Summer Cruise 2015 - Days 10 to 12 (Sat - Mon)

Saturday ...

After our layover for the day at anchor, we very nearly decided to stay put for a second day

However, there was a half decent breeze and a bit of a question mark over the forecast for Sunday so we decided to make sail while the wind blew and head back to the Crouch

We sailed off the anchor albeit with the engine running to prevent the windlass discharging the batteries excessively. Starting the engine though appeared to have blown the fuse on the engine battery circuit. Isolating the engine battery and cross-linking the engine electrics to the domestic battery bank got us under way and I'll investigate that problem when I get a chance to do so

One of the Medway tugs was out testing her monitors (fire fighting water jets) as we sailed outbound towards Sea Reach in a very light breeze. At times we were barely making progress and I was beginning to think the engine would have to come back into the equation to cross the shipping channel

However, the breeze picked up at, for once, just the right moment and we were across Sea Reach handily well out of the way of any shipping.

I toyed with setting the spinnaker but decided to try poling out the genoa instead as it's much less faff to do. That did the trick and we breezed all the way up to the Whitaker only losing the tide within the last hour.

However, as we dropped the pole and made the turn to head into the Crouch, the breeze really picked up. Of course, we expected the apparent wind to stiffen as we switched from sailing downwind to being close hauled (or for the landlubber as we changed from sailing away from the wind to sailing as near to towards the wind as possible) but it kicked up rather more than that and what's more it was absolutely right on the nose

Now a beat down the Whitaker in a steady F3 or 4 is one thing. We were now seeing gusts of well over 20 knots (at one point, a little later, we saw briefly 30 knots) on our rather reluctant (aka under-reading) wind instrument and with wind over tide it's no place for the gentleman sailor to linger. Nor us for that matter so it was on with the engine and away with the sails

With a stiff Westerly we decided not to anchor out as originally planned and headed into Burnham Yacht Harbour for the night. A wander into town for food and drink at Ye Olde White Harte was our reward!

Sunday ...

We decided we wanted a final night at anchor so departed Burnham in the morning and motored round to the Yokesfleet. We dropped the hook no problem and settled down but as the day wore on the wind picked up more and more from the West and by an hour before low water we had a problem.

The channel in the fleet isn't very wide and it's fairly common for boats to pass through it on the way to and from Suttons so I don't like anchoring in the middle of the channel. As a result, we were being driven round the anchor by the wind and sitting very close to the mud. It wasn't too wild but it wasn't as comfortable as it could be either.

We needed to shift so it was up with the anchor and scout around for a better spot. After a few minutes of looking we called it a day and set off back to Burnham for a guaranteed peaceful night

Monday ...

We motored up to Fambridge on the last of the tide and dropped onto the inside of the pontoon to sort out and offload. We weren't in a rush so it was mid-afternoon before we moved Erbas onto her mooring and used the already inflated flubber to run ashore. Deflating the flubber was the work of minutes and it was bagged up and chucked on the back seat of the car. As I'm back on board on Wednesday for at least a fortnight I'll sort everything out properly on my return

Summer Cruise 2015 Day 8 - (Thu)

We had a narrow window of opportunity to escape Limehouse due to problems with the bottom lock gates leaking. This meant instead of the usual lock availability at almost all states of the tide, we had to go at 08:00 or not at all

So go we did, which suited us anyway as it was just before high water. We had Ron (Gitane) in company with us as he'd decided to stay put an extra night too due to the poor forecast for Wednesday

Heading downriver in much better weather we were able to enjoy the sights rather more

The view from the river of the Cutty Sark and Greenwich Hospital is marred by the rather ugly building housing, of all things, a "Nandos". Oh and the round building is the head of the shaft down to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel which I forgot to mention we walked through on our way back from the museum etc. on Tuesday

A small power station with a landing staithe caught my attention. Doubtless its just the sort of place my collier sailing relations would have been familiar with as they carried coal from the North East to London

(I haven't found any history for this place yet)


 Ron did the VHF duty with London VTS to obtain clearance through the barrier and we motored through as directed.

You don't get much chance to sail on the Thames trip but we both managed to get a lift for a while when a bit of breeze kicked up by setting our genoas but it didn't last above an hour or so. However, we were making better progress under motor than on the way up.

We'd discussed plans with Ron before departure and we were all minded to seek an anchorage off the Medway for the night

Ron called us up on the VHF and suggested he take the lead and show us a good spot a bit further up Stangate Creek off Slaughterhouse Point

I'm always happy to tap into a bit of "local" knowledge and the anchorage proved very satisfactory indeed

Once anchored, I inflated the flubber and rowed over to Gitane to invite Ron aboard Erbas for dinner later.

The invite accepted, at the agreed time, I picked Ron up (with the outboard this time, one lot of rowing a day is quite enough for me) and we enjoyed an excellent meal and a couple of drinks before I once again played at water taxis and delivered Ron back to Gitane

The sunset was glorious ...

PS. The anchorage was so good and the weather so nice we stayed put for the day on Friday generally bumbling about on a few maintenance tasks such as touching up the hull paintwork where it had been badly rubbed at Queenborough and sorting out a few things

Summer Cruise 2015 - Days 5 to 7 (Mon - Wed)

The London Days ...

Esconced in the visitors corner of Regents Canal Dock (or "Limehouse Basin Marina" as they like to call it nowadays but that just ain't right as far as I'm concerned!) we were determined to make the most of our time in the big city.

The start of our first day was somewhat delayed and disturbed by the need to move the Thames Sailing Barge "Cabby" onto the visitors pontoon in order to receive a delivery of diesel direct from the tanker. This entailed, perforce, moving three of our five boats onto the main pontoons overnight!

T'was all good fun as we all got stuck in to help move the barge ...

Then we all set off on our own separate expeditions.

Jane and I made our way into town on the Docklands Light Railway and thence onward by underground as I wanted to visit Arthur Beale's Chandlery in Shaftesbury Avenue. I mainly wanted a replacement fairlead for the one ripped off at Queenborough and they had exactly what we needed. In the end, I bought two deciding that one weathered one and one shiny one would drive me mad and anyway I could thus change the straight fairleads for handed ones which would be a definite improvement.

Jane bought some new deck shoes which she's wanted for a while and we wandered on doing a bit of shopping here and there and grabbing some lunch along the way

We walked back to Tower Bridge along the embankment in very pleasant weather. Apart from the joggers it's a lovely walk. The joggers aren't too bad to be honest but some people really shouldn't be allowed to wear skin tight clothing! (Me for starters which is why I don't!!!)

Back on the DLR to Limehouse and then a quiet evening on board

Tuesday saw ourselves and Clive (Sirenia) heading off downriver on the Thames Clipper service to Greenwich ...

I couldn't resist a wake shot, these things are simply awesome! They accelerate from a standing start to over 30 knots in a couple of hundred yards

I've wanted to visit the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich for a long time and I must say I was not disappointed. It was very enjoyable with well laid out exhibits and just enough interpretation

A pie and a pint followed and then we moved on to the Cutty Sark. I was, I will admit, prepared to be disappointed this time as I was unconvinced by what I'd seen of the "renovations"

But in fact it's very good and well put together

There's again just enough information and interpretation without going over the top and well informed and helpful volunteer staff who are happy to chat with visitors were a bonus

Sad that there is no mention of the "City of Adelaide" though, as she was the original and first iron composite clipper ship built (of course) in Sunderland! From her design, the later clippers like Cutty Sark were developed

We could have squeezed in the National Observatory and so on but we left plenty to justify another visit on another occasion without trying to do too much in one go

Then it was back to Limehouse direct by DLR for some more fun with barges ...

"Cabby", having filled her diesel tanks, needed to go back on her mooring. Two little Dutch "pushers" were visiting the basin and were inveigled into helping. Despite their diminutive size and small engines, these little boats are genuine working craft built originally to push Dutch barges around when manoeuvring.

With one at the front and one at the back they were astonishingly effective at shifting the bulk of "Cabby"

An evening out at "The Narrow" turned into an evening out at The Cruising Association 'cos "The Narrow", the best pub in the area, was heaving and there was no chance of a table. Not that we minded as the food and beer were OK at the CA. The night fell ...

Wednesday morning saw the departure of the rest of the East Coast Forum crowd leaving "Erbas" in splendid isolation in the corner of the dock. I had work to do or, to be more precise, work to plan. That entailed some time aboard customers boats whilst Jane had a good tidy up aboard "Erbas"

Then we spruced ourselves up for a night on the town.

We'd discovered that a show we wanted to see was on and that we could get good tickets despite the short notice so we'd gone ahead despite the planned tube strike starting at six this evening.

We did the overground, underground, wombling free thing and found ourselves in a Wetherspoons for a meal and a drink before walking to the doors of the Dominion Theatre ...

 ... where, as you can tell, we saw  "Lord of the Dance" in its latest incarnation. The show was great fun and very enjoyable and hats of to the dancers for giving it a full on energetic performance despite the very thin audience (mid-week and a tube strike to boot, we all did our best!)

(And no, Flately himself wasn't performing, He only does Friday and Saturday evenings. We knew that already anyway but it didn't make a bit of difference)

With no tubes running central London was somewhat chaotic when we left the theatre so we strolled along Aldwych etc. back to Bank in order to catch the DLR to Limehouse

Home at last, tired but happy, we were soon fast asleep in our berth

Summer Cruise 2015 - Day 4 (Sun)

The London River

The colliermen and coastal sailors of days of yore often referred to the River Thames as "the London River" and amongst their number were a goodly number of my ancestors and relations

So I'd been looking forward to this trip for some considerable time.

We set off from Queenborough in convoy with Sirenia, Sabre and Raven at the optimum time I'd worked out for our best economic speed of about 4.5 knots

It soon began obvious that everybody else was a good deal quicker than us which I felt a bit (but not a lot!) guilty about as they could all have left later

The weather was fairly unpleasant too with rain lashing down for the first two or three hours

We passed through the Thames Barrier in close formation with Erbas in the lead and enjoyed the sights of the river frontage although the murk made for poor photos

Entry into Limehouse was reasonably uneventful despite the almost permanent steep chop on the river, kicked up by the heavy traffic and high speed clipper passenger boats

Alongside in Limehouse...



And a little later we were joined by Gitane

We went out as a group to eat and drink in the evening

It was very satisfying to arrive in London by boat but the weather had made it a bit of an anticlimax.

Summer Cruise 2015 - Day 3 (Sat)

We slept surprisingly well despite it being a bit bouncy and happily by the morning conditions had settled down

The rest of the East Coast Forum contingent arrived during the course of the day with a total of five boats making it
We soon learnt why there's no rafting on the outside of the barge...



Two "small" cargo ships came through one after the other and there ain't a lot of room for them to manoeuvre!

We made a run ashore on the trot boat for supplies. It's a bit of a hike to the shop but OK. We were amused by the signs to Queenborough town centre cos there isn't anything there!

Back aboard my good mood evaporated when some complete and utter four letter word in a small Broom motor boat barreled down the inside of the mooring barge at about 15 knots

The resultant wash ripped the port stern mooring fairlead off the rail and, of course, it went overboard.

Given that, I discovered, he'd already dine the same thing down the outside it appeared to be deliberate. He disappeared into the town creek but when the harbour master went looking for him he was nowhere to be found and word is he'd cleared off down the Swale

My mood was greatly improved by beer, BBQ and natter with good friends new and old. Perhaps it was unwise to get stuck into the scotch until the early hours but hey, you only live once!

Summer Cruise 2015 - Day 2 (Fri)

We were underway before six to catch the second half of the ebb down the Whitaker. Timing of the tides being pretty critical today. Get it right and the trip should take less than eight hours but get it wrong and it could be twelve or more

There was a light Southerly breeze in the anchorage which became a light Easterly as soon as we turned East! Yet again the was no viable option other than to motor.

Rounding the Inner Whitaker buoy and heading slightly West of South down the edge of the Maplin Sands we finally got a working breeze.

It was off with the engine all the way to Sea Reach (the mouth of the River Thames). The wind became fitful and flakey just at the moment we needed to skedaddle across the shipping channel a bit sharpish so it was on with the engine again

We motored into the Medway and explored the anchoring possibilities of Stangate and Sharfleet creeks but by now the breeze had got up and there was nowhere with enough water to anchor that also offered any sort of shelter

Although we could have anchored and tolerated it if needs be, we decided to call it quits and see if better shelter was to be had in Queenborough.

We were offered a raft on the outside of the only boat on the ATL (presumably to keep the rest of the vacant alongside berths for larger boats or purple who had booked in).

The approach though was proving tricky with the tide and increasingly stiff wind opposing each other and I could see the whole exercise going wrong in a hurry so I called it off a few feet away and aborted the approach

A change of plan then as we decided to go alongside the mooring lighter instead. We initially went alongside the outside but it was very bumpy so we decided to shift to the inside.

That manoeuvre went awry when I realised we'd lost engine cooling and were overheating. We managed to get a line on the barge and stopped the engine.

A bit of a faff then to get her alongside by warping her in during which I have to confess I got a bit tetchy and caught myself shouting at Jane (something I hate hearing other skippers do and try very very hard not to do myself)

Apologies were duly tendered and accepted over coffee and then we set about sorting out the cooling problem. This turned out to be a solid plug of green weed in the intake seacock. After trying to push it out and pull it out without success I suddenly remembered the trick of using the dinghy pump to blow it out. That worked a treat.

After tidying up, Jane offered to cook dinner. I had planned to do this as it was her birthday but by now I was a bit frazzled and very grateful to be relieved of duty!

After dinner, cake!

Summer Cruise 2015 - Day 1 (Thu)

Apologies, dear reader. Since we embarked upon our latest epic cruise I've either been too tired or too busy or both to blog so here's four days for the price of one! I'll break them into seperate posts though

Thursday...

We drove down a little later than intended as Jane had to work an extra hour. The traffic, though, wasn't too bad for once.

We were soon on board and Jane got her head down for a few hours. My mission was to top up the diesel tank after our excursions and exertions abroad. That took 42 litres of BPs finest and then I pottered around tidying things up.

Surprisingly for a weekday the pontoon was getting rather busy (although it would help if people would tie up at one end of a gap or the other, not right in the middle) so I sparked up the engine and nipped alongside before the last space went.

We needed water anyway and being alongside made loading our kit on much easier. Then it was off to Asda for shopping. Then it was put the shopping away! Exciting eh?

With everything done that needed to be done, we cast off and caught the last of the ebb downriver to anchor in the Brankfleet for the night.

Dinner and an early night followed

Passage Plan - Fri 3 July 2015

Depart Brankfleet anchorage (R. Roach, Essex) towards R. Medway 05:00UTC

Anticipate anchoring in either Stangate Creek or the Sharfleet on the Eastern side of the Medway nr. Queenborough

ETA to anchorage approx 12:00UTC

Alternates: Queenborough (mooring or pontoon), Gillingham Marina or return to R. Crouch

Overdue if not reported or seen to be at anchor via Marinetraffic etc by 20:00UTC

(Reason for 8h variance between ETA and overdue is that missing the tide will add considerably to the passage time)

Weather forecast as of 18:00UTC Thu var 3 or 4 becoming N or NE 4 or 5. However up to F6 forecast between North Foreland and Selsey Bill. Will check latest before departure