We-ell, was there really nothing notable since last August? Yes and no. We've only been day sailing down the Medway and back, so not much on the way of passage plans and navigation. Not adventuring as such. Yet every trip out has its moments, and every sail is a joy. So let's catch up a little bit with quite a long blog of log extracts followed by some general notes on river sailing.
30 Aug: F3-4 NW, sunny, warm, many boats, lovely calm sail down river with foresail only, turned at Stangate Creek and beat back. Had Kevin our decorator on board, many years ago he worked at the Isle of Grain docks, interested to see it from the water for the first time.
01 Sep: F3 W, hazy sun, foresail only to Stangate, saw Orca (Geoff & Ness) on their way back, tacked back into F4 with full main & 1 reef in foresail (makes winching on short tacks less onerous)
08 Sep: F2-3 SW, motored down into early flood, wind built at Darnett Fort so foresail only in F3-5 to Stangate buoy, tacked back with the main flood into SW 5-6 gusting 7 with full main and 2/3 foresail
18 Sep: F3 NW, full sails, ~3kn against the flood, last of the flood down to the bottom of Stangate Creek, tacked around S of Slaughterhouse Pt., motor-sailed back in F4-5 NW
12 Oct: F3-4 E, cool & sunny, tacked all the way out past Sheerness. Colin & Jo on board from Trutz - the lovely people who gave us a sail in their Nicholson 35 out of Chichester harbour on a blowy day before we bought ours, so we could see how it handled. (Obviously we liked it :-). Wind died on the return, motored back, saw a seal close by in Kethole Reach.
15 Oct: F3-4 W, cold & sunny, went out to fill fuel tank for the winter (fuel pontoon is outside our locked marina) - as we were out, we motored up to Rochester bridge, the upriver limit for masts, and sailed back under foresail only.
17 Oct: F4-6 W, both sails - the Log just says 'down and back' ! I think that's when we started leaving lockers open and running the dehumidifier - clever machine that, very effective
05 Dec: ran engine on pontoon, doubled up the warps
25 Dec: drank a toast to sailing in general and SIRENA IV in particular, dehumidifier being too clever, thinks there's blockage in outlet pipe to sink, fills it's own tank and stops
18 Jan: F5 SSE, beat up to cranes with one reef in main and foresail and roared back on a beam/broad reach - cold but not bitter, lucky to miss large swathes of black cloud. Saw a seal again (see 12 Oct). Lock-keeper said "thank god someone is going out". We had to force ourselves a bit to go out, and once out were extremely pleased that we did - it's the way with winter sailing. Despite sporting a nice skirt of weed, and probably plenty of barnacles underneath, she sailed very well reaching 6kn through the water.
General observations: short tacking above F3 for us older ones is a lot easier with a reefed foresail (ours is a 140% genoa) and does not seem to reduce performance; short tacking up (or down) the river with the tide is ok - doing it against the tide is soul-destroying and we choose to motor-sail with just the main when against the tide; with the wind behind and no particular hurry, sailing under foresail only is easy and pleasant - the bends in the river would mean multiple gybing and anyway the main masks the genoa (when we buy a whisker pole, we might use the main more, with a preventer of course).
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Friday, 9 August 2013
Back on the nose
This blog relates to Wed 31 Jul. The forecast is SSW 4-5 occasionally 6 - that's fine for us to return to Gillingham, might even be able to sail most of the way. The tide times are such that we leave at 1230, push against the last of the ebb up to N Foreland, then take the flood into the Thames Estuary - that's the Reeds Almanac advice anyway.
After a morning of engine checks and various jobs around the boat we set off with a pretty brisk wind already. With just 2/3 of the genoa up we roared along in 24-28kn of wind - F6+. Our genoa looks awful because when we furled it in the gale coming in 2 days ago, the UV protection strip shredded into tatters - it had done it's job, over unknown years, and now gave up the ghost.
Once again we eschewed the coastal or 'overground' route via Copperas because we'd be there at low tide and with this much wind it's too risky to do a narrow shallow channel for the first time - we'll keep it for a calmer day.
So it was further north and then a port turn, back down the Queens Channel, and we have learned about how deceptive the wind strength is when running before compared to beating into it; we furled the foresail and hoisted a 2-reefed main, and then set off down Queens in a WSW direction. Guess what, the wind is not SSW, but more like SW to WSW - yep, on the nose.
We didn't fancy short-tacking all the way back, so it was more motor-sailing - just like old times (see May & Jun). The wind and seas gradually calmed down a little as we closed with the land along the Isle of Sheppey and into the Medway, where the foul tide against us started an hour earlier than the predicted HW. We arrived home into Gillingham Marina at 2130 - a 9 hour trip back, compared to the 7 hour trip out.
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| beach huts at Broadstairs |
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| North Foreland |
Once again we eschewed the coastal or 'overground' route via Copperas because we'd be there at low tide and with this much wind it's too risky to do a narrow shallow channel for the first time - we'll keep it for a calmer day.
So it was further north and then a port turn, back down the Queens Channel, and we have learned about how deceptive the wind strength is when running before compared to beating into it; we furled the foresail and hoisted a 2-reefed main, and then set off down Queens in a WSW direction. Guess what, the wind is not SSW, but more like SW to WSW - yep, on the nose.
We didn't fancy short-tacking all the way back, so it was more motor-sailing - just like old times (see May & Jun). The wind and seas gradually calmed down a little as we closed with the land along the Isle of Sheppey and into the Medway, where the foul tide against us started an hour earlier than the predicted HW. We arrived home into Gillingham Marina at 2130 - a 9 hour trip back, compared to the 7 hour trip out.
A day in Ramsgate
This blog relates to Tue 30 Jul. It was always our plan to spend a lazy day in Ramsgate - "that's lucky" said the man in the marina office "because there's a gale coming through this afternoon". And it did, with lowering skies and driving rain before it. A veritable fleet of Dutch yachts were pinned in the marina around us.
We visited the Maritime Museum on the quayside which was excellent for the history of Ramsgate and especially the boats involved in Dunkirk. We lunched at the cafe in the Information building (town council upstairs), which was ok but of course we found more interesting places afterwards; next time check out the Belgian cafe at the end of Harbour Parade. Further south on the same road is the Pelosi ice-cream parlour, which is magnificent - style, awards, family history, and of course the ice-cream.
After the obligatory sweep of charity shops, we spent a fascinating 20 minutes in 'Arch 15' on the quayside, a piled-high cornucopia of quintessentially English junk ... with prices set for the foreign tourist/yachtie we reckon. As always, it's just fun looking. Ramsgate is a mix of great regency buildings and modern developments.
We dined out at 'Age & Sons', a restaurant hidden away in Charlotte Court, off York St, and it was a superb experience. They have a Bib Gourmand from Michelin, and the food was excellent and no more expensive than a lot of pubs. The building used to be a wine warehouse run by Page & Sons, and when the Leigh family took it over a few years ago the 'P' had fallen off - hence the name. We like that!
We visited the Maritime Museum on the quayside which was excellent for the history of Ramsgate and especially the boats involved in Dunkirk. We lunched at the cafe in the Information building (town council upstairs), which was ok but of course we found more interesting places afterwards; next time check out the Belgian cafe at the end of Harbour Parade. Further south on the same road is the Pelosi ice-cream parlour, which is magnificent - style, awards, family history, and of course the ice-cream.
After the obligatory sweep of charity shops, we spent a fascinating 20 minutes in 'Arch 15' on the quayside, a piled-high cornucopia of quintessentially English junk ... with prices set for the foreign tourist/yachtie we reckon. As always, it's just fun looking. Ramsgate is a mix of great regency buildings and modern developments.
We dined out at 'Age & Sons', a restaurant hidden away in Charlotte Court, off York St, and it was a superb experience. They have a Bib Gourmand from Michelin, and the food was excellent and no more expensive than a lot of pubs. The building used to be a wine warehouse run by Page & Sons, and when the Leigh family took it over a few years ago the 'P' had fallen off - hence the name. We like that!
Wild & Woolly Ramsgate
We had a few days free, so thought we'd 'pop' along to Ramsgate - never been there, heard good reports, would get us away from jobs in the house for 3 days, boat hasn't moved for almost 4 weeks since the completion of the big adventure (see May to early Jul) ... all good excuses.
Much delving into charts, almanacs, tidal stream atlases and the East Coast Pilot showed that Gillingham to Ramsgate could all be done on a fair tide, given a reasonable following wind (literally). It's down to how the tide flows around North Foreland. The return journey requires setting out into a foul tide for an hour or so, or having a foul tide at the end in the Medway, or stopping somewhere on the way - more of that later perhaps.
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| Ramsgate west marina, town in background |
So we stocked up with 4 days food (it's a 3-day exercise and we expect to eat out, but you can't be too careful), and settled in at Gillingham yesterday - delicious that, on a Sunday evening when many around us were leaving no doubt for work the next morning.
The alarm went off at 0530, and because we are out of practice and we messed around getting out of our new berth for the first time, we exited the lock into the Medway at 0700. A fine SW F4 was behind us and we zoomed out of the Medway, across the Cant along Four Fathoms Channel with one reef in the main and half the genoa. Here the wind began to build and speeds of 8.5 kn SOG (speed over ground = speed through water + tide) were achieved. Helming was exciting but also hard work, and the forecast for Ramsgate later was even more wind (18 gusting 25kn), so we prudently put the second reef into the main - we can do this all from the cockpit which is great for safety and communication, especially with extremely lumpy seas ... did I mention that we were sailing for miles, and miles offshore, with just 2-3m under the keel - that's the Thames Estuary.
We then went up Queens Channel before turning starboard down to North Foreland and past to Ramsgate. This is because we didn't fancy the 'overland route' near the N Kent coast (recently re-buoyed) because it has even less depth and we were on a falling tide. The turn to starboard coincided with more than the promised even more wind, and the last bit of the Thames Estuary did it's best lumpy seas (short, steep, breaking). So we furled the foresail (easy to say, hard to do in a 30kn wind) and motor-sail tacked down to Ramsgate (it's pointless motoring straight into the wind and waves, they slow you down too much). By then we were seeing 35kn sustained gusts (F8 gale).
It was too rough to douse the main or deploy fenders and warps, so after seeking permission by VHF to the Port Control we shot into the harbour using the recommended yacht track to minimise encounters with ferries, and did all that prep stuff in the Royal Harbour whilst motoring in circles (to avoid being blown into a corner). We were gently told off by Port Control for entering with a sail up, and we briefly touched bottom because we'd forgotten about the sandbank in the middle of the inviting open space before the pontoons - but we slotted into a berth without too much palaver despite the fierce cross-wind and partly down to helpful neighbours catching our lines and doing the right things with them.
A small exploration of Ramsgate will be followed by a bigger one tomorrow - and there may be a report on that. We did sit on a bench and watch the inshore lifeboat go out to an approaching yacht who presumably had no engine power, and while they helped them into harbour two bigger lifeboats went out and zoomed off somewhere - it was that kind of day.
First maintenance task - toilet pump
It's quite important to have a functioning toilet, and we discovered on the last day of our 49-day trip halfway round the UK that our pump had started leaking.
It was a minor weepage from somewhere around the pump, impossible to see the detail because it's bolted inside the wet locker behind the toilet.
It was a minor weepage from somewhere around the pump, impossible to see the detail because it's bolted inside the wet locker behind the toilet.
Start-up
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| Arrived in Gillingham, the gasometer landmark in the background |
Not every trip of course, just those where something notable happened.
We might also blog about boat maintenance & equipment additions, where we think it might interest or help other people.
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