Muddy Waters

The flood begins to make on a dreamily still spring morning. A family of geese stir, as a tongue of water licks toward them across the salt marsh. They swim lazily among the sun warmed shoals. Beyond them, a yacht sounds cautiously out of the river. She hugs the witch-hatted markers, of the dredged channel, making for the mist shrouded form of the Isle of Wight. Seeking the security of deeper water.

To landward, a grid iron of mirror calm ditches drain the marsh. Each framed by a mantle of richly fragrant, chromium yellow, gorse bushes.Their heady scent hangs in the air, filling my lungs.

Further back, a russet red brick New Forest farm house stands on a slight rise. Boats are pulled up on the meadow, outside the five barred gate which guards its entrance.

I'm paying a visit to Discovery Yachts in Lymington. They now own the moulds for the shoal draft Southerly range. Discovery are applying the custom build approach, for which their larger Discovery ocean roaming yachts are famed, to the smaller Southerly range. Among the improvements on offer are a Solent, twin forestay, Rig (triple, if you count the gennaker) and a below decks helm position. Both are at the top of my wish list for the perfect passage making boat. The Solent Rig to provide a ready rigged, perfectly set foresail, whatever the wind strength. The sheltered helm position for those times, on overnight passages, when even the spell cast by the sparkle of myriad stars above, and the flash of phosphorescence below, cannot ward off the chill of the pre-dawn dew-fall.

The ability to reduce draft to 0.7 metres, by lifting the ballasted swing keel, would also open up cruising options, particularly in the muddy waters of my North Sea base. Timings for crossing the swatch ways would no longer be critical Passage Planning factors. New anchorages would open up.

The question is how much windward performance, particularly in a breeze, would be traded for that shoal draft flexibility; and whether that trade off would work for me.

Stargazer's ability to happily sail, on any point, in any wind strength between 8 and 28 knots is one of her great delights.