After the long day yesterday the odd whistle on the exhales between snores can be heard echoing up through hatches and portholes under leaden skies in Cowes. As the crews wake up to see the forecast they might well resort to a lot more whistling – sailors’ folklore having it that this can summon the wind.

Currently there’s not much more than a mere breath out of the west, ever-so slowly building to a F2 over the past hour. ybw.com ‘nowcast ‘data from the Met Office is predicting the wind to increase a little again, backing towards the more-expected southerly direction by 1000. We’re on a west-going tide until close on lunchtime, which won’t be helping matters, so odds have to be on later than scheduled starts this morning unless the wind further develops, especially as the skies are still overcast.

Things could well change through the day though. The low, now 987mb and still well out to the west, would only have to creep eastwards a little to provide some more impetus. Cloud cover associated with the front that is running right along the spine of Britain (and flooding many parts of it) is breaking up out over the West Country on latest satellite imagery and the odd chink has been seen over Cowes even while writing this report. The front is due to ever so slowly move east, so more broken cloud, perhaps with showers, could be the expected fare over the Solent later, along with some kind of south to south-east breeze.

It will simply be a waiting game to see what transpires. Purse your lips everyone…