Bembridge Harbour Isle of Wight Rally May 11th-12th 2024

Published 10:39 on 3 Jun 2024

The Bembridge Harbour rally was blessed with perfect weather, the sun shone all weekend with enough wind for the yachts to have a decent sail to the Isle of Wight venue. Cornell took advantage of the good weather and arrived earlier on the Wednesday. The Harbour is at present undergoing several upgrades including the construction of a new 2 storey Office/Showers/toilet block, timber framed and black timber clad, an impressive looking building on the site of the old slipway. To be finished by late May? Come Saturday the weather gods were kind to us again and we had a sunny day with F3/4n winds. Bembridge Harbour gradually filled up during the afternoon with the rest of the rally arriving at various times, by early evening the berths were filled with a forest of sailing yacht masts. One highlight of the weekend was the arrival of a superyacht, the 28m "Hard 8" which apparently only draws 1.8m, the biggest boat the harbour has ever accommodated, according to the Harbour Master.

The pontoon party took place at 4:45 pm on Steve Derbyshire's Swift Trawler "Bonito" which was conveniently moored side to on the pontoon. Drinks and nibbles dispensed around 6:00pm when we all dispersed to our boats to get our BBQ food for the evening bash.  

The evening BBQ caught the last of the days sun, there were two yacht clubs booked in sharing 3 gas bar barbeque grills, and being the first to arrive we managed to get 5 tables to ourselves before the Hayling Island's 50 strong rally arrived. Steve's Bar was open until 8:00 pm along with the Café serving Pizzas. Our evening was rounded off with a beautiful sunset across the Harbour.

Sunday arrived, another sunny day with an early afternoon high tide and a decent breeze to take us back to Haslar Marina and beyond.

Lot's more pictures can be found here in the Gallery

Graham Armitage

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• Bembridge Rally 2024 (11 - 12 May)

Last updated 08:33 on 18 June 2024