2024 March 30th Days 1 - 2, Hamble to Hurst and Portland.

The objectives of and preparations for the trip can be found here: 2024 - Towards Muckle Flugga?

For the past week the start date has been touch and go, on Thursday it was off but Friday mornings forecast from 6 different models was OK for Saturday and Sunday with a reasonable chance of getting to Brixham or beyond on Monday and Plymouth or Fowey by the end of the week, dodging bad weather. The remaining worry was the very strong wind still blowing but forecast to drop during the day.

One of at least two sails trashed in Thursday nights blow, each
within view from my boat. The other was a seriously expensive
  hi-tech sail, completely shredded, on a 40+ ft boat. And neither will be
covered by insurance as they were not caused by contact with
something other than the wind or water.

The car was quickly loaded and after a visit to the supermarket I was at the club by 12:00. The wind was about 15 knots so it was safe to use the dinghy and the club launches were operating. Two trips to the boat had everything aboard, getting the outboard off the dinghy and onto the boat was worrying when a squall came through and we were bouncing around but the derrick did the job and by 15:30 the launch picked me up and I was home in time for dinner.

On Saturday it was a 3.5 hour journey by train and bus back to the boat which went pretty well although my arthritis is still complaining about the brisk walk from the station to the bus stop. I had largely prepared the boat for sea on Friday so hoped for a quick get away on first high water but when I turned on the electronics the wind instruments were not working, they had been two weeks previously.

I had a pretty good idea what the problem was, a very expensive "waterproof " plug and socket by Aquasignal was not very water proof, it had failed a year ago and I had hard wired the connection and it had worked fine for a couple of thousand miles and a winter on the mooring but gave up the ghost at the last minute, but there were 2 good points, it had failed before I left rather than just after and I had taken the precaution of buying a replacement (of a different make) and it was on board with a length of the correct cable.

It was a struggle to get it done quickly but with the timber headlining I put on a few years ago getting access to the tag block under the deck was easy, although I did not get panels back up until this morning (Monday) at Portland. I made it with a few minutes to spare and slipped at slack water on the second high, 15 minutes later and I might not have got off with the ebb tide and a SE wind.

The brisk wind dropped and backed as I passed Calshot and I reached down to Hurst under headsail only, because I could not be bothered to put up the main as I had plenty of time to get there and with the delay there was no question of heading further west. If the sail had not put a shadow over the deck it would have been a pleasant warm sail rather than just a pleasant one.

Dusk at Hurst. 11 NM in 2 3/4 hours

Sunday - Hurst to Portland

I set the alarm for 04:00 BST (BST starting at 02:00) a couple of hours into the ebb tide but was awake at 02:00Z so had the anchor up and was away at 03:30 BST (all future times Local) with a light wind from the SE but more forecast. I motored through Hurst narrows and turned quickly into the North channel to avoid having the Shingles bank under my lea; I generally prefer this route as it avoids the over-falls at "Bridge" and once through the short channel you are further from dangers, there is then a bit less tide but often you make that up sailing a slightly shorter route.

The wind was forecast to rise so, being close to a run,  I did not bother with the mainsail [as it turned out this was to be a theme for the whole cruise due to strong winds]. The wind gradually increased and I made good speed although at some discomfort because the boat was rolling a lot with a following wind and the sea on the beam. I passed St Albans still with a fair tide the wind was now F5 and but with the sea more behind me life was more comfortable apart from the cold. 

I had thought to head round Portland Bill on the outside route but with the cold and tiredness from all of the rolling it was an easy decision to abandon that when I saw the forecast and I headed for Portland. It was a good decision not to try for more, the wind piped up with a few miles to go and if I had decided to get round the Bill on the offshore route I would have been plugging into 2 - 3 knots of tide with F6 behind me that would create ugly seas. 

Hurst to Portland 40 NM in seven and a quarter hours, averaging
better than 6 knots over the ground if you ignore anchoring time.
Tide vectors from when I took the snapshot after arrival.

After some experiments over the winter, Sunday dinner was egg fried rice with chicken and water chestnuts, new on the boat but so easy it and variants are likely to be regular events, especially at fishing harbours when I can get prawns.

Monday morning was sunny with no wind when I got up
to chase away the crows making a mess on the deck, by the
time I had made the coffee the breeze had set in and by 12:00
if was F4 - 5. 

The forecast for the next couple of days is not pleasant and with the inshore route not viable I am staying put.

Inshore water forecast from Selsey to Lyme Regis at 07:00 Monday.

24 hour forecast: South or southwest 4 to 6, increasing 6 or 7 for a time later. Slight or moderate be moderate or rough later. Showers, perhaps thundery. Good, occasionally poor at first.

Outlook for the following 24 hours: Southwest 4 to 6. Moderate or rough. Showers, then rain. Moderate or good.

And the lunch time one west from Lyme was worse:

24 hour forecast: South or southwest 4 to 6, veering west or southwest 6 to gale 8 for a time. Slight or moderate, becoming moderate or rough. Showers, occasional rain later. Good, occasionally poor. 

The problem is, with the updated forecasts I could be here for a week ☹️, I'm at anchor in about 5 metres of water, with good holding and an 8:1 scope of chain with plenty of water behind me so should be OK in whatever gets thrown at me but it could be gusting 45+ knots at the end of the week by which time I would welcome a shower so will probably pony up for a couple of nights in the marina.

Anchorpro plot overnight, arriving in F6 easterly, veering
to SSW F4 with more to come.

ECMWF gust map for Friday.

Click here for the move to the marina.

2023 7th August, Days 1 + 2 To Studland

Off again! A reasonable trip to Bursledon by train and when I arrived the boat was already in the water and had been moved to a marina berth and, providing I waited for the flood tide to ease, saving me any serious problems getting out,

The weather was good and bad, initially there was a very light wind so I was able to get the headsail hoisted and furled on the berth and although fresher the wind was not an issue when I left  a little before 4 o'clock. Things changed big time as I left the Hamble and the wind blew up until it was 22 - 25 knots gusting a little, with the SW wind blowing straight up the western Solent for 10 miles into over 2 knots of tide the seas were pretty evil for the Solent and it was very wet trip as I motored down to Hurst for a quite night.

The Hurst anchorage, the new bank left of centre caused by work
on the castle to stabilise it. The anchorage appears to be a little
deeper than previously and the tide stronger.

17 miles in 3 hours.

Tuesday

The forecast for today was not good with rain and drizzle predicted to set in mid to late morning with a F4-5 south westerly, the models downloaded on Monday evening showed gusts to about 24 knots. But there was a window early morning when the wind would be F3, as this corresponded to a favourable tide out of the Solent and to points west I weighed anchor at 04:15 for a quick dash before breakfast the 16 miles to Studland where there is less tide than at Hurst and which, with a reasonable forecast for Wednesday, should enable me to sail to Portland in one tide even if I have to beat part of the way.

16 miles in two and three-quarters of an hour.

Click here for Portland

2023 Plans

The April wind rose for Portland from Predictwind
showing the preponderance of favourable winds
to get from the Hamble to the west, the only month
of the year when westerlies are not predominant.

In anticipation of the web site disappearing (probably in the distant future) I have converted the more important threads into PDF documents so I'll have a continuing record. These are somewhat easier to read, I have not made any significant edits but there are fewer pictures and no video. Links from downloaded copies should still work if on line. I may later put further links to Flickr for videos but probably not for the slide shows because of the effort required and the likely hood of the Flickr library disappearing with the web site (with thousands of images it has to be paid for). 2023 St Kilda.

Click here to go straight to the sailing skipping over all the preliminaries.

February; and it is still five or six weeks before I can realistically go sailing, the boat needs one delivery trip with stores, cloths etc., half a days work to prepare her for sea and a scrub after being on the mooring for five months. The big problem with self ablating (polishing) anti foul is that if you don't use the boat the depleted paint does not polish off and it stops working so the bottom and particularly the boot line (the white strip on the waterline) are filthy, enough to noticeably reduce boat speed. 

Of course the other side of the coin is if you use the boat a lot the antifoul gets depleted quickly so I get caught both ways.

To save quite a lot of money I will, wind permitting, dry her out in the RAFYC maintenance dock on the 13th March and attack the mess with the industrial power washer, change the shaft anodes, and I will then be ready to go. 

The plan is to have another go at St Kilda visiting Barra and hopefully the Monach Isles on-route, then either continue to Orkney and hopefully Shetland or to come south to Pwllheli for the start of the Jester Challenge to Baltimore (IRE) in mid June - that plan failed in 2021 but I may have a bit more time this year..

There is a good chance of easterly winds during April and often in late March, to help me down to Land's End, much preferable to bashing into a westerly, so I'll be tracking the weather very carefully. 

To be able to use the inshore route around Portland Bill at daybreak I will be looking for decent weather with an easterly wind about two days before a neap tide so the 15th or 29th March would suit, the 13th April is after Easter so I might bite the bullet of an overnight trip with no sleep and go direct from the Solent to The Start on a spring tide in early April.

Hopefully it will still be possible to anchor behind Hurst Point  now that a new bank has appeared, probably due to work stabilising Hurst Castle. Even close to neaps the depth of water was marginal over much of the area with a charted depth of only c 1m at LAT and 2.1m at LW on the 15th March and 3.3m in the deeper spots (Sancerre draws 1.7 metres) , it may be shallower or deeper now towards  Keyhaven, hopefully the latter. I'll investigate on the day and go on to Studland if necessary.

Video by Nick Boxall on U-Tube

Update 18th Feb:

Looking good for favourable winds in mid to late march but it could be cold, we shall see.

Preparing for the scrub.

2022 St Kilda Days 1 & 2 to Portland

Day 1

Two days that went very smoothly, apart from finding that I had put one mainsail slide in upside down! 

The train was on time and I opted to take the Bus from Southampton rather than train to Netley then picking up the same bus service, I was fortunate to cover the half mile walk in time to catch the bus with about 2 minutes to spare and I was in Hamble an hour or two earlier than would have been the case if I had continued by train.

One thing that puzzled me, I got to Southampton with one change of train and it cost c £25, the alternate service (2 out of every 3 trains during the day) involved three changes, tales longer and costs £42!

A very short hop on the water taxi out to the boat and I was underway at 14:20 more than an hour ahead of scheduled with the boat fully prepared for sea, to make the tide I had expected to have to put on the sheets etc whilst underway. It was a pleasantly warm afternoon with about 10 knots of wind a little east of south.

Hamble to the anchorage behind Hurst.

Entering Southampton water there was some commercial traffic so I continued under engine on the east side until it was past then headed towards Hurst, sailing from Calshot point and making good progress on the ebb tide. The wind started to veer when I was halfway and then died, I gave it an hour then motored the last few miles arriving at 17:35 for a quite but short night. 15 miles in five and a half hours.

The Hurst anchorage, I was much closer in then when I stopped
off here last year.

Day 2

A very early start was needed and I woke up an hour before the alarm and thought I might as well get started and was underway at 03:00. I have compensated a little by changing ships time to BST a couple of days early, partly to make tomorrows early start seem better but mainly because the instruments are still on BST from last year.

Leaving early turned out to be a good move. Going down the Needles channel the wind was only 4 or 5 knots from the north but with 3 knots and more of following tide there was not enough to maintain steerage in the strong tides of the channel so I motored out to SW Shambles when I got there and turned towards Anvil Point the wind piped up to c 10 knots and I had a Force 4 N - NE breeze  all the way to Portland vs the forecast E or NE, that was good news as I was going much faster and covered the 35 miles in 7 hours on one tide.

It was a bit chilly but not really cold and it warmed up quickly from about 9:30 and by lunch time it was 28 degrees.

Dawn off of St Alban's Head.

I was the only one in the main anchorage, not even a single
resident boat on the moorings, and just one boat on the moorings
outside of the marina.

Tomorrow is likely to be interesting, a breezy day is promised and I'll be using the inshore route rather later in the "gate" than I have done before, with a N or NE wind forecast I should even be able to sail round which at least will reduce the risk from Lobster pot floats. However the forecast wind strength for Saturday has been increasing over the last couple of days and if that trend continues it could make the inshore route iffy and I could be delayed,

Slide show of photos so far:

Click here for the next post.

2021 Late Summer Cruise, Days 1 & 2.

In anticipation of the web site disappearing (probably in the distant future) I have converted the more important threads into PDF documents so I'll have a continuing record . These are somewhat easier to read, I have not made any significant edits but there are fewer pictures and no video. Links from downloaded copies should still work if on line. I may later put further links to Flickr for videos but probably not for the slide shows because of the effort required and the likely hood of the Flickr library disappearing with the web site (with thousands of images it has to be paid for). 2021 Late summer cruise to the Isles of Scilly.

Off again!

And again I was delayed by the weather, I had planned to leave over the weekend for the best tides but delayed going to the boat until Monday because of high winds, ideally I would have left very early next morning but a forecast at 18:00 of winds F3-5 occasionally F6 meant I did not bother to set the alarm. The forecast at 06:30 ish looked a bit better having dropped the "occ F6" but with the tide going out I could not get off of the mooring, if I was to avoid an over night sail the best thing to do would be a short sail down the Solent to anchor behind Hurst for the night then head out on Wednesday morning at c 07:00 towards the west with a full 6 hours of helping tide.

The quickest sail to Hurst would be to leave early evening to take the Ebb tide down the Solent but I decided to leave at lunchtime rather than sit and twiddle my thumbs, with winds varying from 6 knots to c17 over the ground, it took 6 hours, rather than the 2 or 3 I usually take and it was a good reminder of the problems of beating against a 2 knot tide (& it’s usually more) in a small boat. 

The anchorage behind Hurst Castle that guards Hurst Narrows,
the western entrance to the Solent. There where 5 boats there
overnight and apart from a very nice and very expensive Rustler
37 all were less than 32 ft and I am fairly sure all were being
sailed single handed. I have seen at least 2 before, Dido
pictured here and Samsara.

"Samsara" a Rival 32 owned by John Passmore aka "Old
Man Sailing" last seen in Baltimore, in southern Ireland in 2019

Wednesday dawned blustery living up to the forecast of F3 - 5, unfortunately it was from the west to southwest, not ideal going west. The quickest start would be straight down the Needles Channel to get the strongest tide, but it was already blowing 15 knots which against the ebbing tide could result in some very choppy seas and nasty over-falls so I went out using the narrow channel north of the Shingles Bank.

My track from Hurst to Studland, a well timed tack and a slight
wind change got me there by 11:45

With the westerly wind forecast to back to the southwest I stood out too sea, with a choppy sea even with a brisk wind with 20 knots over the deck progress was rather slow and it became clear that I would probably get past Anvil Point before the tide changed but I would not be able to get past St Albans which would result in a very late arrival in Portland so I decided to head for Studland.

19 miles over the ground in 5 hours.

Click here for Day 3, Studland to Portland.