Guess i'll not be sailing today, Time to paint Whisper then.
Will try to keep this one a bit shorter!The following morning, having set an alarm to not miss the sinking tide, we awoke had a quick breakfast tidied the boat and started to head out of the harbour, the night before had been a strange night - somehow the 2nd night aboard a boat resulted in more aches and pains than the first. I'd been rudely awakened about 3am by an orange rib circling our boat with a spot light.. I assume it was some sort of harbour master - but didn't get a good enough look at them - it's amazing what goes through your mind when your suddenly woken up, your boat rocking up and down, lots of noise and a bright light being shone through your windows! (I have to admit for a few seconds to thinking it was a ufo!) but soon as I poked my head with a torch up through the hatch they motored off.. I do hope it was something formal, they had an orange rib with several arials, lights and a very loud VHF - not the type of boat i'd expect toe rags to use to be stealing outboards etc.. but then why would a harbour master be out at 3am in the dark.. I guess i'll never know Next morning we set off from our mooring bouy a few moments after the Cornish Shrimper, many of the boats still around us although in water, were still aground - we'd not hit the ground at all at low tides, even though those moored either side of us had. It was a better morning than before, a nice strong westerly breeze this time, (i learnt the importance of that in my next adventure) & the tide flooding out of Chi harbour meant we made good time, only about 10 mins from mooring bouy to marker towers outside the harbour, much better than yesterdays 40+ mins, and as a bonus it was 5 hours untill HW! As that was our last night available, it didnt seem viable to go to Bembridge, so having seen on a fellow blog, that Papillon had made it to Nab tower, I was not to be outdone by a 19ft'er we decided to give it a try. Now as i write this is sounds bad, but earlier in the year when I bought myself an Admiralty chart I bought the one for the Solent - in hindsite this is Central Solent, as it covers the area's from Lymington, Cowes, Yarmouth etc but the furthest East it goes is to Portsmouth Harbour, so coming out of Chi I am on 'uncharted water!' It was early morning with only 1 or 2 other boats out so I tried a radio check, after all it was new equipment and other than incoming traffic on Ch16 I had no idea it worked, i've read in many forums how people moan and complain about these checks to the coast guard, so i tried Chichester Marina on Ch80 - no answer, I also tried Sparks - again no answer.. The internet weather reports and the onshore forecast were both good for the day, so we headed south towards the tower - my Pilotage book of the Solent - I have to say has been fantastic, I used this to set a gps waypoint back to Chichester for an emergency, i guess it's better to know your way back than to know your way there?! but most importantly this book has the tidal flow tables. At a speed of 3.5kt's it must of taken about 3.5 hours in total to get to the tower, this is by far the furthest offshore i've been in anything under 37ft, but it felt safe, the waves were a bit choppier nearing the tower and the last 30 mins was spent being out of site of land of Hayling island! but with a breef stop near the tower for photo's and dinner, we headed back, this time with the tide with us the gps was reporting 5.8kt's it felt like we were flying!, we had a distance to travel of 6.5nm's and with a our speed peaking at 6.1kt's we'd be back in no time at all!, too quickly in fact, so after half an hour, and the tower dissapearing nicely behind us, we relaxed the sails and put in a few tacks, so we could just potter our way home. It was nice to finally have a nice relaxing sail, no drama going on, we decided to just take our time and head back to Wilsons, again giving us enough time to empty the boat, and moor up Everything had gone really well, we moored Monty up, Kathy took some of the gear upto the car, I got the trolly for the tender (mini monty!) submerged it, walked along the pontoon and pulled the mooring line on the front of the tender as had as i could, to float it back into deeper water and onto the trolley.. unfortunately as I yanked at the line, the tender slipped past me nicely and I dropped the rope... It's a very strange feeling to be on a pontoon watching your tender sail past you.. it's like when you were a boy and you fell off a bike, suddenly everything goes in s.l.o.w..m.o.t.i.o.n there was no one else around and no choice.. I had to jump in.. so much for a drama free end to my sail! - things i learnt. 1. Change the line on the front of the tender to a floating one, if it had not sunk i could of grabbed it. 2. Don't pull a tender off the ramp and let go of the line! 3. Tie the line loosely around my wrist! or failing this see point #2 4. before jumping off a pontoon into waist deep water remove your mobile phone from your leg pockets, or revert to point #2 !! 5. Failing point #2 keep spare shoes and socks in the car! this saves you having to walk through a boat yard with very squelchy shoes in the sort of walk thats best discribed as a cowboy who's sh*t himself! The next morning, having not set an alarm, and having had a fairly hectic night (see below posts) we woke up about 8am, a little later than planned, but still hopefully early enough to make it to Bembridge on the next tide, there was a gentle breeze blowing in the harbour, not much, but hopefully with a small boat like Monty we'd be fine. We packed away and neatly (for us) stored the sleeping bags and pillows etc the tide by now was about - 3.5hrs HW so in reality we had only gained 1 hour! (as my tidal mooring is +/- 2.5hrs HW) but none the less it was an experience and that one hour could be make or break!. We decided to save some time & use up the milk before it got too warm we and start on the mini selections of breakfast cerials we'd bought with us, after all we'd be spending our next night on Bembridge beach so could have the eggs and bacon then! I'm not a fan of the expression "Every days a school day" however every trip out on a boat you learn something new! - well soon as we set off from our 'borrowed' mooring and down to the harbour entrance @ -3.5HW in Chichester means you are motoring out of the harbour entrance against a steady 3kts of tide.. With my headsail up (yet undecided if this is a Gib or Genoa) and PutPut on 50% we were making headway of 1kt.. i know this because I was sitting on the boat watching some early morning fishermen walk past us at nearly 3 times our speed, set up their gear & cast in, anyway I put the time to good use and started to set up the Garmin 72 gps that came with the boat. it must of taken us best part of 40 mins to get to the first pole outside of Chichester at which point it became very apparent there was no wind.. not even the gentle breeze we'd felt waking up on our mooring bouy.. we just bobbed up and down with gently water lapping at Monties side.. with PutPut now resting as she'd gotten a bit warm fighting the tidal flow we just drifted with the tide about 1/3 mile in 30 mins.. I didn't want to have to motor the entire way to Bembridge, in fact 2 stroke outboards aren't the most frugal of methods for getting anywhere, So our options were: 1. Motor the entire way to Bembridge (not keen as noise + fuel usage + reliability = no fun) 2. Go back into Chichester for a gentle sail, & try to catch the earlier breeze 3. Go home (not keen as spent a lot of $$ and time preping & stocking the boat) We decided we'd go back into Chichester harbour, there really was no wind by now, so we went back upto our over night mooring and moored up, on a warm sunny day with no wind and no tide there's nothing else to do but have a couple of hours snooze. (this time I set an alarm so as to NOT miss the tide!) When we woke up it was HW+1.5, still no wind, so we cast off our mooring and headed back upto Wilsons Boat Yard, We then had a bright idea of heading back to the boat yard, tying up on the pontoon, using the free showers and loo's for an SBD! (shore based dump! (somethings you just CAN'T do in a bucket!)) then head back to our overnight mooring and just chill - after all we had eggs, we had bacon, we had cider! - it would be rude not too! So just over an hour later with a quickly going out tide (ebb?) we were leaving Wilsons pontoon, somewhat cleaner, lighter and feeling refreshed as we headed back to 'our' mooring bouy we saw some guy in a 36ft'er just mooring up!, but luckily there was still 3 more that i've never seen used all season, just a little further in shore than last nights, so we took up on one of those. Dinner consisted off 2 freshly cooked Bacon Egg & Mushroom burgers and a fairly cold cider! Now anyone that's spent a night moored in Chi harbour will know what I mean here, but the sunset was amazing, well rather the noise & qty of birds that just seem to come out of nowhere! I have some photo's of the tide going further and further out till out gps read -6 meters to sea level (kind of worrying that!) but the mud banks that on a high tide make up the sea floor some 4-5 meters below you were on a level half way up our mast, it was an amazing experience, kind of creepy yet amazing to see at the same time, the nearest thing i can think of to describe the noise is on BBC wildlife when they show you a rainforest at night. You can see from the photo's why it's important to not cut the wrong side of the navigation poles on anything buy the highest of tides too! - just before low tide, a fairly new looking Cornish Shrimper style boat (lifting keel) came and moored up just 2 bouys down, this was no bother to me! but fairly amusing when Kathy had to use the bucket! The time had come for our first over night trip!, The plan was simple..
1. Go to Hayling at 10.30-11pm and move the boat off my tidal mooring, bring her to the pontoon and load her up and then motor down to a deep water mooring so we beat the tide tomorrow. 2. Sleep on the boat. 3. Wake up next day, cook a nice breakfast and head over to Bembridge by the next rising tide. Well i've always said a plan is just a list of things that never happen, and today was no different! We made it to the boatyard about 11pm.. amazing how noisy it is getting a tender out of a rack and down a slipway in the middle of the night, my new argos White / Red L.E.D headlamp was a superb purchase at £11.99, as per normal of one of Mine and Kathy's trips we'd packed enough for 2 weeks.. but we set about loading up the tender with a few bits including us and rowed over to Monty. At the end of the previous trip, or shackle on our bow mooring bouy at Wilsons had somehow lost its bar, and Month had turned 180 degrees on her stern bouy, luckily we were on board at the time, and a friendly mooring neighbour came and rescued us on his tender!, However this left us with a soon to be discovered new problem. We both got on board in the dark safely, and unloaded a couple of bits, tied up the tender, readied PutPut the outboard, and set the bow bouy ready to slip, unknown to us at the time, the line that connects the Bow & Sten bouys together was diagonally under our keels.. With our outboard running we let off the bow line, i let off the stern line and pulled it clear of the prop and we attempted to move forward and to starbourd off our mooring.. after about 3 feet something seemed wrong! - we weren't moving!! the outboard didn't feel entangled, from what little light my headlight had shining into the water in the dark I couldn't see a rope but we were not moving! I was able to get the boat to rock left and right, so being aground didn't seem like a reason.. so i turned off the outboard (amazing how noisey a 2 stroke is at midnight!) and waited.. By this time, the tide was rising fast.. and i realised leaving Birtha, my trusty CRV at the bottom of a boat launching ramp with an incomming tide was not my wisest of moves! at the time it felt like a safe thing to do, using her headlights to help with the tender etc! With the outboard not running, the boat slowly started to do whats best described as pivot, on the spot.. not a bad thing as it turned the way we needed to be heading, still no lines visible around the prop - the only thing i could think of, was the lines must be caught around our keels.. so with the newspaper headlines of next days papers going through my mind of "Man runs boat aground yet sucessfully launches his 4x4" I quickly started Putput & put her into reverse.. It was a Eureeka moment! Monty gentlly sailed backwards & you could see from the position of the tender (tied to the stern bouy) & our Bow bouy we were now clear of the lines.. We quickly motored Monty over to the pontoon, by this time the tide was lapping at the front wheels of my 4x4 so I hastily re-parked into an allocated spot - loaded up the boat and headed off into the dark. We motored out about 1/2 a mile, onto the deeper water moorings, there was a pick up emtpy ones to grab, we moored up and gladly went to sleep on our first night spent aboard! New gear purchased for this trip: 1. Standard Horizon 750e VHF Hand Held Radio 2. Draper Rechargable 10,000 Candle power Spot light 3. Argos Energiser duel colour Red and White LED Head lamp (red light is very good for looking at things close by, like charts and not ruining your night vision) 4. Morrisons square grill pan (ideal for cooking 2 portions of egg & bacon) Lessons learnt this trip: 1. Next time if at all possible, load up the boat in day light, putting fuel into a black outboard in the dark wasn't fun, & having to get onto the pontoon and load up with the tide-clock ticking made things feel rushed. 2. Don't leave a car you actually value on a ramp with a rising tide! - you may take longer to motor to the pontoon than you first think! 3. If your bow bouy is front starboard & your stern bouy is rear Port side, then there is a mooring line diagonally under your keels! - yes this sounds obvious, but not the first thing you think of in the dark on a trip out when worried about your car! - See point 2 ! 4. Have back up plans, and back up back up plans! - as I said before - a plan is just a list of things that never happens! Hi and apologies for taking so long to update my blog, it's been a very busy month both on and off the subject of sailing!I passed my day skipper course! & highly recommend StormForce coaching in Southampton if anyone is looking to take the same course - Adam was a superb instructor oh and they also send out discounts for the Southampton Boat show :) I finally got Monty (Leisure 17SL) into the water & on the mooring & have taken her out 5 times i think now, with 3 of those being quite memorable for both good and bad reasons! I will never forget the feeling of a fantastic voyage that only a few people in history would of felt, namely Christopher Columbus, Captain James Cook & now Skipper Graham Allan.. well this was the feeling I had the first time I ventured out of the infamous Chichester Harbour entrance! It was a warm sunny day, a gentle breeze and a gentle sea.. 'Lets just do it!' the crew (Kathy) agreed and off we sailed.. well motored actually, it felt like we'd gone for miles.. we cleared the entrance, went to the first marker post and turned right.. it was a high tide & the depth was showing at over 5 meters, we pulled up the sails & turned trusty PutPut the outboard off.. we sailed along in front of Hayling island, putting in a few tacks and gybes to see how the boat handled - & I have to say it's a superb difference over the last boat.. Having real keels with balast means it doesn't matter where you store the cool back with the diet cokes in! the boat also steers where YOU need it to go, and not just left.. in fact I was surprised just how well it will point into the wind. We sailed around aimlessly for about an hour & then headed back into the harbour for safety, after all at this time I had no VHF & no GPS! - my safety kit was lifejackets, Flares and a mobile phone!. After i'd got home I checked online for some of the yellow dingy racing bouys we'd sailed around.. & was quite amazed to see i'd only gone roughly 1 mile south of Hayling! that kind of explains the 2 people coming past us on paddle boards! So far so good! A very warm day with a gentle breeze, felt great to be out of the harbour and away from all the suicidal dinghy sailors! Tacking and Gybing to check out the boat & get a feel for it, only problem we found is the main sail seems to be undersize, When we made it to Parker - we thought we'd travelled miles!! Google earth later confirmed It was roughly - 1 mile! Captured a photo of a Lancaster bomber that flew past us, on its was to the Bournemouth Airshow 2011, the same day that, sadly one of the Red Arrows pilots was killed. On the way back in, felt nice to be in a 'proper boat' for once and holding a place in the 'traffic' rather than feeling you're in the way and need to move like I do in a dinghy or my old WWP 14 Some local wild life came to check we'd got back onto our mooring safely ! & see if we had spare rations on board! |
AuthorAfter dinghy sailing in the Itchen river for 2 seasons, in 2010 I bought my own first boat, a West Wight Potter 14, then in 2011 I bough a Leisure 17SL, which we loved and used so much, but quickly out grew so we bought a Hunter Horizon 23, now, 3 years later we have a bilge keel Moody 28, hopefully she will last us a good few years to come. Trips so far this year.
Sea Holly - 2017 14/04/17 Oriole - 2017 Bowman 57 Distance - 498 miles A Total of 498 Tidal Miles Archives
May 2017
CategoriesUsefull web links
Noteable journeys Wilsons Boatyard to Chichester marina Wilsons to Nab Tower Wilsons to Haslar marina for lunch & back Wilsons to Bembridge via Ryde for overnighter 24/09/11 |