On a grey drizzly Thursday (21/8/22) morning, I got the anchor up and at about half flood tide we motor sailed slowly down Helen’s Pool and then across the shallows towards the “Hats” Cardinal bouy off the norhern tip of St Mary’s and at the juncture of the shallows and deep water. The boisterous conditions of the two previous days had gone, but the weather had certainly changed from the gorgeous conditions of the previous week. Now as the islands gradually receded into the distance, the grey cloud that shrouded them, made them as foreboding as I imagined they looked to those ship wrecked sailors of days gone past, just before their once stout ships were mangled on the numerous hungry rocks that litter the coast.
I experienced only a minor drama as I took my departure. A small Norwegian cruise ship was anchored near the “Hat” and told me off for sailing too close as I went by!
Personally I thought he should have anchored further from the bouy but I apologised as pleasantly as I could and continued on my way.
The remainder of the passage to Plymouth was downhill sailing all the way with the wind behind us. Just before dusk and after we had crossed the Traffic Separation Scheme, the wind increased, making it difficult for the autohelm to hold a good course as the boat veered first towards the wind and then paid off away from it, so much so that the boomed out genoa would back and then fill violently with a loud 'crack' that should the whole rig. Reluctantly I got out on deck and put a reef in and then an hour later, another!
During the night we had to make a couple of diversions to avoid fishing boats but otherwise it really was plain sailing, albeit at a pretty good lick. We entered Cawsand Bay on the western side of Plymouth Sound at 0310 on Friday morning and dropped the anchor at 0330, then I got the boat tidied up and went to bed at about 0430.
I got up late on Friday and as you can see did a spot of washing - I had run out of anything resembling a clean pair of underpants but had anticipated use of a washing machine which had not happend. After doing the washing I enjoyed a late cooked breakfast and then considered my schedule and the weather forecast for the next few days. My friend George who keeps his lovely wooden sailing boat on the Cattwater in Plymouth was due back from his cruise to the Channel Islands on Sunday morning and I had very much hoped we could meet up. I would also have liked to have met up with my old school pal and ex submariner, Neal, who lived in Plymouth. However, a combination of domestic considerations and the unfolding weather system over the next few days, made an early departure necessary. Three more days of more or less consistent westerlies were forecast before things became more uncertain and as all sailors know, "tide, time and weather waits for no one". A Saturday morning departure should enable me to take full advantage of these winds, whereas I risked losing them if I left it another 24 hours. So my decision was made. I'd slob out for the rest of the day and leave in the morning. I spoke to Sharon and arranged for her to pick me up from Hoo on Thursday. My pal Tony also offered to help ferry me and my gear from boat to shore using the club launch. I was particularly grateful for the offer because I wasn't that confident that my tatty fibreglass dinghy would still still be afloat on the mooring!
So just after 0900 on Saturday I got the anchor up, motored out of the lee of the shore and sailed, slowly at first, out of Plymouth Sound. By 1600 Start Point was astern. We had been sailng goosewinged since leaving Plymouth.
By 1800 the wind had freshened requiring two reefs to quieten the boat down once again and to keep a reasonably steady course under the control of the autohelm.
From time to time slight changes in wind direction and/or course changes required a change of sail plan. This just required setting the genoa to leeward and leaving the pole out ready for the next change back to goosewinged configuration.
I had anticipated a fair amount of down wind sailing on the way back and had rigged a pair of semi permanent boom preventers to protect against accidental gybes, caused when unintentionally, one allows the wind to get behind the mainsail which sends it chrashing across the boat. This can be dangerous to gear and limb and even life and so needs to be avoided wherever possible. On our trip back from the Algarve last year we did a fair bit of down wind sailing too and I had a single preventer rigged on whichever side of the boat the boom was on, as required. But I had crew then and more things could be done at the same time and more quickly. On one's own, during the time it takes to move the preventer across the boat, one could easilly experience an accidental gybe. So I was determined to have two always rigged and ready to be tightened up to prevent the boom from chrashing over.
The preventer line runs from the end of the boom through a block (pulley) at the front of the boat and back down to the cockpit through other blocks. I had bought the line required before leaving Hoo and made them up in Port Cressa after Bast and Joe caught the Ferry to Penzance. It took ages to figure out the right leads for the lines so that they didn't tangle up or chafe on other lines and/or rigging. In fact chafe was impossible to avoid in some cases and so protecting the lines from rubbing on wire rigging and guard rails was required. Luckilly, I had some spare plastic pipe which I made do with. A better long term solution is required however.
Once I started using them in earnest I had to re-run my carefully arranged lines which behaved quite differently at sea as they interacted with genoa sheets and other running rigging. They did the job well and also stopped the boom chrashing about in sloppy seas. They did give rise to a plethora of string criss crossing the decks, causing additional trip hazards - especially when the spinnaker boom was rigged, but the benefits were worth it. They also swallowed up my collection of spare blocks which are bloody expensive. Even now I could really do with another two blocks for each line to ensure a snag free run along the deck. Ideally I could also do with another two (self tailing) winches. Currently the existing winches and cleats have to be used for more than one purpose. Not a great situation.
We gave Portland Bill a wide berth of around 7 miles just after 0100 on Sunday morning and set a course for St Cartherine's Point on the south coast of the Isle of Wight. I had hoped to make a stop in Poole to visit my old friend Badg but the westerlies were now forecast to back into the south east later in the day and I did not want to be held up by them and/or to beat into them, so on we went. We past Anvil Point 9 miles to the north at 0740 and at 0800 I shook out the reefs.
Then for a few hours I made use of the cruising chute alongside the poled out genoa.
[My typing of this post was interupted by what turned out to be a completely fruitless search for a most annoying tapping sound that manifests itself when the boat is rolling downwind. It appears to be coming from the vacinity of the starboard berth/bottom of the chart table, but for the life of me I cannot find it. It sounds like the sort of noise something rolling back and forwards would make, or a weight swinging on a line and hitting something else and bouncing! I’ve opened all the draws and cupboards in the vacinity but the culprit has remained hidden. Of course whenever I investigate closely, it stops only to start up again when I give up. It also seems to move around. I can feel the vibration it makes with my fingers but that hasn’t helped me find it. It really is the most bizare thing! It continues to drive me nuts!]
Over that night I had plently of opportunity during my 20 minute cat-naps on the starboard bunk, to analyse that bloody noise further. I concluded that it was not a rattle but creaking woodwork. I am now 99% convinced, that somewhere, when conditions are just right, two surfaces that are not completely fixed together, move, one against the other and create the noise. Surprisingly, I managed to adjust to it and got some sleep during my 20 minute periods off watch.
As we drew abeam of St Catherine’s point on Sunday morning, I started contemplating where I would stop for a break. I reckoned we could make the eastern Solent before the winds changed and finally decided that an over night stop to the north of St Helen’s Fort, off Bembridge would work well.
I dropped anchor at 1745 and spent a pleasant hour or so in the cockpit in the late afternoon sun with a glass of white wine and spoke to Sharon on the phone. Then I cooked supper. Fresh supplies were almost all gone and so with my last two potatoes and half an onion, added to my last tin of corned beef, I made a sort of corned beef hash - more a stew.
Then an early night. The forecast was right and the night was a very still. My plan was to move on around midday on Monday when both the tides and wind should be favourable.
The forecast was for southerlies/south westeries to kick in around 1300 on Monday after the south easterlies. Conveniently this would coincide with the start of a favourable tide and so it proved. So I got the anchor up and headed east for the Looe channel, a narrow gap between sand banks at the eastern end of the Solent. Ted Heath lost one of his Morning Clouds there in the 1970s - of course they did not have the luxury of electronic navigational aids in those days. On my Dad's boats all we had was a chip log, a log line and a compass. Later Dad bought an RDF set (radio direction finder) but none of us could understand the bloody thing. We passed through the Looe Channel at 1500 and with the return of some easterly component to the wind set of for the north west corner of the Rampion wind farm with the plan to sail along its northern perimiter.
The wind died to a near calm during the evening and we didn't reach the north eastern corner of the wind farm until about 2130 when a course was laid for Beachy Head. Soon after the wind filled in a little. It had gone round to the south west some hours before and with a bit more of an angle on the wind we picked up the pace a little. By 0225 Beachy Head was directly north at a distance of about 2 miles. By 0920 we were well past Dungeness..
... where we were overtaken by a Dutchman under spinnaker..
By this stage the sailing was very pleasant in the warming morning sun.
Just after midday we past the Port of Dover two miles to the North and then shortly afterwards the famous white cliffs..
The wind had now picked up considerably and we were going like the clappers with the wind behind and the sails goosewinged. We really had too much sail up and I just had enough time to scoff a quick lunch of toast and pate before I had to take over the helm as we surfed down the moderate waves at 7+ knots over the ground against a foul tide. I'd calculated that if we held these these sorts of speeds we were in with in with a shout of carrying the flood tide up the Medway and making our mooring before midnight.
On rounding North Foreland we switched from surfing down waves to exciting close hauled sailing as we weeved our way through the various sandbanks. With a rising tide we could afford to take some short cuts but I never saw less than 2 metres on the echo sounder. We reached Garrison Point, the entrance to the Medway at 2020 just as dusk was falling. Our mooring now lay some 10 miles directly up wind and up the river in the dark. I decided that honour had been satisfied when it came to sailing, with the engine only used when anchoring since our departure from Scilly. So on it went and we motored the rest of the way up the river to Hoo and picked up the mooring at 2215. Mind you that was touch and go because the mooring lines attached to the bouy had become hopeless tangled and were unusable. I managed to tie the line on the rising bouy to the base of a stanchion and then quickly attached a temporary mooring line by clambering into the dinghy which had not afterall, sunk!
So ended Bonny's 2022 summer cruise.
What will next year have in store? Will my ambituous plans to start a circumnavigation be remotely possible, given the current economic crisis and its affect on our finances?
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