West Country stop-start getaway

Rupert Holmes recalls a week of glorious sailing and anchorages on a newly acquired and refitted boat

- Rupert Holmes

Zest is an easily handled, fast cruiser

Your first cruise on a newly acquired boat can simultaneously deliver trepidation, relief and excitement. This is especially true after a big refit, when it's also an opportunity to test and check that all the new equipment works as expected, satisfy yourself that nothing important has been overlooked, and find out whether the boat performs to expectations.

Immediately after my partner, Kass Schmitt, bought Zest we had six weekends of sailing before starting a refit to update systems and optimise deck gear and the sail inventory for long-distance solo racing. This process is also one that creates an efficient and easily handled fast cruiser. In addition, we had done a 250-mile round trip from Cowes to Plymouth and back, crossing Lyme Bay in gusts of 38 knots as a cold front swept across our path.

However, the passage to Plymouth was before all the new equipment had been added and it was carried out very much in delivery mode, focussing only on the essentials for that voyage. A more gentle week or so, sailing from the Solent to Falmouth, would give a chance to check everything in a thorough fashion ahead of a planned voyage to the Azores, with Kass then intending to return single-handed.

ABOUT ZEST

Zest is a 36ft one-off Rob Humphreys design built of strip cedar and epoxy, originally as an offshore raceboat, and launched in 1992.

Burgh Island with the causeway partially covered

Gear testing

The first day from Cowes was uneventful in a spell of glorious summer weather and we anchored off the beach to the north of Weymouth harbour entrance in the early evening after an easy day. An early start the following morning had us well-placed to catch the inshore passage at Portland Bill at slack water, in a south-southwesterly Force 4-5.