Brixham to the Scilly Isles, and then on to Ireland

Updated Wednesday 29th July 2009 (with later Addendums below):

I am writing this update from New Grimsby Harbour just off Tresco, the Scilly Isles. We sailed here yesterday from Falmouth - in around 10 hours. Unfortunately it is raining quite heavily at the moment and the forecast for today is not good - in fact I hear on the radio there is flooding in Cornwall. Our plan is to explore Tresco today then set sail for Ireland tonight, but if the rain continues we may set sail earlier.

The sail from Falmouth was great - the winds were from the right direction and Force 5 to 6 for much of the voyage, and we managed to sail in a straight line from the Lizard averaging 7 to 8 knots and made the passage in around 10 hours. I am trying all sorts of remedies to avoid sea sickness, regularly taking Stugeron and now also wear these wrist bands which are supposed to help. Also, I avoid having to go downstairs except to sleep (lying on your back is ok) during the voyage, which means wearing all the right gear before starting out; this is more difficult to predict than you think as often it is sunny and the harbour is sheltered but conditions at sea are very different. During the voyage from Falmouth I felt ok for the first half, then a little nauseous, recovering again when I took over the helm towards the end of the voyage. There was one really exciting stage when we rounded Lizard Point, the southernmost point of land on mainland GB. At this point the Atlantic swell meets the Channel tides over shallow water and the sea state is generally rough, with steep breaking waves. Our boat, despite being 46 ' and around 13 tons resembled a roller coaster riding up and down at frightening angles and slamming over the waves. At times the waves broke over the front of the boat and flooded down the full length, and because we didn't have the entrance fully closed, some water entered the cabin! All this and the winds were only moderate to strong, it would be frightening in anything stronger or in a small boat.







Before sailing to the Scilly Isles, we also had two good days of sailing from Brixham to Falmouth. Firstly and in sunny weather from Brixham to Newton Ferres on the River Yealm where we picked up a buoy in the river for the night - a very beautiful spot - see photo of our boat moored. On the way we also popped into Salcombe to motor up the estuary and take a few photos - looks a really great place for a holiday, particularly if you like dinghy sailing - see second photo.





Then next day on to Falmouth Harbour, again favourable winds and we managed to sail most of the way. We then had a rest day in Falmouth when I got the bike out and cycled up to Pendennis Castle (built by Henry VIII to defend against, the Spanish, but used and extended by many since) and explored the beaches.

Our skipper at the moment is Fred. He worked 30 years for Barclays in various high street banking roles and retired in 2002, although has the appearance of somebody in his 40's Of course he is very experienced in the sailing world, having started out exploring estuaries in a dinghy in childhood during holidays, then racing all sorts of boats from dinghies to small yachts. Although he hasn't sailed GB in one go, he has been around most sections of it several times, for example he has been around Lizard Point on 8 occasions! His sailing experienced is also more than matched by his sense of fun and humour - I am struggling to keep up!!

Our route from here is North to Ireland then hops along the coast, with a stopover in Dublin and no doubt plenty of Guiness, ending up in Bangor, near Belfast for the next skipper changeover on Saturday 8th August. My broadband may not work so it may be while before the next update ... enjoy your summer.

Addendum Wednesday 29th:

After a rainy start to the day, the rain stopped late morning and later in the afternoon the sun came out. We went ashore on Tresco, I hired a mountain bike and cyled all around the island. Seems a great place for a quiet family holiday without motor vehicles, empty beaches, beautiful scenery. I also spent some time in the Tresco Abbey Gardens - very impressive, the Isles of Scilly have a warm and wet climate, ideal for many of the exotic plants.

See photo of Tresco scenery - our boat is moored to a buoy on the far left:

Addendum Thursday 30th:

We made it to Ireland - we are moored to a pontoon in Kilmore Quay on the South East corner of Ireland. We had a fantastic and quick sail from the Scilly Isles overnight and morning today, some 153 miles and sailing for much of the passage around 8 knots, and I say 10.6 knots when I was on the helm for a moment. Unfortunately however I am still suffering badly from sea sickness, I managed to get into all the right equipment prior to the journey to minimise trips downstairs except to sleep, but a 4 hour watch from 11pm to 3am got the better of me and I was violently ill. It is difficult to see the horizon at night therefore much harder to prevent feeling nauseous. I wasn't much help to my fellow watch crew Jacob for the last hour of my watch - trying to sleep it off lying on the bench in the cockpit! Ah well, probably only one long night journey to do - if we go to the Shetland Islands. On the bright side, the sky looks wonderful at night in the middle of an ocean (I think we were some 60 miles from land at one point) - very clearly, full of stars and no light pollution from land. Tomorrow they are expecting gales so we have a few repairs to make to the boat. On arrival my fellow crew, led I have to say by the skipper, went straight off for a few lunchtime "Guinnesses" - I hasten to add I went straight for a shower and a light meal .... and as I write this update have still not sampled the local brew.

Shore based week in Brixham, Devon

Well, I am writing this update sitting on the back of the boat watching the sun go down over Brixham, which is a pretty little harbourside town in Devon. Today we went for a day sail to Dartmouth and up the River Dart for a pub lunch. We had to inflate the dinghy and row ashore, and the current was so strong when we returned that those in the dinghy (not me!) had to be rescued by a motorised dinghy before our dinghy with oars disappeared up river. It was so nice arriving by water to the Ferry Inn in Ditisham, the last time I was there many years ago we arrived by car, small busy roads, and nowhere to park !!

As the title says, this week we are shore based in Brixham doing some land based courses. First Aid on Sunday, then Radar, then Sea Survival yesterday. Sea Survival involves going to a swimming pool, seeing how the life raft inflates, and then jumping into the pool and scrambling into the life raft given various scenarios, including one with an unconscious crew member and water being sprayed over us from a hose. The real learning point however is that in a real emergency sitatuion, it is actually the cold rather than drowning which is the most dangerous. In the sea around GB, you might be lucky and survive 2 to 3 hours before hypothermia sets in, but only a few minutes in winter months. Hopefully I never have to put what I learned into practice.

Yesterday evening we had a visit to the Coastguard Operation Centre in Brixham where the Officer in charge gave us a very interesting tour and presentation - with plenty of stories as well. It was fascinating and we spent a couple of hours there. They monitor VHF Channel 16 which is the emergency channel all the time, but they also monitor the movements of commercial shipping - which is now tracked electronically by computer. It will certainly help to have seen how the operation works from the inside because we receive all our weather forecasts via the Coastguard, and also we will be in contact with them as we sail around GB, particularly in the more remote passages.

Tomorrow is a diesel engine course which I am looking forward to, then on Friday some chart work which is tricky as you have to account for tides, tide heights, speed of tides, variation from magnetic north, local rules on navigation, interpretaion of charts, how to find information in the Almanac .... makes accounting look easy!

On Saturday we then start the next leg of the trip with our new Skipper - Fred. We have already met him and there are two stories he has already told us from when he was Skipper on previous Round GB trips. Firstly he managed to get over 14 knots out of our boat "Six Isles" in Scotland - which is very fast for a large yacht designed only for under 10 knots! Secondly he told us they had to call a lifeboat out to tow them into a port because the propellor had rope wrapped around it, a gale was building and the entrance to the harbour (and safety) was too narrow to attempt under sail. Oh well, nice to know that the RNLI already know our boat - should be fun!

Must go, it is now dark and I cannot see the keyboard ...

Portsmouth to Brixham

First of all here we are, Jacob fellow crew from Switzerland, Chris our skipper from London to Brixham, myself and Graham, retired jounralist from Canada, sailing past the Needles on Monday:

Have done some great sailing since the first update, with trips from Portsmoth to Cowes, then on to Poole, to Weymouth and finally to Brixham where I write this. "Sunny intervals" describes the weather on most days, with good winds for sailing, except one trip, last night. We had planned to leave Weymouth early morning and sail the 52 miles to Dartmouth but there were gale warnings and the wind direction was against us, so our skipper decided to delay the trip. Eventually we did leave at 5:00pm late afternoon when the forecast was better, and sailed around Portland Bill with a storm jib up (a small sail at the front of the boat for storm conditions) expecting the worst. Around Portland Bill there is a tide race where the currents meet from different directions, so as a small boat you have to sail either close in to shore (no more than 200 metres) or well out to sea. Our route was the close in one - but as we were nearing Portland Bill and could see the breaking waves of the rough water in the race (a real sight given the winds were only 15 to 20 knots - it must be frightening in stronger winds) which we needed to avoid, our diesel engine again started to give us problems. It was too late to turn back as the tide was following us, so we continued to sail without the motor and did many short tacks staying close to the rocky cliffs - quite an exciting moment and I was on the helm. Our skipper managed to get the motor going again and we managed to motor the final section where the gap between the cliff and the disturbed water of the race is narrow. The rest of the sail was challenging in a different way because the wind reduced to a slight breeze, and was directly against our planned destination of Dartmouth, and also the tide was against, so we tacked up wind (zig zag sailing as close to sailing into the wind as you can) for hours upon hours, it got dark, the sky was full of stars, 2 hour watches all night long - and eventually motoring the last few hours to our destination at a low speed to stop avoid the engine problems recurring. We changed our intended destination from Dartmouth to Brixham, which is the base for the organising company as the sail from Weymouth had taken so long and we also needed to get the diesel engine fixed.

Another photo, this time of us in Lulwoth Xove on the sail from Poole to Weymouth:

Today is Thursday 16th July and our skipper for the first leg of the journey from London leaves us today, although he will also be our skipper on the last leg from Edinburgh back to London in mid September. This week we are based in Brixham and have shore based theory courses (more on the next update), setting off again on Saturday 25th. It is also time to clean the boat, get clothes washed, and generally recover from the first two weeks.

Regarding shopping, cooking, cleaning the boat and other domestics - the three crew have to share and take care themselves and given my accounting background, I have been put in charge of the kitty. Part of learning to be skipper is learning how to provision a boat - so you won't be surprised that so far we have generally been eating pre cooked meals from Waitrose! although this is blowing the budget a little!! Actually I am not being fair on myself, I have actually cooked from raw ingredients, sausage and mash on one occasion and chicken curry on the other (ok, I cheated, I used a jar for the sauce, but I did cook the chicken after a quick mobile call to Mum to check how long the chicken needed to be fried for!!). It is early days, but I fear food won't be a highlight of the trip, and given that I seem to be completely off eating when actually sailing I may even lose a little weight over the trip.

Tomorrow I am going to hire a car and go home to see Debbie and Simon (Lucy is in America) for a day and a half, back very early Sunday morning for a land based training session. There isn't an opportunity to do this again until we have a weekend free in Edinburgh mid September. No surprise that I am also going home with two weeks of dirty clothes washing ...

More soon ....

Chris Round Britain Sailing : Week 1

After months of waiting, then weeks, then days thinking, planning, worrying - it finally arrived. Finished work, some nice farewells, then a week at home to really prepare. The day arrived, Sunday 5th July. Drove with Debbie and Simon (Lucy is in the US with Camp America) to St Katherines in London, together with Debbie's parents, Bonnie and Frank. Too much traffic driving into London - won't be seeing much of that for a while! Difficulty parking and then finding "Six Isles" our boat a 46 foot Bavaria yacht, but it was there, exactly where George the organiser had said it would be, opposite the lock gates to St Katherines Dock. Put the inevitable "too much" luggage on to the boat and also met Chris, the skipper and fellow crew, Jacob a teacher from Switzerland and Graham a retired journalist from Canada. I was very lucky to get the spacious double cabin at the front of the boat (although maybe not so lucky when I discovered this is the most uncomfortable cabin when sailing as it bounces around most!). Went for a final farewell lunch with the family then goodbyes. That evening a general boat, engine and safety briefing - Chris the skipper explains things very well.



The next day a slow start and a departure at 12:15pm to catch high tide. We initially motored down the Thames in sunny weather with memorable views of Canary Wharf, the O2 arena, the Thames Barrier and the QEII Bridge and when the river widened before the River Medway, we put the sails up for the first time and had a tremendous sail in F4 to 5 winds. We moored for the night alongside a concrete barge in Queenborough off the River Medway. The next day we practiced the basic sailing and safety techniques and sailed up to Chatham dock where we stayed for the night. The next day after spending the morning practicing manoeuvering the boat in a marina including bringing it alongside and getting off a pontoon, we sailed back to Queenborough after some "man overboard" practice - hopefully never to be put into practice! That evening we planned our passage to Ramsgate - and I was to navigate!


Up early at 4am to catch the tide we motor sailed and then sailed, avoiding the Margate sandbanks, to Ramsgate and I had to steer the boat up to the pontoon - just about made it although should have gone a little faster! I felt a little sea sick having to spend a significant amount of time below deck checking the charts and our position - but we made it and the boat was still in one piece. We arrived Ramsgate at 9:10am and in the afternoon I went for a cycle with my recent purchase (a folding Brompton bike - wonderful) to Broadstairs in glorious sunny weather. I also phoned my sister Sarah and Rob her husband to ask if they wanted to come and see the boat (they live in Canterbury) and much to my surprise Mum and Dad had just landed in Dover returning from their cruise holiday so all, including Emily and twins William and Edward, came to vist and see the boat and we had a nice meal - a really nice evening.


The next day we set off at 6am for a long passage to Portsmouth - unfortunately the wind was dead against (Force 4 to 6) so unless we wanted to take two uncomfortable days tacking against the wind, we had to motor sail (ie the main sail is up providing some stability and forward motion when off the wind) all the way. The seas were moderate - but believe me it was incredibly uncomfortable, with the boat smashing down on the waves several times a minute. Every time I went below deck I felt sea sick. The journey was expected to take more than 20 hours - and it did - 22 in fact ! We had a watch system where two were on for two hours, then the other two came on duty. During this time we had to stay on deck checking for obstructions eg lobster pots and other boats (not many!) although the boat was generally on auto pilot. I was in fact mildly sick despite the Sturgeron tablets, but also very tired because of the same tablets. It was not fun being woken up at 11:55am for the 12 midnight to 2am watch slot, and finally we arrived in Porstmouth around 4am - exhausted. I slept until 12noon the next day, despite the 4 to 5 hours I had already slept during the passage. The photo is off the White Cliffs of Dover - after here the sun disappeared, the wind increased and so did the wave size. The next day, Saturday 11th, today when I am writing this blog, was spent sightseeing in Portsmouth.

Tomorrow we set off for a short leg to Cowes, then on to Weymouth and then probably Dartmouth. More to follow ...