Kipper Sailing

In my last blog, I said:

“ ..we should be west of The Isle of Wight, tucked into Christchurch or Bournemouth Bay, only a few miles from home. We'll then try to keep out of the worst of the adverse tide until it turns again ..”

We didn't make it by about a mile.

Firstly the tide turned foul, about an hour before all the predictions, and then the wind slowly dropped and veered. We might, just might have snuck round The Needles but, with the flood tide building, there was then a risk that we'd get sucked up The Needles Channel and into The Solent. I woke Nasher and we dropped the hook in about 24 meters of water. As, sometimes happens, the anchor chain jammed on the way out of the locker. It does this because, when we haul the anchor, the chain falls into the chain locker, into a conical pile and then, when we sail heeled, the pile collapses. A bit of vigorous pulling freed the chain but, with it off the windlass, the combined weight of the anchor and the chain already deployed was more than I wanted to risk grabbing hold of and we watched 40 meters of chain and about another 30 meters of warp disappear rapidly over the stem-head before it slowed and we were able to snub it on the winch. OK, so four times the depth of water and all that, so we weren't going to drag, but we knew it'd be a bastard to get up.

We lay at anchor for four hours watching Wave 'n Dave in Resolute tack backwards and forwards, going nowhere and, we thought, at one stage, being at risk of an unplanned visit to The Solent. Whilst we were lying there, Nasher on anchor watch, me fast asleep, a snottie yottie with a plumy accent, from another yacht, who didn't identify himself, called us on CH16. “I say wot, yacht entering The Needles Channel, did you know you've got your anchor light on?” It's a good job Nasher was on watch, otherwise I'd've probably breached the rules prohibiting profane language over the air.

We, well I say we, actually Nasher (again), hauled anchor a 0430 and started ghosting as best we could in about 5kts of wind but, at least with the tide under us. Then the wind built to a good SW 4 and we just weathered Anvil Point. Had to make a short tack out to get round St Albans Head. We're now about 12 miles from the southern tip of Portland Bill. When we get there the tide is going to be strongly against us. We have no option but to try the inshore passage, which extends no more than a couple of cables (one cable = one tenth of a sea mile, say 200 meters) off the cliffs. It'll be touch and go.

On the subject of the tide turning foul. For the last few summers I've noted a distinct pattern where the tide in The Channel turns onto the flood about an hour earlier than predicted and runs stronger too. It's caught me out before, notably on a passage back from St Vaast last year, where we'd done a very careful course to steer calculation, which we continually updated, but found ourselves 10m SE of The Needles when the tide turned strongly against us. I can find no collaboration of my observations but wonder if the Gulf Stream in summer splits in two, one part going up the west coast of the British Isles and the other part up The Channel, creating an underlying persistent NE going stream. Given out tortuous west going progress and that of the faster boats who passed this way in similar conditions some while ago (OK, bloomin' ages ago), this would seem a possible explanation, especially as the water seems warmer than it might be.

We have no idea where our competitors are. Class B AIS only seems to have a range of about 6 miles at best and I can't get on The Internet. Earlie we could see Resolute about 5 miles to windward and, we know that, in the early hours Summer Bird was about 6 miles south of us and Knight's Challenge another 10 miles out. If they've got the same wind as us, then they're probably ahead. Let's hope they don't get round Portland and we don't!

Porridge for breakfast but I made a real mess of the microwave, which took some clearing up. The jam was making an excellent Penicillin culture, so we ditched it and stirred in marmalade instead. Not bad but not as good as jam.

A minor electrical gremlin means that I can't run the computer without the generator for the time being. I'll fix it later on. And the sink stinks. I'll pour some more bleach down it when I've done the washing up.