East coast single handed trip

[Daydream believer]

My boat has been in Inverness having a new rudder fitted. ( damaged on my SH round UK trip)
I now have to get down the east coast back to Bradwell fairly sharpish so I can get over to Breskens to meet the family for hols
Normally I would do 9 legs , sail a day rest a day,
2 legs - peterhead to eyemouth & grimsby to lowestoft are 100+ miles but OK
So allowing an extra day to rest after these 2 legs means a 20 day trip to Bradwell
I am thinking of going Inv - Peterhead-eyemouth-Blyth then going straight to Lowestoft
Blyth to Lowestoft is about 200 miles so I will need some sleep en route
has anyone done a this trip?
My charts do not show any oil rigs etc, I hope to miss lobster pots by being off shore a bit, I know there can be lots north of the norfolk coast & wash but hope to skirt those
is there much shipping off the Humber?
Are there any new wind farms to miss ?
Is there much fishing activity?
I have a new chart plotter ( Still prefer the old fashioned way) with 2014 chart but cannot see any rigs, windfarms etc marked
last time I did Hartlepool, Scarborough Grimsby then Lowestoft but i need to save some time, peterhead to Lowestoft being a step too far

 

[ShinyShoe]

Gonna depend on weather.

Wind farms off Northumberland I think. Rigs off Aberdeen but good distance out. You used to be able to see rigs from teesside.

Plenty of commercial traffic about (ships + fishing). But depends what you mean by 'much' is hardly the Solent.

Look at marine traffic website and you'll see ships >300gt. But not fishing or other leisure who may be doing same as you... The other way?

Eyemouth to Blyth feels short compared to the other legs... Eyemouth Hartlepool or Eyemouth Whitby would feel more logical but haven't measured it..

 

[dylanwinter]

My boat has been in Inverness having a new rudder fitted. ( damaged on my SH round UK trip)
I now have to get down the east coast back to Bradwell fairly sharpish so I can get over to Breskens to meet the family for hols
Normally I would do 9 legs , sail a day rest a day,
2 legs - peterhead to eyemouth & grimsby to lowestoft are 100+ miles but OK
So allowing an extra day to rest after these 2 legs means a 20 day trip to Bradwell
I am thinking of going Inv - Peterhead-eyemouth-Blyth then going straight to Lowestoft
Blyth to Lowestoft is about 200 miles so I will need some sleep en route
has anyone done a this trip?
My charts do not show any oil rigs etc, I hope to miss lobster pots by being off shore a bit, I know there can be lots north of the norfolk coast & wash but hope to skirt those
is there much shipping off the Humber?
Are there any new wind farms to miss ?
Is there much fishing activity?
I have a new chart plotter ( Still prefer the old fashioned way) with 2014 chart but cannot see any rigs, windfarms etc marked
last time I did Hartlepool, Scarborough Grimsby then Lowestoft but i need to save some time, peterhead to Lowestoft being a step too far

done it last year and this year

we found lobster pots at up to 60m so in the north sea you can find themn anywhere

lots of traffic coming out of Humber and harwich

 

[Daydream believer]

Gonna depend on weather.

Wind farms off Northumberland I think. Rigs off Aberdeen but good distance out. You used to be able to see rigs from teesside.

Plenty of commercial traffic about (ships + fishing). But depends what you mean by 'much' is hardly the Solent.

Look at marine traffic website and you'll see ships >300gt. But not fishing or other leisure who may be doing same as you... The other way?

Eyemouth to Blyth feels short compared to the other legs... Eyemouth Hartlepool or Eyemouth Whitby would feel more logical but haven't measured it..

Trouble with Hartlepool is that it is not a 24 hour harbour & at the end of a long trip one does not want to be messing about waiting to get in if missing the times
I must admit I did discount it for that reason but perhaps you might have a point

Edit
actually looking online & an update on that is that it is 24 hour for my 1.8 draft if it is neaps. Plus i recall blyth has no fuel supply whereas hartlepool has which might be useful, so thanks Dylan I will probably go with that .
I have done 150 miles ( bradwell Ijmuiden) SH before but it was hard with all those ships which along with fishing boats is my main concern

 

[jonjo]

Blyth to Lowestoft is about 200 miles so I will need some sleep en route

I think 200 miles is a bit too far for a coastal single handed leg, I did Falmouth/Kinsale singlehanded once which is less of a challenge than your coastal route.

is there much shipping off the Humber?

I do not think you can sleep on a coastal passage based on anticipated shipping levels, best you can aim for is a routine of catnaps backed up by two alarms set between 12 and 15 minutes.

My charts do not show any oil rigs etc

This caught me out off Kinsale where I encountered a gas rig that had not shown up on pre trip perusal of the electronic chart. You need to get to know your new plotter, pan to the location of a known rig and then note at what level of zoom it is exposed.

I visited Whitby once by car, it seems like a good staging post.

 

[dgadee]

I did Harwich, Lowestoft, Wells-next-the-Sea (not ideal given my 1.8 draft), Grimsby, Scarborough, Blyth, Eyemouth, Port Edgar, Aberdeen then round to Whitehills mostly solo. I found these tiring enough as there wasn't a lot of wind and I had to keep an eye on pots. As Dylan says, the pots are everywhere - often in 50m depths. What also got me about the east coast was the number of turbines and the spread of them, too.

 

[smeaks]

My boat has been in Inverness having a new rudder fitted. ( damaged on my SH round UK trip)
I now have to get down the east coast back to Bradwell fairly sharpish so I can get over to Breskens to meet the family for hols
Normally I would do 9 legs , sail a day rest a day,
2 legs - peterhead to eyemouth & grimsby to lowestoft are 100+ miles but OK
So allowing an extra day to rest after these 2 legs means a 20 day trip to Bradwell
I am thinking of going Inv - Peterhead-eyemouth-Blyth then going straight to Lowestoft
Blyth to Lowestoft is about 200 miles so I will need some sleep en route
has anyone done a this trip?
My charts do not show any oil rigs etc, I hope to miss lobster pots by being off shore a bit, I know there can be lots north of the norfolk coast & wash but hope to skirt those
is there much shipping off the Humber?
Are there any new wind farms to miss ?
Is there much fishing activity?
I have a new chart plotter ( Still prefer the old fashioned way) with 2014 chart but cannot see any rigs, windfarms etc marked
last time I did Hartlepool, Scarborough Grimsby then Lowestoft but i need to save some time, peterhead to Lowestoft being a step too far

Blyth to whitby is doable in a long day sail and will take a chunk out for you.... and you gets to scoff cracking fish and chips!

 

[Daydream believer]

Blyth to whitby is doable in a long day sail and will take a chunk out for you.... and you gets to scoff cracking fish and chips!

But one cannot get into whitby at all states of tide -- or can one?

 

[jimi]

I did Inverness to Lowestoft in a single trip with 2 crew 2 years ago. There was little traffic between Aberdeen and the Farne Islands. I think we only saw one other vessel in 24 hours on that section but we were well out to sea.

 

[dylanwinter]

why not ask if anyone fancies a non-stop trip with you

when we brought Harmony (Centaur) North from Littlehampton to Edinburgh we sailed for six days and five nights - we averaged 4.1 knots so you can eat 100 miles a day even in a clunky old Centaur

and we really enjoyed ourselves

after asking on here it was suggested that if we had three of us the best thing to do is two hours on and four off

D

 

[BrianH]

But one cannot get into whitby at all states of tide -- or can one?

One can, or used to when I sailed from there. But, one is restricted to the lower harbour at low tide - and bridge opening times - which means having to jostle with commercial stuff at the fish quay (bottom left).

 

[Bru]

One can, or used to when I sailed from there. But, one is restricted to the lower harbour at low tide - and bridge opening times - which means having to jostle with commercial stuff at the fish quay (bottom left).

I believe that quite by chance you;ve got a pic that shows the piles but not the pontoon of the bridge waiting pontoon that now exists in front of the white buildings top left!

(Based on my passage planning for our trip North a couple of months back but we didn't actually make it to Whitby so I can't verify that from personal experience)

 

[Bru]

A pic ...

 

[BrianH]

I believe that quite by chance you;ve got a pic that shows the piles but not the pontoon of the bridge waiting pontoon that now exists in front of the white buildings top left!

(Based on my passage planning for our trip North a couple of months back but we didn't actually make it to Whitby so I can't verify that from personal experience)

Ah, could be. I used to have a mooring where those piles are - it meant laying over on the mud at low tide and facing up-stream so a lot of weight, anchors etc., needed on the port side.

This would have been contemporaneous to my time, before the pontoon was added - I left for warmer climes back in the early 1970s.

 

[Magaz97]

The waiting pontoon (very small) is on the end of the jetty, just down river of the life boat. You can get into the river at all times (other than really low water) but avoid it in a Northerly. It can be very lumpy.

 

[Champagne Murphy]

So at low water how much water does the waiting pontoon have?
Any pics at low water?

 

[BrianH]

So at low water how much water does the waiting pontoon have?
Any pics at low water?

I cannot answer for the waiting pontoon because it wasn't there when I was. But presumably it is the object (centre right) off the lifeboat pier in the picture below (from Magaz97's post), which would have been taken not far off low water. Normally the foreground coble would be well aground at LWS. I would expect the pontoon moorings (centre right) are not available for visitors - the previous moorings there (pre-pontoon) were allocated to WYC members. All subject to correction - my Whitby experiences are pre-historic.

 

[Bru]

Interesting! Had we made it to Whitby I would certainly have headed for the pontoon upstream of the lifeboat station based on the harbour pilotage directions

Still would if there was nowhere better to go unless and until someone told me to clear orf!

 

[dylanwinter]

Interesting! Had we made it to Whitby I would certainly have headed for the pontoon upstream of the lifeboat station based on the harbour pilotage directions

Still would if there was nowhere better to go unless and until someone told me to clear orf!

it never bothers me if people tell me to move as the words usually come with an alternative place to shove the boat

tie up first and ask questions later

D

 

[Bru]

it never bothers me if people tell me to move as the words usually come with an alternative place to shove the boat

tie up first and ask questions later

D

I like it