Page 14 - Yachter Spring/Summer 2022

14 CRUISING REPORTS
WILD RIVAL HEADS EAST
Where to go in 2021? A dilemma faced by many sailors.The Baltic was still out, France still had testing challenges, both to get in and to return to the UK. Many south coast sailors seemed to be heading to the West Country;
it sounded like it would be full! The RNVRYC had changed its plans for a cross channel rally to a Cinque Ports one, starting in Ramsgate and heading back to the Solent.We elected to compromise and join the RNVRYC rally in Ramsgate and head on up the East coast, to explore the Suffolk rivers.
We planned a leisurely passage along the south coast, in daylight hops, to increase the chance of spotting those fiendish poorly- marked pots, but had established the tides work quite well heading East, and we could comfortably get to Ramsgate in 3 legs if we needed to.
Sure enough, the weather put paid to
our leisurely plans, and we delayed sailing from Poole until some weather had passed through.A brief weather window allowed
a pleasant sail to Hornet Services SC at Gosport.We thought our passage might have been delayed when we saw a double man overboard from a jetski, just outside Poole Harbour, but they managed to self-rescue and head back into harbour under their
own steam.We spent 2 nights at Gosport, waiting for another band of weather to
again subside and then set off at 06.00 on
7 July.We had light airs until clear of the submarine barrier, when the wind rapidly built to a SW 5-6, which gave us a good brisk passage past the Rampion wind farm. The wind eased as we approached Beachy Head, but we were by then ahead of our tidal schedule, so there seemed little point in shaking out the reef in the main, to get there earlier and fight the tide. Beachy Head was uneventful and we locked into Sovereign
Harbour at Eastbourne and were allocated a berth between 2 small classic yachts.These turned out to be Katie McCabe’s Morgan Giles 26, Falanda, and her Dad in Amaryllis. At 14, Katie was aiming to become the youngest sailor to sail solo around the UK; her insurance meant she had to have her Dad sailing in company a couple of miles astern.We met them again in Ramsgate and followed Katie’s passage around the UK
via Facebook. By the end of our modest summer cruise, she had circumnavigated
the UK, solo, in 7 weeks – an impressive achievement and it will be interesting to see what she does next!
In company with a number of RNVRYC boats, we slipped early the next morning and took the 05.00 lock, to carry the tide East as much as possible.With a mainly SW 4, but sometimes less, we sailed and motorsailed to reach Ramsgate in around 11 hours.Around Dover, there had been significant Border Force and RNLI action, with a number of small boats heading from France to the UK.
Torrential rain the next morning put us off the walking historical tour of Ramsgate, but we had a pleasant couple of days socially-distanced socialising. On the 11th, as the rest of our rally headed to Dover and ports to the West, we set
Approaching Beachy Head
off across the Thames Estuary, towards Harwich.The presence of multiple wind farms, as well as chartplotters, radar and AIS makes this a very different passage from days gone by. Planning a crossing is made
a lot simpler by Roger Gaspar’s excellent ‘Crossing the Thames Estuary’ book and downloads.Although aVertue managed to ghost along under kite, the lack of wind can’t have helped the wind farms generate much power, and saw us motoring again. We approached Harwich via the Medusa channel and continued up the Orwell to Woolverstone – as MDL annual berth holders, we don’t pay any extra for berthing there. Once past the busy container port at Felixstowe, you find yourself in a peaceful,