Have you ever turned back ?

[dslittle]

After a visit to the then ‘new’ Poole Yacht Haven, we set out for Cherbourg in lively (but not dangerous) weather. As I paid for our stay, I informed the Marina staff that I would not be returning EVER again due to their exorbitant prices...
I had two friends on board who had never done a cross channel. Just past Peveril Point, it became apparent that one of the crew was definitely the worst for wear. The sensible thing to do was to turn back.
As we approached Poole the wind noise was quite loud but I’m sure that I heard some humour in the radio message directing us back to the very berth that we had vacated a couple of hours earlier!!!

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

I have not turned back, but, there have been a few times where I wished I was still in the marina. Entering the Solent from the West can be very bouncy sometimes and West Wales/Irish sea can be very rough.

 

[Iliade]

<snip>
Where my crew woke up, came on deck and asked "Where are we?" "Exactly where we were when you handed over to me seven hours ago", I replied.

We have all been there!


Probably not PC nowadays, but taken in and of it's time:


Come all ye gallant sail-i-ers, who sail across the sea;
And listen to this story I'm about to tell to thee.
Concerning them bold Fishermen who sail the seas so wet;
A-hunting for fish fingers, with a harpoon and a net.


'Twas in the year of '64,or was it' 63-
We set sail from Solihull, bound for Amer-i-key.
The storms they was a-ra-ji-ing, and the waves a dreadful sight;
It took us forty days, me boys, to reach the Isle of Wight.


Our Captain's name was Gladys, he wore a dress of red;
Which might have been the reason he was not marr-i-ed.
He was a gay old sea-bitch and it was his fav-our-ite joy,
To take a turn around the deck with the handsome cabin boy.


Two hundred miles from Iceland, a mighty shoal we spied;
MacFisheiies Fish Fin-gi-ers, a-floating'gainst the tide.
We set off in our longboats, but then our luck we cursed;
A-las, we was too late, the Chinese take-away got there first.


Them slant eyed heathens came at we, they was a dreadful crew;
A-brandishing tran-sis-ti-ers, and a-giving it the old Kung-Fu.
We sang them a sea shan-ti-ee, but they did not want to know;
And their Skipper felled our mizzen mast with one Karate blow.


We got back to old Eng-gi-land in a twelve month and a day;
It would have been much quicker, but we went the pretty way.
No more we'll go Fish Fingering on frozen arctic shores;
Next year we'll hunt beefburgers on the plains of Ilkley Moor.

 

[Habebty]

Heading back to Ipswich from Plymouth singlehanded, left Dartmouth for Weymouth with a 4-5 SE forecast. Turned into a 5-6 E so ended up leaving the boat at Torquay for a week. Luckily could change my leave to suit. Have often diverted to a closer haven if the weather doesn’t quite live up to expectations.

 

[Bru]

Maybe not if ideal if you've never been and it was dark that time but have you tried anchoring in the bays between the breakwaters off Sea Palling? I've used it a few times for overnighting and anchoring while waiting for the tide to turn back in favour. Great for single handing around the corner there. It was one of the northern most bays that had the most water still last time in 2018 but they seem to be filling in a bit over the years.

We had a close look on the way back South as it would have been good to stop for a break but it looked a bit lively (surprisingly given that it was an offshore wind) so we gave it a miss

 

[Adios]

We had a close look on the way back South as it would have been good to stop for a break but it looked a bit lively (surprisingly given that it was an offshore wind) so we gave it a miss

Thats certainly a bit strange, could it have looked bad from seeing waves breaking on the beach due to left over swell? You didn't say which way the wind changed from. The last time i used it the wind was parallel to the shore and it was still perfectly calm inside so there seems a good 180 degrees protection there.

 

[Bru]

Thats certainly a bit strange, could it have looked bad from seeing waves breaking on the beach due to left over swell? You didn't say which way the wind changed from. The last time i used it the wind was parallel to the shore and it was still perfectly calm inside so there seems a good 180 degrees protection there.

The wind had been Westerly F4 backing (veering? I can never remember which!) Northerly F5 then Norwestely F5 to F6 over a few hours.

Inside of the breakwaters it just looked a very confused chop. There were no big or breaking waves though. In extremis i suspect it would have been tenable but it certainly didn't look comfortable!

I was puzzled by it at the time and i still can't figure out quite what was going on

 

[Adios]

The wind had been Westerly F4 backing (veering? I can never remember which!) Northerly F5 then Norwestely F5 to F6 over a few hours.

Backing is anticlockwise like going back in time. HTH

 

[Bru]

Backing is anticlockwise like going back in time. HTH

Blimey! I got it right for once

That might be a most useful way of getting my last remaining brain cell to remember how to get it right in future to

 

[zoidberg]

Plenty of times. Mostly due to broken bits but sometimes weather. Being two or three days into an ocean trip and turning back develops a certain mind set! Beat back, fix it, start again. It teaches patience.......

Isn't that 'zackly what the French skipper Jeremie Bayou did when some bits on his hot filly 'Charal' broke a few days after the start of the current Vendee Globe?

 

[zoidberg]

T'wards the end of last century, I borrowed a 40' Piver trimaran out of Plymouth and, with my new g/friend, headed SE towards Guernsey. I'd monitored the weather f'casts and actuals for about a week and, in late October, expected several settled days and a mild NE'ly. About 30-odd miles down route, the wind faltered, then swung round to SW. The cloud types and amounts in the western sky didn't square with what I expected from the latest forecast so, growing uneasy, I turned us back towards Salcombe.

The wind started building from the SW and, arriving in the dark just off the entrance, I stopped to dowse the sails. The first big squall hit as I was hauling the foresail back along to the cockpit, and we tore off at speed into the deserted harbour. Near the fuel barge i managed to turn her around and, little outboard bursting, clawed back upwind to a 'black object' that hoped was an unused mooring pickup buoy. It wasn't, and got airborne with a squawk, so we carried on to the next one - which was,

We managed to snaffle that one, double-secured to it, and sat there for the next three days while the unforecast storm raged around and above up.

It's glad I was we hadn't continued towards Guernsey, for the weather would have caught us well short of shelter, and running downwind towards the rock-bound west coast of the island.

 

[STATUE]

Or perhaps wished you had done, or you regret having done so.

Most notable for me was an attempt to leave Flushing in Holland to the East Coast. After a number of attempts to eat cornflakes it became clear that approximately 18 hours like this was going to be difficult. I later spoke to a pilot . He said that if I had only stuck out another hour or two, I would have cleared the shallows and things would have been manageable.

Just a follow on from the F8 thread.

I keep a record at the back of my log of the times I decided to stay put, giving forecasts, local conditions, my assessment (fear level), ease of entry at destination, 'boltholes enroute' etc.

 

[ryanroberts]

Yes, though not at all severe conditions. Just turned the corner planning on a mooch over to Weymouth, saw the start of a 5 hour beat into 1-2m swell and figured Weymouth wasn't fun enough justify split tea and went the other way instead.

 

[Daedelus]

Once after going to Yarmouth for the Nov 5th fireworks we found a very thick fog next day which didn't seem to be lifting. For those who know Yarmouth we couldn't see the non shore access pontoon from the adjacent parallel shore connected pontoon.

We had planned to leave around 0900 to catch the tide and my crew was desperate to get back to Gosport, so eventually at around 1000 we felt our way out into the Solent where we couldn't see a thing and my crew who was busying himself with getting the lines in wasn't much help. It was as we were swept past the mooring trots and I suddenly saw a buoy within a few feet of us that I told him we were going back and we found our original space still vacant. Another boat who had AIS said that the Lymington ferry was sat in the approaches to Lymington (he later reported that one of the posts marking the channel where the ferry had been for some while had disappeared). We eventually left Yarmouth at 1400 when we could just make out the pier so, checking that the ferry was not about to enter, we cautiously went out feeling our way with radar and chart plotter. My crew who had (what he said was) an important phone call took it below and leaned on the switch panel turning off GPS, radar, chart plotter, log and echo. He was deaf to my furious bellows as his call was so important (no it wasn't) but eventually he was able to take the helm while I regained all the electronics. As the day went on the fog slowly lifted and by Osborne bay we could see both a very misty mainland and island at the same time. On balance I should perhaps have told him to get the ferry after our first venture out.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I once left Crinan heading for Iona in my Jouster. Went through Coirebhreacan at slack water and ran into fog on the other side. Sailed fast for four hours, but the tide had turned and we went practically nowhere, though not, thank goodness, back into the wild bit. Eventually, after dark, got a triangulated VHF position from Oban coastguard which to my delight and my crew's amazement was within 1/2 mile of my EP. By now it was beginning to blow up, so we went into the anchorage on Garbh Eileach ("a temporary daytime anchorage for one boat in settled daylight conditions") and hunkered down there for the night. Next day the tide had just started south, the wind was NW F3 and we tied up at 6pm in Gigha, Bangor the day after and Peel two days after that. Iona had to wait.

 

[lydiamight]

Not so much turning back--rather not going out. Was close to the end of my five days at sea for my Coastal Skipper Practical and we were doing the evening theoretical exercises in Burnham Yacht Harbour,
The question was "we need to get back to Chatham, the forecast is north easterly 6 occasionally 7. What course would you plan? what sails would you use? etc, etc."
My rather flippant response was that we should plot a course to The Yacht Club Bar and stay there until the weather got better.
I was rather surprised to hear that it was a perfect answer and I had passed.

 

[Tomahawk]

Once...
Race from Ascension day race from Ramsgate to Ostend.. NE blowing a hard 6. It took us three hours to get as far as N E Goodwin and the entire crew on the rail were starting to shiver. I tentatively asked if people were enjoying themselves... and got a sullen silence .. so I asked if anyone wold be offended if we retired..

Everyone cheered.

We were back in Ramsgate in 45 minutes with the wind up our back end., And within minutes the rest of the RTYC fleeet also followed.

 

[Beelzebub]

I have turned back a few times and I feel no shame in having done so.

Twice was coming out of Saint Malo and realising, once the lock gates opened to reveal the world outside, that discretion would be the better part of valour and I turned sharp left into Bas Sablons marina and waited another 12 hours, wise decisions, I feel on both occasions.

On another occasion I was delivering a Moonraker from Guernsey to Poole and about 10 miles north of Alderney we lost steering. A quick check down aft showed both tiller arms to be working OK so the problem was obviously lower down. We turned about and steered by juggling the engine throttles back to Alderney. A diver confirmed that both rudder posts had sheared, with one being an old break and the other being a nice shiny new break. Perhaps there was a lesson to be learned there:- never believe the owner when he tells you that his boat is seaworthy!

 

[stevie69p]

Earlier this year myself and a pal and his young son were on a delivery trip out of Preston to the Clyde. Since the boat had to be moved on a spring tide, we were constrained on dates and tide timings. I can't say that I was loving the forecast and would have rather delayed for an extra day, and I did warn that the Irish Sea is a bumpy, lumpy b*gger, but off we set at 1pm anyway. The River Ribble is a bit of a one shot deal, as it's around 15 miles to the sea, and if you need to turn back towards the end of that and have to fight the tide, the likelihood of not having enough water to get back in is high. By the time we got out of the estuary, they were both seasick. We had to bash on out into a horrible confused sea, steering up the waves at an angle and trying to work out the direction of the next one. Tiring stuff. We eventually made it to an anchorage on the IoM around 2am, but if the option had been available to turn back, I think I would have taken it.

 

[DownWest]

Went back twice to Barbate when trying to get through the straites. Bit of a Levanter and big waves. Judging the moment to turn got interesting... in a twin outdrive MoBo.The fishermen in Barbate were friendly, used to chuck fish into the cockpit as they passed. Read most of Villier's 'The Quest of the Argus' while waiting it out. Third go the wind had moderated enough and it was just 'rough'