Osprey delight

This photo was on the Blithfield club site, and this Osprey belongs to Jon Batt. I wanted to show someone out on the wire and a spinnaker set and this is just perfect. Similar wind conditions too

A couple of posts ago I mentioned a guy (Robin) down at Shoreham sailing club who had just picked up his new Osprey. He mentioned then that he is selling his old mk lll Osprey, and having given this some thought, Longlegs arranged for us to go out for a sail on her with him last night down at the club to see how suitable she would be for us.
We arrived early to a sea so calm that not a sail was visable out there, not one, just lots of seagulls serenely afloat and a few jet skis roaring around in the distance.
I could see a bit of a localized storm on the horizon and heading our way, and I wondered whether it would bring us a breeze, lower the humidity as it passed through, and leave a bit of wind behind for us to play with.
Sure enough, a little later, I felt the draught of cooler air on my face, and dark, dark grey clouds loomed overhead angrily. Lightning flashed and thunder growled and beach folk towing towels and toys scurried off to seek shelter from the approaching rain. Torrential rain poured from above for about 20 minutes, then it was gone, leaving a little wind, not much, 8-10 kts, ('ish), maybe, but enough. The cloud-cover stayed with us and it was pleasantly cooler too.
Robin showed us the layout of the rigging and took his time to go through everything in detail.
There are just SO many lines and halyards and sheets on these performance dinghies, all in bright different colours, most cleated off somewhere in amongst all the others along the centre thwart. Just so many that I've never come across before and it would be quite a while before I knew which to reach for in an instant.
Anyway, no matter, by 7pm we were on the water in a light breeze, heading out to open sea through the harbour entrance.
Longlegs and I were crouched down either side of the centreboard casing with a jib sheet each.
The twenty or so rest of the club boats were also out for Wednesday racing, but we steered clear and went our own way. Robin had kitted us in trapeeze harnesses too, I wondered if there would be enough wind to warrant them but that just goes to show how much I have to learn about these very responsive dinghies. We flew ahead of the fleet, having started at the same time as them but off to one side.
Once outside the harbour wall the wind perked up a bit more and I got my first step-by-step lesson in getting out on the trapeze. It was great fun being at full stretch feeling the heel of the boat in response to the breeze, and adjusting my leg stretch according to the heel of her beneath me. I have not been exercising enough and I could feel my thigh muscles in particular, tauten and silently complain. Not me though, oh no, I was loving it, though inexperienced, I felt totally comfortable.
I was concentrating on all sorts of things, like not holding the wire, holding the jib sheet, keeping my back straight, keeping my forward leg straight and bending the aft leg like it was self-sprung, holding my balance and watching for dark patches of wind coming our way. Robin was a great host and comfortable to be around. For the spinnaker run he described concisely what needed doing and both Longlegs and I had turns at setting up the pole, then Robin hauled the sail up through a neat shute in the bow and we had a chance to play with the edge of the spinnaker with the sheet so that it filled properly.
It was a fantastic experience and time flew by on that downwind leg.
I asked for a go at the helm too, and had fun trying to figure out what to do with the tiller extension when going about. I'm not used to the confined quarters of an Osprey, 'Berceau' in Canada last year, had a tiller with an extension, but she was 27' with plenty of extension-swinging space to manoeuvre in.
I brought the Osprey back into the harbour and managed to find the dead space with no wind with the greatest of ease. Robin did warn me to stay near the left wall but I somehow found myself in the middle anyway. The wind was so light that we sort of glided into the shallows, and were the last boat in apart from the safety boat. To get that inflatable up the ramp, all hands were called for and about twenty of us on a long thick rope hauled her up to the top. After doing what we could to help in true learner fashion, we showered and met up in the bar with other club and committee members armed with our questions about boats and membership.
I really enjoyed the Osprey, and am so grateful to Robin for taking the time and effort to introduce us to the one that he is selling. He is going to advertise her this weekend and we really aren't ready to buy right now. I've no idea how quickly an Osprey will sell, and I don't know what this one is worth, so we will keep in touch and carry on with the research.

What a way to spend a Wednesday evening...