We departed Lowestoft at 22:15 on Saturday evening, getting the strong ebb north past Yarmouth. The screen shot shows the track on the chart for this portion of the trip - note how many lit buoys there are, the large port at Yarmouth to pass, and the sand banks with wind farms on them offshore. This was my first night passage in a long time, and I was very glad to have Rupert keeping lookout with me.
As we left the north coast of Norfolk behind, I sent Rupert below to his welcome bunk, and I continued - harness clipped on to the boat!
We'd started in flat calm, and motoring through this channel was definitely the best way to do it. By about 2am the wind was getting up, and I was able to set the jib and keep a steady 5 knots through the water, with an additional 1kt of tide.
At about 3am I had one cargo vessel coming at me head on, and another to starboard coming past me. I felt like the nut in a pair of nutcrackers! I identified the head on vessel from AIS, and called him on the radio. As I called, his lights began to shift - I think I woke him up!
That little excitement also woke Rupert and he stayed on deck for a while, as we watched the pre-dawn light come up and then the sun. He then continued his watch below, as the wind died away and tide turned against us. Inevitably, even though this was forecast and included in the passage plan, I began to fret about whether we'd get to Grimsby in time for the lock. What wasn't in the forecast was the wind veering West, or even WNW, turning a broad reach into a close reach then close hauled.
Up went the mainsail, with one reef against the forecast freshening. Sure enough by mid morning we had plenty of wind, but as our course turned round yet more wind farms towards Grimsby, it remained close hauled for a long time. Eventually, it backed as forecast until we reached into the Humber before 25kts of southerly, gusting at peak to 32kts. Great fun.
I was monitoring the VTS (Vessel Traffic Services) channel for any big ship movements that might affect us, when I was surprised to hear us called. Normally VTS isn't interested in yachts, but I responded promptly, gave the right answers (mainly that I was keeping to the inshore channel and not planning on crossing) and satisfied the controller.
We arrived into the marina in Grimsby's old fish dock with plenty of time to spare for the free flow through the lock (HW +/- 2hrs) - we were in at 15:30 before high water at 16:00, just as planned. Mooring was tricky: the wind was blowing us very strongly off the pontoon. Again, I was glad of Rupert who leapt ashore with the spring and secured it, letting me reverse quite hard against it to pull us up to the pontoon while we secured the rest of the lines. That would have been very different single handed!
All in all a challenging but very satisfying passage! In terms of weather I should have carried on today, but didn't fancy leaving at 05:30 to get through the lock, and a long day immediately after the overnight. So slightly less ideal wind conditions tomorrow, but liveable, and I'll continue to Scarborough. Rupert is back to work in London - many thanks!
Log of this passage