Black Diamond

At the weekend a group of Denholme sailors went out on Black Diamond - at 45ft Bowman Corsair owned by Sailing NorthEast. It was the second trip on Black Diamond so there was a record to beat!


We left Hartlepool Marina in the early hours of Saturday morning to moor up in Hartlepool fish docks for a couple of hours. Mmmm, nice!

Saturday was a beautiful day once the early mist had burned off. However, the wind varied between very little and none so there was as much motoring as sailing.

We spent Saturday night in Blyth Marina where the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club has a clubhouse (with excellent but slippery showers) and bar in a decommissioned light ship: HY Tyne, one of the last remaining lightships afloat. Cal's catering on Black Diamond is highly recommended; we ate very well indeed. Our evening meal included, for Tim and Dan, fresh mackerel caught during the voyage.

On Sunday morning we left Blyth hoping for force 3-4 winds blowing from the SE.

What we got was even less wind the day before with rain followed by fog severe enough to need the foghorn and watchers posted on deck. However, there was some excitement when we became part of an RNLI training exercise.

Peter won the fashion award for the weekend due to his co-ordinated oilskins and seaboots. Notice how the blue of his lifejacket is picked up in the boot toecaps. Apparently, in his ten years and many cruises with these boots, this was the first time that they have been worn at sea!

Everybody took a turn at the helm...

And proved their mastery of essential sailing skills such as washing up.

These are only a few of my photos; there are more in DSC's photo gallery on flickr.com. There were plenty of other cameras on the trip - so I hope that some more pictures (and stories) will appear here. By the way, Dan's record of 7.4 knots remains unbroken so better luck (wind) next trip!

Many thanks to Tim for organising the trip and to Cal for his excellent but relaxed skippering.