Model: Evolution 25
Name: Creation
Built: 1981
Engine: 7hp BMW inboard
Registration No: not yet registed
Mooring: Mengham Rythe Sailing Club, Hayling Island, Chichester Harbour.
Details of use: I have just bought Creation (8 Feb 2008). I have wanted an evolution after reading about them in PBO and talking at the bar in Christchurch sailing club. I have visited Christchurch with my Jaguar 22. My wife and three kids sailed down from Chichester on many occasions. But the weather and tight living conditions showed that the Jaguar 22 just was not big enough or safe enough, espically as we got caught out in a storm force 7, gusting 9. We the bad weather in 2007, I scared my wife 4 times, so we had to do something. We are on a drying mooring and we enjoy creek crawling, but we also need a safe boat. Thus the high ballast and lifting keel was the ideal aspects of the Evolution 25.
We looked at a evolution 26 and found it was great but did not have enough room for the family. Creation has a fractional Rig with running backstays which is all new to me so this is something to learn and try.
The original BMW engine has been removed and replaced with a 1GM raw water cooled engine. I am loking to add an outboard bracket.
Previous to me, she was owned by Jim Gill from Lymington where he regularly race her until moving upto a specially designed racing yacht similar to the hunter 707 but more of a 808.
In my spare time I am on the Hayling Island RNLI crew (Atlantic 75 and D-Class)
Photo to follow.
Regards
Jasper Graham-Jones
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Update of sailing season 2008
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CREATION CRUISES (an Evolution 25, built 1985) - 2008
by
Elke Graham-Jones with Contributions from Jasper Graham-Jones
Skippers: Jasper & Elke, Crew: Zara, Anna, Katja, plus one in tummy
Here are some of the tales for this year’s sail. We think we did well over 400 miles but our log broke in rouge seas in Ventnor harbour, more on that later.
How we bought Creation
We looked at least ten different types of cruiser over 22feet up to max.26 feet. We wanted something that can cope safely with the kind of potentially hairy situations that scared the wits out of us in our previous boat. Of course we could stay at home when the weather is not perfect but…….Anyway, finally we just clicked with our Evolution that lived in Lymington at the time. It has a lifting keel and six berths.
Trip back from Lymington.
On our daughter’s birthday (12th April) the boat was sailed back from Lymington by it’s previous owner and the harbourmaster of Keyhaven and my husband in strong winds (ca. force 8) and rough seas. Having just been raced outside Lymington this was the furthest journey the boat had done in about 10 years. Jasper said the sailing was brilliant, with Creation surfing off the waves. The previous owner was a bit nervous as we passed Cowes and the wind built up to Force 8. At the entrance to Chichester harbour the boat was taking on water as the rudder had broken apart from the hull in the rough conditions…so two on bucket duty and Jasper sailing in as hastily as possible..they made it!
30 Knot Daysails (August).
As a treat we took my brother, his wife and their two daughters, all regular inland people (the nearest water within about 100 miles is a small bathing lake), out for a sail to Thorney, Bosham and Itchenor. We started in good sailing conditions but by the time we got to Bosham we experienced gusts of over 30 mph, even in the harbour a bit much with five children on board. However, my brother and his daughters still were able to take the tiller while his wife preferred to stay in the cabin (can’t say why). With all the wild winds this summer this gave us confidence in the boat and we regularly took Creation for 30-Knot day sails, with two reefs in the main and no jib.
Storm bound in Hardway.
A major rainstorm curtailed a night sail from Newport to home. We took shelter in a wet Hardway. We walked from Hardway to Gosport next day while sitting out the gale over Millennium Bridge, very recommendable walk.
We had a fantastic 5am sail back to Hayling Island two days later when one gale had blown out and the next was just blowing in when we entered Chichester harbour. But we were still able to make Emsworth for breakfast.
Red Arrows over Solent for Navy day
Sailed to Navy Day via a night stop over in Ryde and over the Solent saw the spectacular Friday display of the Red Arrows who seemed to have chosen our boat as their landmark turning point so they seemed to do their turns just above our mainsail. We stayed on in Solent to watch and then moored at Gosport Marina and took passenger ferry to the docks the next morning. After a long day looking at our impressive Navy (I was seven months pregnant and at some point so tired that I fell asleep on a nice captains chair on the command bridge of some massive Largs Bay fleet auxiliary ship and had the captain running to bring some water(in a glass no hot towels)). We sail back to the Isle of Wight with a beautiful sunset over the Solent, picking up a free mooring in the Medina River.
Storm bound in Poole, Wareham,
Storm bound for one week due to terrible weather with winds of +30knot and gusts recorded in the sheltered Wareham river of 42knot.Gales did nor stop so Jasper got a lift to get the car, we explored the Purbecks. We went back by car and came to Wareham a week later to sail the boat back only to get as far as Poole Harbour and end up in a Waterspout.
Waterspout
i.e. a mini turning tornado with rotating winds of +40knots that came over the water as a white looking wall of spray at high speed and rotated us madly in a circle drenching everything to the underpants until all sails were dropped and the anchor was down which is when it stopped…of course. After a clothes change we sailed on. After an adventureless passing at Hurst narrows darkness was descending fast and we entered a pitch-black Solent which was so flat as a mirror, you could have seen your reflection in the water-had it been daylight. So we went on and kept going until a foul tide and hunger drove us into Cowes at 10pm. Where we knew an Indian meal with our names on it was waiting. A korma, biryani and balti later, a full, tired and happy family fell into a deep sleep with us (parents) rising at sunrise to catch the tide back home
Engine failure at Cowes Entrance
On a Friday afternoon with all the cruise liners going out, if you have ever been in their wash you’ll know what I mean, it’s pretty massive, and nearly no wind and water too deep to put anchor out! A kind motor-cruiser offered us a tow but unfortunately insisted on alongside tow, which nearly smashed both our boats up in the mentioned wash of the QE2 and her friends, with me (6+months pregnant) trying successfully to keep the boats from smashing into each other. Finally we released lines and insisted on long tow behind, until after a short while the Cowes harbourmaster came to tow us into the Marina. Next day we fixed the problem. And went on to have some lovely times at Newport.
Lessons in tides at ChristChurch,
Christchurch is tricky to get into as at the best of the tides. You still just have a few feet of water at some points of the estuary that have to found by trail and error. First you have to make it into the entrance at Mudeford. This we nearly did not make as there was an extremely strong current running against us but these are the only conditions where you have a chance to get the tide right when leaving from Newport, IOW, for Christchurch, we did make it, however, and had some sunny times (in rare supply this summer) until we went back in one sail to Ryde.
Red Arrows over Bournemouth
Lumpy sea with nearly no wind made for an uncomfortable sail to Poole harbour but seasick feeling got better when we realized the Red Arrows were displaying over Bournemouth (no, we are not groupies, honestly) and that was why basically the whole of Poole harbour had come out in their boats to anchor at the Bournemouth beaches to see them, at the end of the display we entered Poole harbour, unfortunately so did basically the whole boating population of Poole in their motorboats…..you may know that entering Poole Harbour is at the best of times a punishment by sail as massive gin palaces use it as their personal playground and the wash is enormous as they race past at 2 metres distance so you can see the icecubes in their gin and tonic and you disappear into a valley of their wash. We thanked our lucky stars that no one managed to sink us (not for the want of trying, however) unlike some other poor sailor who did capsize at the entrance and when we were finally safely parked in the marina.
Poole’s Dolphin marina
We all breathed a sigh of relief. Neatly hidden by a massive black £8.5M, 110 ft Sunseeker owned by a Nigerian oil millionaire; we were about the size of his tender. And when the staff came to wash the boat with specially softened water (no, neither our staff nor our boat) even after a whole day they had not even noticed our boat being in front of them. We pointed out to them how extremely generous it was of us to let them park behind us.
Ventnor
Wave heights went from molehills in the Solent to mountains at Sanddown all the way to Ventnor. A huge swell was outside the harbour and pressing into the narrow harbour entrance where I helmed and surfed the boat in (8 months pregnant) while Jasper struggled to get the sail down so we would not get blown onto the rocks.( Of the last cruiser before us that came too close to Ventnor, only the engine and the propeller shaft are left over)
After a terrible sleepless night with boat tearing on the ropes when it was not banging onto the hard sand the weather had not really improved. How the boat survived the night I do not know but next day Jasper sailed the boat on his own to Bembridge while the deputy harbour master gave me and the children a lift by car to Bembridge where we were picked up and sailed together back home…sometime coming back home is particularly sweet!!
Bembridge Rally
Good rally, safe conditions, excellent weather, nice change to have no particular adventure to report, tried new pub for food in St.Helen’s, which was very popular So was the enormous village green and the playground with all the partaking children who got rid of some energy (where do they get it from?!) while the adults could have a drink and finish the occasional sentence in their conversation.
Night sail into Elke’s birthday,
A day before our Baby was due and six days before baby Ella was born.
We were just going to put the boat away onto the mooring but it was so beautiful out there in the moonlight, we just kept going into the moon’s reflection on the water till we found ourselves at Thorney. Arriving back at 1:30am we were exhilarated at just how lovely night sailing can be. It was amongst other things this that made us decide to keep the boat in over the winter.
Boat still in the water awaiting to be taken sailing and introduced to our newest little sailor!