin and tonic in hand.
A golden sunset to the west. Moonrise to the east.
Between heaven and earth.
A million miles from mayhem —
and all just thirteen nautical miles from Haslar.
Somewhere Else Writers Group 