Candyfloss cumulus clouds sail serenely across a cobalt blue summer sky . A retired lightship, now club house to the Haven Ports Yacht Club, towers, bold and red, above the moored boats.
The art of boat maintenance is gently practiced. This, long keeled wooden classic, has the look of a Kim Holman (native of these parts) design. She looks too large to be a Twister (twenty eight feet) and has no Twister emblem engraved into her cavita line forward. She's not a Stella either, they are shorter than a Twister (twenty six feet) and are clinker built. I cannot place her. I walk on puzzling. Seeking to put an elusive name to a familiar face.
This morning Stargazer locked out of the Ipswich wet dock.
Passing the sweeping sheers, spoon bows and long graceful counters, of the Spirit yachts in build.
We hoist the main immediately. The tide has just turned. We ride the ebb down towards the bridge, on a more or less dead run (hence no jib). Gybing from time to time, as the wind shifts and the channel turns.
Down river, we glide silently, past wooded banks and craft dozing on their moorings.
We set the jib off Pin Mill. Sailing the angles. Gybing our way gently downriver. Outpacing boats making their stately way under jib alone.
Ahead, to port, lie the cranes and container ships of Felixstowe. Ahead to starboard, the mouth of the river Stour. With the Harwich freight ferry just leaving, for the weekly Baltic run. Abeam to port, the pole withies, which mark the entrance to Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington.
I douse the sails and steer Stargazer in under the grassy bank, to bask in the sunshine.
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