Sailing Aphrodite: September 2021

09/09/2021

Plymouth to Treluggan

I had booked the boat to come ashore at Treluggan Boatyard on the river Lynher in Cornwall on the recommendation of a good friend. With a few days to spare until the next set of spring tides, I was advised I'd need a 5 metre tide, I dashed home by train, collected the car and drove it down to the yard. Very kindly Morris and Steph arranged to meet me there and drive me back to Plymouth. With all of the transport in place I was ready to get the boat ashore for the winter.

0600 hrs Slipped the lines at King Point and set off upto Treluggan. The directions from the yard were quite clear, but it being a small Cornish creek the journey did leave me a tad nervous as the drying height on the chart is 2.5 metres.

I chugged up the Tamar and then turned into the Lynher and watched the depth like a hawk. The Lynher is a gorgeous stretch of water and the trip needs to be repeated with crew.

Just past the Dandy Hole I almost missed the turning and headed onto St Germans, but saw the posts marking the channel just in time. Clearly, I missed the center of the channel as I gently ran aground, reversed and aimed a bit more to the east of the channel and edged my way up river almost touching trees as I did. Under the railway viaduct and Treluggan popped into view.

0730 hrs I tied up alongside the pontoon and popped the kettle on and waited for the yard team to haul me out then walked away from the boat and let them get her propped for the winter.

Lift out Cornish Style

Crew: Sandy Garrity

Sunrise: 0642 hrs Sunset: 1945 hrs

Trip Stats: Distance: 8.7 nm, Avg speed: 5.00 knots, Max speed: 6.00 knots, Under way: 1 h 30 m.

Weather: Inshore waters...

05/09/2021

Brighton to Plymouth

04/09/2021

Following the discussions over a superb meal last night and looking at lots of options we decided to push hard for Plymouth on the next passage so had a leisurely morning with a good long shower, a quick shop and getting the boat ready for the final leg.

Brighton was being dredged and I watched the two dredgers pass the boat ready to start their days work, quickly followed by a rather sporty racing yacht who got a sharp reminder over the radio not to move until the dredgers were in position. They rather sheepishly returned to the marina and dropped their sails and waited for permission to leave the marina.

1030 hrs
Departed Brighton Marina, clearly there was a race going on in the bay and a lot of fishing trips were enjoying the sunshine.

The wind was still with us as we set off for the final leg along le Manche back to Plymouth. Where I would deliver Morris back to Bora Bora at Saltash.

1800 hrs
Seven miles due south of Selsey Bill Morris came up for the last sunset watch of the trip. The evenings were beginning to get a lot cooler than they had a month before.

2100 hrs
I came up on watch for the start of the last night on the trip.

2230 hrs
Five nm south of St Catherine's Point and heading into home waters.

05/09/2021

0000 hrs
Morris came up for the midnight watch as we were crossing Lyme Bay, distinctly colder.

0600 hrs
A cold misty morning greeted us on the final morning of the trip.

Just off Start Point, in the mist, with a race going on, a few fishing boats weaving their crazy courses across the ocean and a couple of big motor boats heading east the main fuel tank went to empty and the engine coughed and sputtered. I called Morris from below and we dumped the remaining spare fuel in the tank and bled the engine before restarting it again.

1400 hrs
Rafted up against Bora Bora delivering Morris back to Steph and Lammy, the dog, we spend a couple of hours talking over the voyage of over 600 nautical miles. Morris poured a beer and I had a cup of tea as I still needed to get Aphrodite back to her visitors berth at King Point Marina.

1800 hrs
Tied up Aphrodite on one of the visitors berths at King Point Marina and relaxed at the end of a month at sea.

Crew: Sandy Garrity, Morris Abbott

Trip Stats: Distance: 174 nm, Avg speed: 6.00 knots, Max speed: 9.00 knots, Under way: 34 h 10 m.

Weather: Inshore waters forecast to 12 miles offshore 01:00 (UTC+1) on Sat 4 Sep 2021 to 01:00 (UTC+1) on Sun 5 Sep 2021

North Foreland to Selsey Bill - Strong wind warning

24 hour forecast: Easterly or northeasterly 4 to 6. Slight. Fair. Good.

Outlook for the following 24 hours: Easterly or northeasterly 3 or 4, occasionally 5 at first, becoming variable 3 or less later. Slight, becoming smooth or slight. Mainly fair. Good.

Selsey Bill to Lyme Regis

24 hour forecast: Easterly or northeasterly 3 to 5, becoming variable 3 or less for a time in west. Smooth or slight. Fair. Good.

Outlook for the following 24 hours: Easterly or northeasterly 3 or 4 , becoming variable 3 or less. Smooth or slight, becoming smooth later. Fair, fog patches later in west. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor later in west.

Lyme Regis to Lands End including the Isles of Scilly

24 hour forecast: Easterly or northeasterly, veering easterly or southeasterly, 3 to 5, becoming variable 3 or less for a time in east. Slight, occasionally smooth in east. Showers. Moderate or good.

Outlook for the following 24 hours: Easterly or southeasterly 2 to 4, becoming variable 3 or less, increasing 4 at times. Smooth or slight. Fog patches later. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor later.

© Met Office Synoptic Chart 04/09/2021

03/09/2021

Dover to Brighton

0400 hrs
The alarm call and the kettle is on. The boat is readied for sea, not that there was much to do.

0500 hrs
Called Port Control and asked for permission to leave by the western entrance. Just enough light as dawn was 0511 hrs and amazingly the wind from the east!

Today was a 'short' hop to Brighton as we were positioning the boat for a final push back to Plymouth. We are getting very relaxed about distances under 100 nm.

A cracking days sail and still pinching ourselves as the wind is still with us.

The on watch view

We had not telephoned ahead and called the marina up on the radio and allocated a hammerhead berth.

1830 hrs
All tied up alongside at Brighton and much excitement as just beside us was a Boreal 47, my dream boat.

Boreal 47 at Brighton

As Morris had been in Brighton before he knew where a decent pub was and we were able to have a really good pint at The Master Mariner followed by a superb meal at Bella Napoli. Although this was just an overnight stop I'll be back one day. Loved the buzz of the place.

Crew: Sandy Garrity, Morris Abbot

Trip Stats: Distance: 65 nm, Under way: 13 h 00 m, Avg speed: 5.00 knots, Max speed: 6.00 knots.

Weather: Inshore waters forecast to 12 miles offshore 01:00 (UTC+1) on Fri 3 Sep 2021 to 01:00 (UTC+1) on Sat 4 Sep 2021.

North Foreland to Selsey Bill - Strong wind warning

24 hour forecast: Easterly or northeasterly 4 to 6, decreasing 2 or 3 for a time in west. Slight. Fair. Good.

02/09/2021

Lowestoft to Dover

0115 hrs
Awake and the kettle is on for mugs of coffee before heading across the Thames Estuary.

0130 hrs
I called up Lowestoft Control, they were awake and answered in about 10 seconds! Requested permission to put to sea, duly granted as nobody else was a wake. Slipped out lines and departed Lowestoft after a pleasant stay.

We left the pier heads into a two metre swell and the next half an hour was a 'bumpy' ride out to deeper water as there is a sand bank that we should have had enough water to safely pass over, but on several occasions I read depth under the keel as 0.00 metres! Fingers crossed a trough would not dump us on the seabed!

Thankfully, after taking our 'shortcut' we were in the buoyed channel and unfurled the genoa as the wind was still with us. I looked out for the comforting flash of Southwold light and let Morris take the watch 0300 to 0600 watch.

0730 hrs
On a rather grey morning I looked behind us to see a huge container ship about two miles behind us on the port side. I activated the ship on the chart plotter AIS screen to find it was the One Manhattan, a 153453 tonne container ship making her way towards one of the London Ports. As we were in quite a narrow channel and I was the stand on vessel I kept my course and speed. On AIS I could see that she had made a 2° turn to port and quietly passed us before resuming her old course.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful. A few changes of course as we weaved our way across the Thames Estuary. It felt a lot less daunting that the trip north.

Entering Dover was something that I had dreaded, there are significant numbers of ferry movements and other craft that buzz about the port so had studied the pilotage information carefully.

1730 hrs
On arriving 2nm off Dover Harbour I called Port Control as instructed in the pilot books. After a cheery hello I informed them that I'd not been into Dover before. The response from them was fantastic. Clear instructions and a smooth entry into the east entrance, behind one of the cross channel ferries, then follow the breakwater round to the western entrance where I should see another vessel coming in and follow that into the marina.

We called the marina and asked for a berth for the night and were directed to a pontoon through a maze of large concrete basins. After tying up I popped up to the very new and modern marina office. Asked where there was a decent pub for a quick meal and a beer.

Walking back to the boat if became apparent that all modernisation had stopped as European Funding had been withdrawn, the irony of the reality of leaving the European Union.

Finding the boat, Morris and I headed off to the pub and were less than impressed with the beer, the meal and the service, but it refueled us and we had an early night before the next short hop to Brighton.

Crew: Sandy Garrity, Morris Abbot

Trip Stats: Distance: 91 nm, Under way: 16 h 20 m, Avg speed: 6.00 knots, Max speed: 8.00 knots.

Weather: Inshore waters forecast to 12 miles offshore 01:00 (UTC+1) on Thu 2 Sep 2021 to 01:00 (UTC+1) on Fri 3 Sep 2021

Gibraltar Point to North Foreland

24 hour forecast: Northerly or northeasterly 4 or 5, becoming variable 2 to 4 in north. Slight or moderate, becoming slight. Mainly fair. Good.

North Foreland to Selsey Bill - Strong wind warning

24 hour forecast: Easterly or northeasterly 4 to 6. Slight. Mainly fair. Good.

01/09/2021

Lowestoft

As we had decided that a rest day had been well earnt a lazy day in port fill up with fuel, grab some essentials at a supermarket and trip to a local chandeliers for an end for our electrical cable was all we needed to do.

The morning started well as we had looked up a chandelier on the internet the night before and had called them to see if they had the part, yes they had and thought no more about it. I looked them up on Google Maps and as it was only a couple of miles we decided to walk. Arriving at a house in the middle of an estate realised that this was not the place and after a few phone calls finally worked out where we should have been. A few more miles and we finally got to the right place and discovered a fantastic wee cafe that served devine sausage sandwiches.

The part in hand we jumped onto a bus and headed back to the marina.

A quiet afternoon was had followed by dinner in the sailing club and an early night as we needed to depart very, very early in the morning.