Beaulieu  Rally
Sat 16th July 2005

What a brilliant summer so far, good winds and beautiful sunshine.

Cleo and the family have done lots up to now, we always look forward to the sail round from the Hamble river to the Beaulieu river and the 4 mile meander up stream to Trimbells quay right in the heart Hampshire’s New Forest and the village of Beaulieu.

As in previous years the crew and I have always got time off work and asked permission from the school’s headmasters to allow the children to finish at lunchtime on the Friday. This means we are a night early to be there for Saturday morning low water to clear and boulders and bits that could damage boats. It is usually only us and a Seal 22 Shiraz that are there on the Friday evening.

This year we had a lovely sail round wind 3 to 4 easterly and sailed almost all the way up stream, to our surprise there were more Seals there than we had ever thought The idea must have got around that it’s the best place in the Solent to get away. Perhaps we need to make a long weekend rally?

Saturday saw another brilliant day with only a few stones to move ,and as the tide came so did the rest of the Seals attending the rally. It was exceptionally nice to see a few more Seal 22 attending so welcome and so it may continue.

Happy Sealing
Peter Lowry