Yesterday myself and a friend from thornbury decided to see how far we could sail up the river severn and get back again. It was a small 5.8m tide so not the ideal day for this challenge.
Our stead was one of the club wayfarers. We left thornbury SC slip way at 12.15 before the water had even got over the end of the main slip way. At set off down wind (up river) in some quite breezy conditions. We popped up the smaller kite that we had with us (possibly from a GP 14) and set off on a plane.
After 45 minutes we passed Lydney and were level with Sharpness marina. It was a bit choppy there as the river narrows suddenly.
Once passed this point we were in a bit more shelter so we popped the big spinnaker. This kite had come off a small cruiser. We'd had to rig a mast head kite halyard off the top of the main sail to set it. Probably some 5m^2 more sail area than the standard wayfarer kite. Well as it filled the boat popped on to the plane and shot off. With the centre of effort up high it was a litle more sensitive than normal. The mast tip was flexing a bit but not looked ok. (We had kept the kicker on and pulled some main in to support it int 14 style. However when it started bending a bit more we chickened out and took the kite down.
A few moments later we started touching the bottom with both foils which was strange because we were near the middle of the river and an hour before high water. We took the main down because we were getting shallower and sailed with just the jib and both foils up towards the bank where we expected the deeper water to be. We found it.
We decided that it was time to head back we had an hour in the bag before the tide turned with us but new it would be slower beating back. especially in the 20knot

winds. (it can't have been any windier because club boats aren't allowed out in stronger winds).
With a reef in and the small jib we initially made slow progress against the fast flowing tide. We quickly erroded our hour without going anywhere and took a further 30 minutes hour to get back to sharpness. Now back through now the very choppy bit and then on the tide back down the river towards Thornbury.
We radioed the club from sharpness but couldn't hear there reply. We got better reception when we were only 4 miles from home and confirmed that we would be coming back to thornbury.
As we entered the pill it quickly became evident that we didn't have long to get the boat out. The side slipway is mostly covered with mud and there was only just enough of it exposed to get a trolley on. The main slipway was over a meter above the water level.
With a big rope and several helpers we managed to get the boat on the trolley and out of the water.
From the chart in the club house we could see that we had got level with Frampton pill before turning around. Approx 13 miles upriver from thornbury. We had been on the water for 4 and 1/4 hours.
Great fun!