Needles / Overly Cautious?

[Robert Wilson]

Coming from the west (poole), pass Hengistbury Head to port & head toward Hurst Castle.
En route you will see a green buoy (north head) with the channel inside that. Deep water even close to the shinge spit right through past Hurst. I usually aim for Fort Albert until a clear run through.

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Thank you both.
When I came through on May Bank Holiday 2015 from Weymouth I was anxious to try to get into Yarmouth Marina ASAP. It was bumpy, sure enough, and I knew not of the North Channel. If I'd been earlier in the day I might have detoured, but it looked like an awful lot of blue on the chart!

 

[jac]

Thank you both.
When I came through on May Bank Holiday 2015 from Weymouth I was anxious to try to get into Yarmouth Marina ASAP. It was bumpy, sure enough, and I knew not of the North Channel. If I'd been earlier in the day I might have detoured, but it looked like an awful lot of blue on the chart!

It's very much a better choice than the Needles Channel in any marginal situation. Plenty of water for yachts but can be unnerving being so close to the beach

 

[Robert Wilson]

Coming from the west (poole), pass Hengistbury Head to port & head toward Hurst Castle.
En route you will see a green buoy (north head) with the channel inside that. Deep water even close to the shinge spit right through past Hurst. I usually aim for Fort Albert until a clear run through.

View attachment 66209

It's very much a better choice than the Needles Channel in any marginal situation. Plenty of water for yachts but can be unnerving being so close to the beach

That too!

 

[Seajet]

I'm a great fan of the North Channel, but approaching a lee shore in already unnerving conditions, if not used to it, may require more nerve than is wise; I always find N Head buoy surprisingly difficult to visually acquire from either direction until relatively close even in perfect conditions - and one cannot see Hurst Castle from there or vice versa, I'd be a bit dubious about using this even having passed by there dozens of times, there can be a strong tidal set and hearing the surf on The Shingles doesn't help !

The OP was spot on, by going East he got an easier way into the shelter of the Solent with plenty of options; the very last thing to do in a sailing boat when bothered by conditions is worry about ' when can we get back ? ' - to the office or whatever - that has killed a lot of good people, it's the same classic mistake in sailing as the ' loop too low ' with aircraft.

 

[Tranona]

Thank you both.
When I came through on May Bank Holiday 2015 from Weymouth I was anxious to try to get into Yarmouth Marina ASAP. It was bumpy, sure enough, and I knew not of the North Channel. If I'd been earlier in the day I might have detoured, but it looked like an awful lot of blue on the chart!

I use that way in almost exclusively from and to Poole. Then makes sense to leave Poole through East Looe, which the pilot books say needs local knowledge. However the only real knowledge required is to know that channels are marked with red and green marks - and a draft of less than 1.5m if you want to go at low water. Saves about an hour compared with out to the end of the Swash and down the Needles channel.

North Channel is very satisfying - picking up the incoming tide just east of North Haven and aiming for Fort Albert doing 9 or 10 knots over the ground. Even more satisfying coming out, timing your last tack to take the tide out past Hurst. This all assumes you are working the tides properly!

 

[alant]

I'm a great fan of the North Channel, but approaching a lee shore in already unnerving conditions, if not used to it, may require more nerve than is wise; I always find N Head buoy surprisingly difficult to visually acquire from either direction until relatively close even in perfect conditions - and one cannot see Hurst Castle from there or vice versa, I'd be a bit dubious about using this even having passed by there dozens of times, there can be a strong tidal set and hearing the surf on The Shingles doesn't help !

The OP was spot on, by going East he got an easier way into the shelter of the Solent with plenty of options; the very last thing to do in a sailing boat when bothered by conditions is worry about ' when can we get back ? ' - to the office or whatever - that has killed a lot of good people, it's the same classic mistake in sailing as the ' loop too low ' with aircraft.

If you can't see Hurst from there, you need specsavers.
There's a bloody great white lighthouse next to it.

 

[Seajet]

I suggest you try it, especially seeing N Head from Hurst; you can't - and the lighthouse is hardly bloody great either.

For someone who hasn't been there before to approach N Head buoy down a strong wind hoping they'll see it in time would be stupid, GPS and depthsounder ( which one must always assume will drop out at any critical moment ) or no, unless they had some sort of medical emergency aboard worth risking piling the boat up which the rescue service could deal with better in deep water anyway; a few more hours going the safe way is not a huge loss, unless one is suffering the tragic ' back-to-the-office-itis ' mentioned earlier.

 

[Stemar]

suffering the tragic ' back-to-the-office-itis ' mentioned earlier.

Sadly a disease that is too often fatel

 

[alant]

I suggest you try it, especially seeing N Head from Hurst; you can't - and the lighthouse is hardly bloody great either.

For someone who hasn't been there before to approach N Head buoy down a strong wind hoping they'll see it in time would be stupid, GPS and depthsounder ( which one must always assume will drop out at any critical moment ) or no, unless they had some sort of medical emergency aboard worth risking piling the boat up which the rescue service could deal with better in deep water anyway; a few more hours going the safe way is not a huge loss, unless one is suffering the tragic ' back-to-the-office-itis ' mentioned earlier.

"Suggest you try it"?
I live next to it & have been seeing it for the last 40 years, even when sailing.

 

[dom]

I've gone out of the Needles Channel in a F7 Southerly on a spring ebb when racing. I actually saw a boat come off a wave with only its keel and rudder still in the water. I didn't see what happened next as we went through the next wave, or so it seemed.

If you've done a lot of offshore racing, as I guess you have, it is very easy to over-estimate the ability of a cruising skipper in a AWB to cope with conditions that an experienced offshore race crew could take in their stride.

Hmm, fair points and my post was probably a bit general in nature as the OP didn't provide much detail about boat, etc.

You mention a 'wave-pop' racing out of the Needles and for sure; zoom over one of those standing waves between the 'Shingles Elbow' and 'Shingles West' buoys and think, "OMG Where's the back of this **** wave?" Then again you were no doubt on a mission and a rib, lifeboat, or whatever would have also probably popped?!

Returning to cruising mode; in the absence of a heavy post-gale swell or something like that; I'd personally say a F6 through the Needles is fine in a normal well-found cruising boat and I'd certainly say the North Channel is not too hard. In fact I'd guess loads of boats do this every blowy summer w/e. Also the whole North Channel malarkey is a bit overdone; most yachts during most states of the tide and sea can slip in fairly close to the west to the 'North East Shingles' Cardinal and one really only has to avoid the bank itself. (recently updated charts a must as the Shingles Bank sometimes goes walkabout!)

If you think about it the RYA sets 25kts max for most open water dinghy sailing; indeed it cautions race committees against cancelling too easily, as this unfairly prejudices heavy weather weather specialists. Then there is the question that having declined the Needles a yacht would have another 10-20 miles to bash around/through some nasty water around St Catherine's.

Either way, the Needles demand respect in heavy weather and if I inadvertently suggested otherwise, then consider that withdrawn

 

[Polly's Kettle]

Alant - given where you live I should bow to local knowledge, although I do recall the few times I've gone in via the North Channel that Hurst Castle and its light isn't that visible from NNW (ie at the other end of the North channel) , as the bank of the spit is a bit in the way. It's a good few years since I was there however.

Nonetheless, I genuinely cannot remember any time where my GPS and depth have suddenly "dropped out", alongside which when in close quarters I also run the ipad navigation. With both engine and sails available to me, I still don't get the worry about a lee shore - boats sail upwind these day n'est pas?

 

[Lucky Duck]

These days I generally 'cut the corner' rather than go as far North as the buoy.

 

[Tranona]

These days I generally 'cut the corner' rather than go as far North as the buoy.

Agree - it is only a useful reference point in these days of GPS. Fort Albert is a better reference point once you get into the channel than Hurst itself. The stream runs more or less parallel to the beach, so you really do go with the flow.

 

[Jungle Jim]

If the OP is talking about the Sunday of the first weekend of September he missed some horrid seas coming up to the Needles mid-flood. We came back that way from the Scuttlebutt cruise. The closer we got to the Needles the higher the seas got, it was very uncomfortable. As we were coming from the south we just turned right up the Needles channel so no idea if the North Channel was better or not. That was in a Bavaria 36, anything smaller than that would have been truly scary I think.

 

[dom]

Just clicked on Marine Traffic to see if a yacht was entering the Needles on the flood. Look at this beautiful old girl (Morning Star) charging straight up the main channel. I wonder how many times she's done that.

Not a MAB fan per se, but she's stunning :encouragement:


https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-2.0/centery:50.6/zoom:10

 

[lpdsn]

Not a MAB fan per se, but she's stunning :encouragement:

To return to sanity it is necessary to think of the bills associated with such a classic. And the potential man hours/man months/man years spent in a cold boatyard.

 

[dom]

To return to sanity it is necessary to think of the bills associated with such a classic. And the potential man hours/man months/man years spent in a cold boatyard.

And imagine de-rigging that little lot at the end of a day's sail! That's why I prefer to just look!

Mind you, as a children's learning/development charity I'd guess they have quite a lot of free labour for the basic stuff and that the outcome is a win-win all-around.

 

[phanakapan]

Lovely! Also stavros s niarchos and blue clipper behind them, just through or coming up to the needles channel now

 

[alahol2]

These days I generally 'cut the corner' rather than go as far North as the buoy.

Agree - it is only a useful reference point in these days of GPS. Fort Albert is a better reference point once you get into the channel than Hurst itself. The stream runs more or less parallel to the beach, so you really do go with the flow.

When leaving Poole via the East Looe we normally just point at the middle of Hurst Narrows (085 deg IIRC).
Similarly, when leaving Hurst, we point straight at Poole entrance (wind allowing).
There seems no advantage in going via the North Channel unless you need the deeper water that you get by following the contours round 100 yards or so off the beach.

 

[alant]

If the OP is talking about the Sunday of the first weekend of September he missed some horrid seas coming up to the Needles mid-flood. We came back that way from the Scuttlebutt cruise. The closer we got to the Needles the higher the seas got, it was very uncomfortable. As we were coming from the south we just turned right up the Needles channel so no idea if the North Channel was better or not. That was in a Bavaria 36, anything smaller than that would have been truly scary I think.

http://www.sailingalmanac.com/Almanac/Navigation/needleschannel.html

If anyone can find details, a yacht foundered in Needles Channel in 1997, when crew "high on testosterone" (coroners remarks), decided to sail their charter yacht from Poole back to Hamble. A mayday was heard about 16.00hrs, searches were made but nothing found. At 23.00hrs people coming out of a pub near Gurnard, saw a boat on the beach, which upon investigation was found to have a body attached. The other 3 crew, were not found. OK the wind was forecast F11, but a sobering thought if anyone thinks a 'strong crew' can beat the seas near the Bridge. It was during the inquest, that the Yarmouth Lifeboat Cox stated that even they would not enter that area in F6+ even on flood.