2023 10th August Day 4 To Cawsand Bay, Plymouth

The gate through the Portland inshore route opened at 05:34 but some daylight is needed for the approach as there is usually a lot of pot buoys to avoid, civil twilight started at  05:12 so 06:00 at the Bill was more realistic. As is often the case I was awake before the alarm so had some coffee whilst waiting for the planed start of 04:30, in the event it being a dark night I waited a bit longer for the light to improve enough to see unlit boats and markers, with a nice clean hull I caught up the time, even against a 12 knot wind and a light chop.

Turning to go round at 05:58

A rather rocky video, it was a little bumpy and I was paying more attention to where I was going than taking the video. Rocks, almost awash at HW neaps extend out from the obelisk on the left.  

Leaving the Bill at 06:01

With the benign conditions I had the sails up within a few minutes of rounding, the next decision was which way to head, the wind was easterly as apposed to the forecast of south or south-east making the normal route close to a dead run. The forecast also said that the wind would veer to the South or South West, the shipping forecast did not give a time for that but the 20:00 download the previous night showed that happening shortly after lunch, to head directly to Start Point could leave me down wind and down tide of it. I therefore headed further south and eventually ended up 5 miles south of the "normal" route.

I started off on a broad reach under all plain sail; most of the time I could have used the cruising chute but the wind was 11 - 12 knots and on a reach 14 knots is the limit and it had been gusting that earlier. Finally I gave in and put the chute up at 9 o'clock and made very quick progress for a couple of hours when I sensed the wind increasing and I got it down just before 16 knots of wind arrived. It didn't last long and stayed a steady easterly at 11 knots until 12:00 when it dropped a little and started veering to southerly by 12:30 and 200 degrees by 16:00. I started to alter course for Start Point at 12:00 and was hard on the wind by 13:00.

My actual track (red) and predicted track at 4 knots with a course to Steer
of 246 degrees allowing for tide (dotted line) and rhumb line (Blue)

It was tight but I made it to my waypoint off  "The Start" without tacking; boats that had tried to go direct were now in trouble way to leeward and with a very adverse tide to get to and past Start Point, a 45 foot boat that was behind me at "The Bill" was now even further behind, VERY satisfying 😀

After a very pleasant sail, much with a warm sun, there was still a challenge to be faced, fog. From about 6 mile short of Start Point the visibility quickly reduced.

The above was taken just after entering the fog, by the time I was south of Start Point visibility was down to 50 - 100 yards and, with a number of boats about without Automatic Identification System (AIS) things were a little tense, even with Radar - I may have a rant later about boats without radar reflectors!

A close encounter with a fishing boat, never seen. As I approached
Salcombe VHF became busy as people checked in with boats in the
vicinity, some of which were not on AIS. At least one boat without an
AIS receiver was using Marinetraffic.com to track those with a
transceiver but would probably have lost that at some point as I have
always lost mobile signals at some point along this coast (O2, Vodafone
and Smarty).

I did not see any land until the fog started to lift when past Bolt Head, unfortunately it then started to rain and it was a miserable trip on to Cawsands Bay and a difficult approach on a dark night with some remaining fog and light rain. With several old gaffers in the anchorage I went well to the north where there was lots of space but moved south next day for better shelter.

Having got below just after 22:00 for very delayed sundowners, I was not happy when HMS Protector, anchored a few hundred yards away started sounding her very loud fog horn, why that was not sounding in worse visibility when I was struggling to see her as I came in I don't know. Fortunately the noise stopped at about midnight and I could get some much needed sleep.

83 nautical miles over the ground in a little under 18 hours.

Click here for the short trip to Sand Acre Bay and waiting for better weather.

2023 9th August, Day 3 Studland to Portland.

An excellent sail in around 8 knots of wind even though the tide made for an early start at 04:45 and it was a beat from Swanage on but I almost made it in one tide and was at anchor by 11:45.

Above: Heading in towards Weymouth before tacking to the harbour entrance

I have mentioned the number of fishermen  seen around
the harbour entrance, this one probably takes the biscuit.

30 miles over the ground in less than 7 hours.

Click here for rounding the Bill and accross Lyme Bay to Plymouth.

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

Mid Summer Madness

Sancerre was lifted out on the 25th July for anti-fouling and some rectification work on the transom paintwork that had been damaged by a mooring line and which had never quite matched the colour of the sides due to issues painting at the height of the 2022 heatwave.

The lift at Deacon's yard, Bursledon

With rain forecast for much of the second week she was due out I put in 3 and a half long days cleaning down and getting the hull antifoul done; 3+ coats of Seajet "Emperor", their top of the range (of 8) product that I hope will be worth the 30% premium over their PBO "Best in Test" #2 product I had been using.

The Seajet "Pellerclean" propeller anti-foul system had worked perfectly for over a year but had then suffered from encounters with rope and twice being power washed (despite me asking them not to!), after a few more years there were a few barnacles and a lot of bare spots after being power washed again, this time on my instructions, it was time to remove everything and start again.

The propeller came off to be stripped back to bare metal at home,
the abraded finish is to provide a key for the epoxy primer.

Ready to launch after being coated with SeaJet Pellerclean. The shaft
was also taken back to bare metal, epoxy primed, then anti-fouled with
Seajet 34 "Emperor". One of the shaft anodes was replaced although
 only moderately eroded - better safe than sorry.

At the time of writing (Sunday 30th) after four and a half days work since the lift she is OK to go back in the water, fully anti-fouled and with the Blakes Seacocks refitted after cleaning and greasing. Rain has intervened so the gloss paintwork repair to the transom is not finished, hopefully there will be one dry day in the next few but if there isn't I will be sailing with a very odd looking transom.

I did get a sunny day and now have a good colour match
between the transom and the sides. Pictured in St Mary's Pool
Isles of Scilly in August 2023.

Engine work

I was having starting problems during the last few weeks of my last cruise that got noticeably worse in the last couple of days, investigation showed one injector was not sounding right so I replaced both (NOT CHEAP!) I also checked out the electrical system as the engine was not turning over as fast as expected but found nothing [update: later I doubled up the cables and speed improved, it would appear that the Bosch type starter is more sensitive to voltage drop than the OEM Toshiba] and I reset the tappets which had closed up some. The engine was running really well once started but on the last couple of starts I wasn't sure it would start at all.

There was only one relatively simple thing left to check, the exhaust elbow although from the outside it looked perfect. I had trouble replacing the original 5 years ago so did not want to touch it until the boat was at the yard where professional help would be available without paying for them to come out to a boat at anchor a mile or three down river. 

This one however came off easily from the engine and from the exhaust pipe once I had applied some "Liquid Wrench" penetrating oil and there was the culprit:

The exhaust elbow looking near perfect from the outside but
the inner part almost destroyed.

For those not familiar, the piece at the top should be inside the other and welded to it at the engine end (right in the pic). Water is injected between the two through a pipe on the far side to cool the exhaust and to help silence the engine. 

When I took it off the two piece were tenuously attached but there was plenty of room for water to get through and there were also multiple pin hole blow through the inner piece allowing water to get into the engine before the engine got going [one reason] why the starter motor could not turn it over quicker. 

I already had a stainless steel replacement and it was quickly fitted and hopefully it will be all systems go when I launch on the 7th of August

My review of anchorages and marinas visited has been updated.

My directory of anchorages and marinas around UK has been updated with those visited through September 2023. The pages were getting over long so there are now eight pages:

Be sure to check out Reeds  and / or the appropriate pilots for more detailed information and alternates, this is just an overview of likely candidates, but I have been to all of them. 

Updated 2023 to include Harbours and Marinas also some info on fuel & gas availability, I would not have checked at many locations.

• Anchorages, marinas and harbours:
  • The Solent to Plymouth.
  • Fowey to Lands End.
  • Lands End north to Anglesey
  • The Isles of Scilly and Ireland from Baltimore to Red Bay
  • Mull of Galloway to Ardnamurchan Point.
  • Ardnamurchan Point to Loch Ewe.
  • The Western Isles.
  • Loch Ewe to Orkney and on to The Solent.

2023 What next?

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 only a few videos. Links from downloaded copies should still work if on line. I may later put further links to Flickr for more 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 or before (with thousands of images it has to be paid for). 2023 The Isles of Scilly and a dash home.

Sancerre will be lifted out on July 25th for me to redo the anti-fouling, hopefully this time with enough of a good enough quality one to work for rather longer than last years 4 coats. 

She will be relaunched on or about August 7th and as soon as the weather permits, hopefully on the day, I will be heading west, probably to the Scillies after that I am planning to head for SW Ireland and cruise the west coast, returning via The Channel Isles if there is time, as there may well be if the weather is not looking good in Ireland during mid September, I don't want strong winds to strand me there for weeks which they could well do with a 3 day window of fair wind and sea required to get to Newlyn.

Update 4th August:

The boat is ready and will be lifted in on Monday as planned, the weather however is not fully cooperating the current forecast shows 25 - 30 knots gusts from the southwest on Monday and Tuesday so it is likely that I'll take the boat down to the mooring on Monday then head directly to Portland on Wednesday to use the inshore route around the Bill on Thursday with a near ideal tide, the gate opens at 05:34 but I'll plan to go through at 06:00 an hour after the start of civilian twilight so that I should be able to see the lobster pot floats down the side and around the Bill. The weather models differ as to the wind direction on Wednesday and Thursday but all predictions should be OK with regards to strength.

Click here for days 1 & 2.