Entering Plymouth Sound in rough weather:

jamesjermain said:
Both are safe, all weather entrances, the west perhaps slightly easier, especially at night and if approaching from the west but remember that the Grey Funnel Line and ferries use this entrance.

Entering Plymouth in a storm is a wonderful experience - as you pass the breakwater and tuck in behind it the world seems to go to sleep.
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Was there an article in Yachtng Monthly a couple of years back about a yacht entering the eastern entrance in the dark that misjudged the pilotage and ended up aground on the seaward side of the breakwater? I think the skipper and crew were rescued by the lifeboat. This is a separate incident from the one mentioned elsewhere in the thread where sadly the skipper was drowned.
Perhaps it was in an RNLI publication...
 
A1Sailor said:
Was there an article in Yachtng Monthly a couple of years back about a yacht entering the eastern entrance in the dark that misjudged the pilotage and ended up aground on the seaward side of the breakwater? I think the skipper and crew were rescued by the lifeboat. This is a separate incident from the one mentioned elsewhere in the thread where sadly the skipper was drowned.
Perhaps it was in an RNLI publication...
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If memory serves correct, there was a racing cat that ended up on the breakwater, 20 odd years ago? At high water, in the dark and when tired I can see how that could happen, especially if it's calm with no waves breaking on the breakwater, which is virtually covered on a high spring.
 
longjohnsilver said:
If memory serves correct, there was a racing cat that ended up on the breakwater, 20 odd years ago? At high water, in the dark and when tired I can see how that could happen, especially if it's calm with no waves breaking on the breakwater, which is virtually covered on a high spring.
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We came into the Sound in August at about 5 am, pitch dark and about Force 6. The Breakwater was not visible mainly due to the clutter of shore-based lights. Even trying to pick out the Western lighthouse was not that easy due to the many other buoys, some of which looked to be white, when in fact they were yellow! (Thank goodness for chart plotters, especially in a 22 footer, 2 up, and after a 20 hour channel crossing, LOL!). And, yes, the Breakwater is very often covered at or around HW Springs.

There was a boat wrecked (was it last year?) on the breakwater. Sailor was on his way from the East to Ireland, I believe. Got tired and tried to enter Plymouth. He hit the breakwater twice, and was able to get off his boat, which was later retriever, and eventually repaired. Nothing else heard about that.
 
longjohnsilver said:
If memory serves correct, there was a racing cat that ended up on the breakwater, 20 odd years ago? At high water, in the dark and when tired I can see how that could happen, especially if it's calm with no waves breaking on the breakwater, which is virtually covered on a high spring.
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If memory serves, that was a racing trimaran built for the OSTAR, and its Dutch (?) skipper and crew were ferrying the boat to the start/QAB when they ran it onto the middle of the breakwater, at night, at speed. Apparently the skipper was speaking to his wife by mobile phone - she was in a hotel on Plymouth Hoe - when the boat struck. As I recall, flares were fired, but the lifeboat couldn't find the casualty for some time, until the penny dropped that they were on the outside of the breakwater. The skipper died....
 
As many hear have said , the Western route is my favourite and the safest.
We were en-route last Sept out of the Eastern exit bound for the Yealm.
I know the water pretty well but it still slightly bemused me how much the Shag stones with their little island jut out from a line from the exit to the Mew(?) stone.
The same coming back , you have to be very aware.
With a lee shore there it makes the Western entrance preferable.

To me it's quite understandable the tragedy described in the MAIB report could trake place.
 
At the moment its gusting 52mph at the airport some way inland! We sail on the Yealm. Even locals would not leave the river in a SW gale, or use the Eastern entrance. Hope anyone sailing out there today stays safe.
 
Go for the closest entrance to where your coming from. The breakwater will be a leeshore, where as behind it will be nice and flat - still as windy though!?!

If it's dead south and you use the western entrance, you can guarantee grey funnels will be coming/going at the time you'll be going through the narrowest part, it's the Navy's way of welcoming you, and even if you head off behind the breakwater they'll follow you. However if you head straight for the bridge they will come after you and try to get you on the otherside.
 
snooks said:
Go for the closest entrance to where your coming from. The breakwater will be a leeshore, where as behind it will be nice and flat - still as windy though!?!

If it's dead south and you use the western entrance, you can guarantee grey funnels will be coming/going at the time you'll be going through the narrowest part, it's the Navy's way of welcoming you, and even if you head off behind the breakwater they'll follow you. However if you head straight for the bridge they will come after you and try to get you on the otherside.
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Doesn't Snooks write some absolute bolleaux at times! And to think we are asked to pay for that.....

I know that peeps have been killed on the breakwater ( lee shore ) and on/by the Shag Rocks ( lee shore ) on the eastern side. I know of no-one who's been even slightly killed by a Grey Funnel Liner around the western entrance. Despite all the fluff and mutter, there's a lot of room on the west side..... and a lot of lee-shelter on most days.

If it is ever an issue, go to the western side. There are more and better pubs on that side.....
 
oldbilbo said:
Doesn't Snooks write some absolute bolleaux at times! And to think we are asked to pay for that.....

I know that peeps have been killed on the breakwater ( lee shore ) and on/by the Shag Rocks ( lee shore ) on the eastern side. I know of no-one who's been even slightly killed by a Grey Funnel Liner around the western entrance. Despite all the fluff and mutter, there's a lot of room on the west side..... and a lot of lee-shelter on most days.

If it is ever an issue, go to the western side. There are more and better pubs on that side.....
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I suspect that a balanced answer is to go to whichever side is nearest unless its survival conditions. If its REALLY bad, then the Western entrance has all the benefits you list. With any amount of common sense and seamanship it would have to be really bad to make the Easter entrance dangerous - but it would depend on the wind and weather at the time. If an Easterly gale was blowing, then running on down the breakwater towards a lee shore wouldn't seem so attractive...
 
'......With any amount of common sense and seamanship.....'
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Aye, and when one can see BOTH the end of the breakwater AND the hazard rocks to the east AND can be certain of coping with any reasonable incident before being set onto one or the other......

I've learned to be very wary of fatigue - which we all suffer from towards the end of a passage - which clouds early perception of growing problems and, even when a problem is identified, clouds the judgement needed to make a sound, early decision to deal effectively with that issue.

It is sound commonsense and seamanship to 'keep enough in hand' or 'maintain a good offing' which, in my book, means enough time if drifting NUC for a lifeboat to get to you if you become disabled - mast over the side, prop/rudder fouled - and I don't see that being obtained by choosing the east over the west entrance simply 'cos it's possibly nearer.

The skipper/person in charge of 'Kishmul of Ayr' cut the corner in foul weather - as his reconstructed track shows. He was almost certainly fatigued and failed to notice being set - or steering - on a more easterly track than warranted. Like so many before him, he didn't allow enough 'offing' and that fatigued judgement killed him..... as it has others.

As I learned in military aviation, you 'don't relax vigilance when the runway lights are in sight' - you increase it. It's the last mile that kills.
 
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