A Short sail up the river.

My father had agreed to pick us up from Dale on Sunday and take us back to Briton Ferry. We'd travel down in the car from now on, of course, but needed a lift this first time.

The day dawned windless, or almost so. At 10:00 the Dale racing fleet set off, doing about 12 knots, cumulative, between all of them:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Racing fleet"][/caption]

Went ashore in the dinghy and picked up my father. Cup of coffee, quick tour of the boat and then we set off up the river towards Milford. Nice bit of Southerly, but that died within 15 minutes and we were under power again.

My father had worked on the Texaco plant (Now Chevron-Texaco) in the 70s and 80s, so it was great to sail past the jetties with him, although it maybe doesn't show in the picture:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Enjoying a sail ?"][/caption]

 

We sailed on, up past the Cleddau bridge, up past Lawrenny turning to head back just before the tide. We managed to shut the engine off and sailed, well heeled for about 20 minutes towards Angle before the 'variable' wind died again. My father was chuffed, even more so when Louise dished up Tirimasu with Fresh cream.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Tirimasu"][/caption]

 

We arrived back at Dale at 17:00 and, 2 1/2 hours later back home in Briton Ferry. First real shake down sailing of teh year, and very successful.