Chichester Harbour to Newhaven, part 2

On a foggy early morning start we picked up Bill from Newhaven and Seaford Sailing Club and drove to Dell Quay.

John and Bill drove through Itchenor reach and out into the harbour while I made bacon sandwiches. We had the masinsail up, but for looks rather than because there was wind.

By the time we had got to West Pole Beacon, the tide was halfway to low, and we were slightly in advance of our schedule. This was no problem as the sea state was slight and the wind light and variable from the east.
We hoped to be able to find a bit of southerly wind to unroll the genoa.

The swell through the Looe Channel, because of its shallowness, set a rolling motion that didn't suit John's constitution, however, with Bill's help we made the acquaintance of a new crew member; we shall call him George:

intoducing George

George is an electronic auto pilot. His cheery red casing perfectly matches our "his 'n hers" oilskins, and his retro 70's styling works well with ours.

Here is George doing all the work while John catches some ZZZZs.

Nothing changed much for many hours, we saw some fishing boats off Littlehampton. When the flooding tide picked up, we found we were doing 5.9 knots over the ground, Bill and I ate a chicken stew I had brought with us.

The sun was going down as we were level with Brighton, and about an hour into the dark, John took the tiller and brought us safely into Newhaven Marina.

The journey had taken 10 hours motor sailing- boring, bit cold, but uneventful.
It would have been an entirely different experience without Bill, and without the auto pilot.