Our next port of call from Lowestoft was to be Wells-next-the sea, a journey of about 50 miles with no (repeat no) emergency stopping points on the way. The coastline here is scoured by the tides and is eroding rapidly, so there are no bays or inlets in which to find shelter. Until you get to Wells. Here the situation changes for Wells is continually silting up. What was a bustling port even only 50 years ago, is now a place that almost dries out at low tide, so access gain only be gained a couple of hours either side of high water. This meant that the leaving time from Lowestoft was critical to make the arrival time of (at the latest) 18:00.
I was planning to leave about half past five in the morning but, after a night of what seemed like cat naps I was awake at 4 a.m. so we managed to leave Lowestoft at 05:10 (earlier than planned for a change), out of the harbour into the calm North Sea, Freddie pushing us on against a strong tide and with what wind there was coming from the north (on the nose again). It was sunny, with a bit of mist to the East that soon evaporated as the shorebased Wind turbine at Lowestoft slowly disappeared from view.
I had remembered that my mobile phone can receive FM radio and had found the head set in the cutlery drawer in the galley. *
I fiddled about and found BBC R4. I heard the shipping forecast for the first time this trip. It confirmed the forecast I had downloaded from the web. Light winds from the north, moving to the E, becoming light to variable at midday and then going to the NE F3 -4. It could rain at any time, apparently. I made sure that the wet weather gear was easy to get to in the cockpit lockers.
After a couple of hours, the Today programme had finished and we had passed between Gt Yarmouth and the large offshore windfarms. Melvin Bragg was leading a discussion about some 17th Century French Economists (advocating a planned economy based on agriculture and none of this nasty industrial revolution stuff) when, as forecast, the wind veered to the NE but had not dropped. Our course had now turned to the NW, so we could sail. Off went Freddie and we stormed along at a tide assisted 6 knots.
An ugly looking working vessel passed us as it bustled off on some errand to the South. It looked a bit as if it had been designed on an "off" day for it's Naval Architect.
Womens Hour came and went. Our course now moved more to the eastward as we ran along the top of East Anglia. The wind had moved a little more to the E and started to waver in strength.
Now was the time to empty the water ballast to improve the acceleration in the “puffs”. 600 bilge pump strokes later, the tanks were almost empty.
Kate Aidie presented From our own Correspondent. Not much changed in our world. The scoured coastline drifted past. The wind came and went, but thanks to the lightened boat, Freddie stayed quiet. A radar dome appeared on the shoreline to the accompaniment of the 1 o’clock news. Black clouds built up astern and I donned the water proofs. They went away again and the sun shone. I took them off.
Happisberg appeared, together with some slight overfalls on the water. We bounced through them and slowed down. They clearly marked that the tidal stream had changed direction. Never mind, we’re ahead of schedule, and we’re still making 5 knots......
The Afternoon play held me spellbound for 45 minutes (I’d taken the headset off to miss the Archers).
Cromer came and went. A steam train puffed along just behind the shoreline.
Dark clouds piled in the sky to seawards and astern. I woke up to the environment. We had been gaily sailing on a broad reach and the true wind had risen to about 15 knots. We still had full sail up and were unballasted. I’d better do something about it so started to bring us head to wind to make some sail plan changes.
That’s when the squall hit us, flinging hard rain at us and making Vagabond heel so sharply that I thought we were going to capsize. I picked myself off the cockpit floor and climbed up to the windward side of the boat whilst releasing the main sheet and putting the helm down harder to turn us more quickly into the wind. In the meantime, Claire Baldwin was walking the West Highland Way in my headset.
We didn’t capsize. Vagabond steadied into the wind. I rapidly opened the flap to flood the ballast tanks and started Freddie to give us some steerage way. I rolled up the jib - just - and stayed head to wind for a few minutes to recover my composure. The wind indicator suggested we now had a 20 knot wind from the NE and there was a steep quarter sea setting it. Very rattled and subdued, I took down the main, turned back on course with Freddie pushing for all he was worth.
The overtaking quarter sea became quite uncomfortable, steep sided seas about 4 -5 feet ** from crest to trough, with a interval of just about the length of Vagabond. As a sea swept underneath us, the bow would be pushed to port as it slid down into the trough, whilst the stern was pushed to starboard as it rose to the next crest. The helmsman and rudder were worked hard to keep Vagabond on course.
 |
| Crossed the bar |
It was a relief when, about an hour and a half later, the cardinal buoy that marked the entrance to Wells hove into view and I started to pick out the buoyed channel into the harbour. We crossed the bar and the sea immediately was flatter as we followed a fishing boat into the harbour. Here, I rounded the day off by totally misjudging the strength of the ebbing tide and struck a hard, glancing blow on the starboard quarter of the yacht that I had intended to raft up against .......
Eventually we were sorted out and alongside the pontoon. I was just calming down when when a stranger walked up to me and said 'You must be Rob, I'm Stuart, a reader of your blog and a potential BC 23 owner "……
Translations, explanations and notes
*It’s the only drawer in the “galley”.
** 1 to 1.3 metres
No comments:
Post a Comment