colhel
Well-Known Member
Thursday night was our planned passage to Cherbourg on our Leisure 23SL, Fortuna, to meet up with a few other fellow forumites. My crew was along term friend Adrian, who has sailed lots in the past both racing and cruising.
We chose Thursday night as this would split the journey into a half night half day crossing, we estimated a crossing time of 12 hours. So my crew and I met at Cobbs Quay at 20.00 to allow us an hour and a half to settle into the boat and cast off to catch the 21.30 bridge lift. At about 21.00 I radioed the Bridge Control to ask if were posible to raise Twin Sails first as it were quite lickely we would be the only boat transiting the bridges, my reason for the request was we could navigate Poole Harbour largely in daylight. The very nice man obliged.
We off Old Harry by about 22.30, it was about this time the Portland coastguard gave out their maritime safety info. Unfortunatley the transmission was largey lost due to to interferance and it seemed being drowned out by Solent coastguard giving similar info. I calld up Portland coastguard and had a chat with a nice lady who gave detailed forecast and we did a version of CG66 where she took boat and crew details etc. She gave us a detailed forecast saying the winds would moderate to a force 4 later, but shipping had reported force 7 within the hour. I told her we'd proceed with our journey and make a final decision once we had cleared all the headland.
Abot 23.30 we were in open sea and sailing close hauled on a course of 180 deg with the wind coming from the SW, Fortuna handled the by now larger seas well but the F7 mentined by PG was still in our minds and we were both now getting pretty tired.
It suddenly occurred to me that I'd been up since 5am, done a full days work, Adrian runs a small garage business and he also had a busy day, and now we faced a 12 hour sail in conditions that would mean little rest and would require concentration and if the wind turned more from the South would mean an even longer journey time. It was a bit stupiid really. We both decided to carry on but neither of us sounded very convincing, so when I suggested turning back to Studland, having some rest and trying again in the morning, the response was a very enthusiastic yes.
We tacked round, I radioed PG to let them know we were heading back and managed to somehow find a mooring bouy in pitch black Studland, the ony thing being it was a private one with a notice saying £50.00 fee, by this time we were both knackered, and the security of a mooring bouy had it's appeal, but we'd have to be off early or risk the possibilty of having to pay. This may have seemed naughty on our part, but we just wanted a quick rest. The time time now was about 3am.
At 6.30 am after a hearty breakfast of Pot Noodle, another mistake but it was easy, we cast off again (still tired). We did a quick revised passage plan and chose again a course of 180 deg. Another problem that I had now was feeling seasick and reading the chart wasn't helping at all.
So basically the same as the previous night, we turned back. We arrived back at Cobbs in Poole catching the 11.30 bridge lift.
That's it reaaly, a complete cock up.
We chose Thursday night as this would split the journey into a half night half day crossing, we estimated a crossing time of 12 hours. So my crew and I met at Cobbs Quay at 20.00 to allow us an hour and a half to settle into the boat and cast off to catch the 21.30 bridge lift. At about 21.00 I radioed the Bridge Control to ask if were posible to raise Twin Sails first as it were quite lickely we would be the only boat transiting the bridges, my reason for the request was we could navigate Poole Harbour largely in daylight. The very nice man obliged.
We off Old Harry by about 22.30, it was about this time the Portland coastguard gave out their maritime safety info. Unfortunatley the transmission was largey lost due to to interferance and it seemed being drowned out by Solent coastguard giving similar info. I calld up Portland coastguard and had a chat with a nice lady who gave detailed forecast and we did a version of CG66 where she took boat and crew details etc. She gave us a detailed forecast saying the winds would moderate to a force 4 later, but shipping had reported force 7 within the hour. I told her we'd proceed with our journey and make a final decision once we had cleared all the headland.
Abot 23.30 we were in open sea and sailing close hauled on a course of 180 deg with the wind coming from the SW, Fortuna handled the by now larger seas well but the F7 mentined by PG was still in our minds and we were both now getting pretty tired.
It suddenly occurred to me that I'd been up since 5am, done a full days work, Adrian runs a small garage business and he also had a busy day, and now we faced a 12 hour sail in conditions that would mean little rest and would require concentration and if the wind turned more from the South would mean an even longer journey time. It was a bit stupiid really. We both decided to carry on but neither of us sounded very convincing, so when I suggested turning back to Studland, having some rest and trying again in the morning, the response was a very enthusiastic yes.
We tacked round, I radioed PG to let them know we were heading back and managed to somehow find a mooring bouy in pitch black Studland, the ony thing being it was a private one with a notice saying £50.00 fee, by this time we were both knackered, and the security of a mooring bouy had it's appeal, but we'd have to be off early or risk the possibilty of having to pay. This may have seemed naughty on our part, but we just wanted a quick rest. The time time now was about 3am.
At 6.30 am after a hearty breakfast of Pot Noodle, another mistake but it was easy, we cast off again (still tired). We did a quick revised passage plan and chose again a course of 180 deg. Another problem that I had now was feeling seasick and reading the chart wasn't helping at all.
So basically the same as the previous night, we turned back. We arrived back at Cobbs in Poole catching the 11.30 bridge lift.
That's it reaaly, a complete cock up.
