Getting out of Portsmouth harbour 3-4 hours before high water.

solent clown

solent clown

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I may try to get the "new" Trident back on saturday afternoon. It would save a lot of time and hassle if I could, though as I have said before I have never sailed out of Portsmouth Harbour. Wind looks favourable for a trip back to Southampton, weather looks good.
The problem I have is I would be wanting to depart from the Jolly Roger pub/ hardway SC area around three to four hours before high water.
My main concern is battling the tide to get out of the harbour, almanac is saying 0.3 to 0.6 which seems Ok in a 24fter with an engine, but I have no experience of punching out of this bit of water. Once I get out I will then be battling for another hour or so before slack, and things turning in our favour.
I need to be back in Southampton at a decent hour, so we can be shown to the new mooring.
I am not going to be timid about the sails, I am going to have a check over before we depart, and get the sails up as soon as we clear the harbour, so we will have engine and sail power.
This is the plan,
Depart the Hardway 1400hrs, Motor out of the harbour towards spithead, battle the tide for an hour or so before it slackens and becomes our shepherd back towards calshot.
Low tide portsmouth 10.39
High tide portsmouth 17.42 (this Saturday)
I am of course assuming that the mooring at the Hardway will have enough water under them at 1400, I have not checked the charts yet but will tonight.
This is the first time I am sailing with a yacht of this draft, it is only 1.3m but I do not have the luxury of a lifting keel, so I am being cautious in my planning, and just need to hope habit does not take over when I get to the Itchen and try to skip over the shallows :p

Is this a foolhardy plan doomed to failure. I appreciate that it might be a bit of a slog initially, but as long as we are not going backwards I will be a happy bunny.
Trident 24, full and working set of sails.
Yanmar 1gm10.
Any useful comments would be much appreciated.
 
It'll be an easy sail and calmish in the cold Easterly wind. But have you seen the forecast? Gusting 30kts -- the fetch won't be enough to build much of a sea, but perhaps a tad blowy for a first sail, with poss dirty fuel tank, and new-to-you rig?

And you won't want to take those gloves off for long ;)
 
dom said:
It'll be an easy sail and calmish in the cold Easterly wind. But have you seen the forecast? Gusting 30kts -- the fetch won't be enough to build much of a sea, but perhaps a tad blowy for a first sail, with poss dirty fuel tank, and new-to-you rig?

And you won't want to take those gloves off for long ;)
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I must have been looking at a crappier forecast, I was looking at 16kts with 21kts gusts. (solent windfinder, and Windguru)
I can deal with the cold, but I dont want to test the unknown rig that hard first time round
 
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Personally, I'd take a day to play with the boat then think about bringing her round. I understand that there is something called SeaStart, a bit like the AA afloat, it might be worth getting some cover with. Their stats are quite scary, with over 50% of their members needing help every year!

http://www.seastart.co.uk/
 
Sandy said:
Personally, I'd take a day to play with the boat then think about bringing her round. I understand that there is something called SeaStart, a bit like the AA afloat, it might be worth getting some cover with. Their stats are quite scary, with over 50% of their members needing help every year!

http://www.seastart.co.uk/
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I am all over that already Sandy, at the wife's insistence :encouragement:
 
solent clown said:
I must have been looking at a crappier forecast, I was looking at 16kts with 21kts gusts. (solent windfinder, and Windguru)
I can deal with the cold, but I dont want to test the unknown rig that hard first time round
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Met Inshore just released has it 5-6, occ 7 at first. Also you’ll be closing nightfall on your approach complicating matters if anything goes wrong. You cld always test a couple of bars out and post a review on here!
 
I have HW Portsmouth at 18:03 on Saturday with sunset at 17:37.

Through the entrance the maximum rates are:

Flood - 2 hours before HW

Ebb - 3 hours after HW

At least you will be on Neaps
 
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our HW prediction is from the Force 4 chandlery time times booklet, another one for firelighting then :D
Having looked at the chart, depth the boats location in the small craft mooring area is marginal/drying. From line of sight from shore only it looks to be east north east of vospers jetty by a few metres. So I am not expecting much joy getting away early, in which case we shall not even attempt the passage home

IMG_20180222_175204[1] by mark punksteel, on Flickr
 
If you keep pretty close to the Gosport side, there is a lot less current.
The main problem fighting the tide here is in Summer 'rush hour' when people bimble along at 3.5 knots in 3 knots of tide, so the boats behind catch up and people get pushed further across toward Portsmouth.
It's only a short distance along the HMS Dolphin wall, then you can turn right into the inner swashway.
Do check an up to date chart and LNTM, they have messed about with the channel for HMS Big Liz.
But at half tide you should be OK with the inner swashway. (I haven't done the maths for you...)
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/qhm/po...ections/2017/1702-portsmouth-harbour-entrance
If you are early or don't fancy the inner swashway, you need to stay just outside the main channel punching a fair amount of tide until you reach the outer swashway.
The green bit between the two is the northern tip of the Hamilton Bank, it catches yachts from time to time....
 
On neaps you should have no problem pushing the tide out of the harbour mouth. Turn right as soon as you are out of the harbour, there will be plenty of water. Follow Haslar wall direct up to Gilkicker. Follow the coast, no more than 50yds off, into Stokes Bay. The tide should turn west at Gilkicker around 1600hrs.
In an Easterly F5 or 6 it will be fairly rocky-rolly along haslar wall but then a nice broad reach all the way up to Soton. If it were me I wouldn't be bothering with a mainsail.
Good luck.
 
alahol2 said:
On neaps you should have no problem pushing the tide out of the harbour mouth. Turn right as soon as you are out of the harbour, there will be plenty of water. Follow Haslar wall direct up to Gilkicker. Follow the coast, no more than 50yds off, into Stokes Bay. The tide should turn west at Gilkicker around 1600hrs.
In an Easterly F5 or 6 it will be fairly rocky-rolly along haslar wall but then a nice broad reach all the way up to Soton. If it were me I wouldn't be bothering with a mainsail.
Good luck.
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Stokes bay was chaos today, we came by on our way back from Gosport, hopping down the coast to avoid the tedium of the motorway to a throng of kids, and a film unit in the car park. Turned out seeing it on the news tonight to be Dr Who.
If we can get away early enough we will go for it.
 
thanks chap, I am hoping it will be pretty quiet what with the freezing easterly and all that. If I am confident of the engine , and we can get away in good time, then I think we will go for it. The sails carry a trident after all, so he should be down there looking after us.
 
The inshore forecast is now Easterly 5-7, I realise it's tempting to get back to your mooring, but I personally would think again in an untried, at least to you, boat.
 
solent clown said:
Stokes bay was chaos today, we came by on our way back from Gosport, hopping down the coast to avoid the tedium of the motorway to a throng of kids, and a film unit in the car park. Turned out seeing it on the news tonight to be Dr Who.
If we can get away early enough we will go for it.
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Hasn't (s)he got those monsters out of the Solent Forts yet! I thought Pertwee had that sorted years back.
 
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