Orkney Islands next?

[Divemaster1]

All being well, we'll set off with bow pointing Northwards on Sunday, with plans of 3x approx. 40 NM hops up to Kirkwall, do some of the touristy stuff on the main island and then do a near circumnavigation including Westray & Papa Westray, Sourin and Hoy ... perhaps via Stromness. Aim is to pootle up and around alternating on the engines in two hour intervals, relaxing and taking our time throughout the journey to take in as much of the sights as our 10 days will allow. Report and pictures should follow...

For those of you who have sought advise on boats with DD's from me, I wish you good luck in your next steps towards acquiring the boat of your dreams !

Safe sailing all !

 

[Firefly625]

All being well, we'll set off with bow pointing Northwards on Sunday, with plans of 3x approx. 40 NM hops up to Kirkwall, do some of the touristy stuff on the main island and then do a near circumnavigation including Westray & Papa Westray, Sourin and Hoy ... perhaps via Stromness. Aim is to pootle up and around alternating on the engines in two hour intervals, relaxing and taking our time throughout the journey to take in as much of the sights as our 10 days will allow. Report and pictures should follow...

For those of you who have sought advise on boats with DD's from me, I wish you good luck in your next steps towards acquiring the boat of your dreams !

Safe sailing all !

Take your camera Alf, sounds a good trip to run those DD's, happy sailing.

 

[Whitelighter]

Hope you have a great time Alf, as Pete says don't forget your camera.

 

[Spare Thyme]

Fish and chips in Helmsdale is always a good stop off for a few hours on the way up to the isles, have a good trip, we will be in Inverness this weekend and hope to get some fishing in off Tarbet Ness, so with luck should see you before you go and maybe join you on the way out into the firth ( if you can keep up )

 

[Divemaster1]

Cheers John,
Should get up on Saturday to weigh the boat down with stuff ... and aim is to do this slowly (if patience and weather holds...) and stop both at Helmsdale and Wick... (SW wind, so should be a gentle passage)... As to keeping up .... , the old lady would have to run at WOT at 24 - 25 knot to keep up with your youngling, so probably not an option ...

How was your three weeks ??

 

[Spare Thyme]

We ended up going through the ditch, couldn't get North of Ardnamurchan point so after a couple of days in Tobermory headed South to Loch Melfort after an overnight in Loch Aline, a few days there then pressed down to Jura, weather was great and considered the hop over to Ireland but the South west winds started to blow again and the distillery on the shore near the swing morning was a constant pull (very nice a drop of Jura)
so back up the coast, a little play in Corryvrechan ( wild wild stuff!!!!) and then back to the ditch via a stop in Oban

I will have to upload some of the photographs when I can work out how to get them from the iPad

 

[ctva]

We ended up going through the ditch, couldn't get North of Ardnamurchan point so after a couple of days in Tobermory headed South to Loch Melfort after an overnight in Loch Aline, a few days there then pressed down to Jura, weather was great and considered the hop over to Ireland but the South west winds started to blow again and the distillery on the shore near the swing morning was a constant pull (very nice a drop of Jura)
so back up the coast, a little play in Corryvrechan ( wild wild stuff!!!!) and then back to the ditch via a stop in Oban

I will have to upload some of the photographs when I can work out how to get them from the iPad

I didn't realise that you were a forum member when we met in the Corpach basin in the middle of June. We were parked behind you with the yellow duck on the foredeck and a Forum Burgee as well! My wife was really taken with your two cats. Sorry that you didn't get to Orkney as the weather was mince. Still Craighouse with a handy distillery is always nice.

Next year we'll go for the summer cruise in July in the hope of better weather.

Chris
Rag n Stik

 

[Spare Thyme]

Hi Chris, yes I frequent occasionally , how did your trip go?. No problem with the cats, they even got to try some prawns and lobster from the fish shop next to the ferry in Oban, they tended to sleep most of the time, still it's a lot better than putting them in a cattery for 2 weeks. They are back home now digging all the plants up and waking us up at 5 in the morning, and I am cleaning all the furr up in the boat. The big cats under the floor also did very well, so a trip with 4 cats

We will get to Orkney for a long weekend in the next few weeks, it's only a 6 hour fast cruise or 11 hour potter, we did Kirkwall last year and will try Stromness this year, shame we couldn't get round Cape Wrath this year but there is always next year, will probably do as you and go for July.

Happy sailing
John, Ieva, Storm & Shaddow

 

[AndieMac]

All being well, we'll set off with bow pointing Northwards on Sunday, with plans of 3x approx. 40 NM hops up to Kirkwall, do some of the touristy stuff on the main island and then do a near circumnavigation including Westray & Papa Westray, Sourin and Hoy ... perhaps via Stromness. Aim is to pootle up and around alternating on the engines in two hour intervals, relaxing and taking our time throughout the journey to take in as much of the sights as our 10 days will allow. Report and pictures should follow...

For those of you who have sought advise on boats with DD's from me, I wish you good luck in your next steps towards acquiring the boat of your dreams !

Safe sailing all !

Good news Alf, looking forward to one of your cruise reports. I don't think I've seen one previously of the intended area.

Hope the weather stays fair for you skipper, so you can pootle calmly up the coast. Such a dramatically scenic coastline around the Wick/JohnOGroats area.

 

[Divemaster1]

All well... 110NM down and in Kirkwall.. avg speed, an eyewatering 7 knot..... Fuel burn approx 0.69 G/NM. Running single engine at 1150 rpm, swapping over after 2 hrs.... Nice 80 degree engine temp and 35 psi oil pressure.. short blast at end of run to clear engine throats and getting the DD song fix for the day. Plenty of dolphins, puffins etc., but best today was killer whale.. no cruising for next two days as exploring mainland... pictures will come when back...

 

[Divemaster1]

Back now... strong winds stopped explorations as we intended, but have a lot more info on complex tidal flow around the islands, which would have changed my original plans slightly...

Interesting fuel figures, great scenery and wonderful people.... write-up will follow..

 

[Whitelighter]

Glad you had a good trip

will be interested in your fuel figures for obvious reasons.

 

[Whitelighter]

Glad you had a good trip

will be interested in your fuel figures for obvious reasons.

 

[Divemaster1]

........

......will be interested in your fuel figures for obvious reasons.

Will sort out pictures etc., later, but to summarise for you...

Key for me was to run the re-built engine in during this journey, whilst monitoring engine behaviour etc. and of course make sure that I had a good working temperature on engines and a healthy oil pressure.

Single engine as above ... running 1150 RPM which gave displacement speed of 7 knot average over 110 NM gave approx. 0.69 G/NM ... which at 7 knots equals to approx. 23 L per hour run ....

Whilst running like this for the whole 110 NM, the trouble I found was that on a single engine and our configuration with big 3 bladed propellers (gearbox ration 2:1) and small rudders (designed for 20 knot +), auto pilot and I struggled to keep a good line ... particularly when the wind was pushing the same direction as the single engine did, which made for a tendency to drift to port or starboard.

To compensate for this on the return journey, when it was a bit more blustery (up to F6 SW) I worked a bit to try to find how I could run both engines, with a healthy load (temp and oil pressure), but not pushing the displacement speed (and thus fuel burn) too high.
So after a couple of trials over the hours we had available, I found that running both engines at 1100 RPM, gave just above 8 knots, settled the boat better in the water and kept engine temps and oil pressure where I wanted them as a minimum.

At 8 knots, we did over a 5 hr run burn approx. 0.85 G/NM or approx. 32 L per hour… so one knot + extra (probably above displacement speed for hull), cost us another 9L per hour run, but reducing the time at sea.

So, over a 100 NM hour journey, the figures would look like this;

@ 7 knot the 100 NM Journey would take approx. 14.5 hrs, with fuel burn of 23 L per hour (0.69 G/NM) equates to 310 L (69 G) fuel burn.

@ 8 knot the 100 NM Journey would take approx. 12.5 hrs, with fuel burn of 32 L per hour (0.86 G/NM) equates to approx. 387 L (86 G) fuel burn.

I did do a mistake though … running slow and with relatively low fuel consumption, I did become complacent and ran with much lower fuel load in our tanks than what I normally would have done. This combined with one of my tanks being original and a fair bit of movement during the blowy bit of our journey, did mean that a lot of the sediment in this tank got sloshed around and found its way into the fuel filters, leading to an interesting and un-scheduled entry into a very shallow and tight harbour on our way back. Fortunately, I usually carry a full set of replacement filters, so nothing major, but I should have checked this at the half-way point…

Jez, will look at your other correspondence and reply later...

 

[Divemaster1]

OK, here is a write-up of our journey from Inverness to Orkney…
We planned this journey as a combination of wanting to see the islands and having a destination that allowed for a couple of good 3 – 6 hour engine runs as an initial “running in” period for the re-built starboard engine within the relatively short timeframe we had available to us this year.
As such, our journey was split up the 110 NM one-way into three main legs … of approximately 40, 30 and 40 NM respective + return and we wanted to keep a close eye on our fuel consumption to try to find the best speed we could run the boat at (needed good operating temperature and oil pressure).
The intent was to try to find economical speeds to run, whilst keeping comfortable in the sea-state we would find during the journey. The fuel figures, I have posted before so won’t repeat that one….
So, leaving our home Marina after high tide on Sunday seemed to be a sensible thing to do to take advantage of a following tide our the Inverness and Morray Firth and arriving in Helmsdale, a small harbour (population 6 – 800, including the more remote houses) a couple of hours after low tide so we could slide in with our 1.6 M draft.
Now the best laid plans and intentions often gets blown out of the water pretty quick, as ours did when a fellow berth holder and I agreed over the VHF that we should pass each other at cruising speeds and take photographs of our boats as they passed…. So for if anyone doubted that Navigator could lift up her 30 year old skirt and push her 21 T up to planning and fast cruising speeds, here she is at a first at 7 knots, then making her way up to a steady 2000 RPM and 22+ Knots…. totally wrecking any notion about accurate and low fuel burn at steady displacement speeds. 

At time of the picture, we have not lifted the tabs yet so she is running very flat. However, at this speed and this low configuration, she is actually running nearly 1 knot faster than if we were to raise the bow, which may look more “natural”. I take this as being a result of having a more direct line of travel push from the propellers thrust and presenting a slightly longer waterline.
Having had our initial fun, we settled down for a longer run, with the plan being 2 hr run on Starboard engine at 1150 RPM and swap over for another 2 hrs and have a target speed of around 7 knots. Of course, the tidal flow helped here, so we were racing along for the first hour or so between 9 and 9.5 knots, and dropping down to 8, then 7 as the tidal flow subsided and as the tide started against us (Planned … see note on entry to Helmsdale), we dropped down to just below 6 knots at the slowest.

We had a nice gentle SW F3 following the tide, so made for a very gentle run for most of the way, with pretty flat seas. I have to admit that it took some mental adjustment to seeing speed figures below 6 knots and it was at times difficult to resist the temptation to push those red leavers that little bit further forwards. However arriving outside Helmsdale earlier had no purpose, as we needed that extra water under our keel to enter the harbour… Now whilst Helmsdale harbour is supposed to have ben dredged to 2 M, there are a few items worth noting…. The first thing is that the entrance channel is narrow and shallow. Whilst being shallow, there is a couple of surprises in there as well. We were supposed to have a “comfortable” 80 Cm under our props. Our sounder is set at 50 Cm offset from position, so than when showing 00, we have approx. 20 Cm of water under those rotating expensive pieces of equipment. What we did not know (but which the harbour master showed to us on a sketch later, was that the dredging was a bit less accurate than intended, and that there were some un-marked items in the channel and in the harbour as well)…. So imagine my surprise when confirmed in the channel that the sounder went down from 1M, steadied at 0.5 M for a short while… and then dropped again to 0.2 M for a short breath-holding 30 seconds as we slid over (in neutral) the un-marked shallow bank in the channel and got the magic rise in depth to the 0.8 – 1 M, I had expected. I have taken a snapshot of the chart and tried to mark up the additional shallow areas in the image below.

Now in Helmsdale there is a pontoon, but we decided to raft up to a sea angler on the other side, as we were too big to fit into the available space on the pontoon. There is shore power available on the pontoons, but diesel and water is only available on the harbour wall side. Helmsdale is not a place for nightlife, but it does have two pubs, a couple of café’s, a small SPAR and a couple of other shops, such as hardware and fishing tackle …. and as John (Spare Thyme) indicated a great Fish & Chip shop.

At high tide on the following day after the engine checks, we started the next leg, which would take us up a rather un-forgiving 30 NM coastline to the old fishing port of Wick. As the day before, we stuck to running at 1150 RPM on single engine, alternating etc., and had a gentle run up the coastline observing some of the wildlife and with a nice SW F3, we were relatively close to the shoreline.

More to follow...

 

[Divemaster1]

The following day had two possible routes, one of which would take us straight out of Wick and on the well on South side of the Pentland Skerries to avoid the dangers and overfalls and up to Kirkwall. The other route wound provide a bit more mainland shore cover up to Duncansby Head, a short 5 NM run across the Pentland Firth and on the inside of the Pentland Skerries and shelter of South Ronaldsoy from the WSW wind forecast before running up to Kirkwall. Of course, the crossing of this stretch was planned to take place at slack tide for obvious reasons… (up to 16 knot tidal streams recorded) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentland_Firth .
As it turned out, I do not believe we could have had a more benign crossing, so very early on, we decided on the more exposed route, but amended that to run within 2 NM SE of the Pentland Skerries and down to 15 m water. We arrived at the skerries approx. 1:00 after HW Wick and even at this relatively slack water, the tidal stream was set at approx. 1.5 knot in the shallow water we were in…. nothing un-expected, but still worth knowing… So here we are 2/3rd towards the Pentland Skerries and looking Westwards where the Atlantic meets the North Sea… having a really tough time as you can see.

The journey there-after took us on the inside of Copinsay and around the headland of Mull Head, in Shapinsay Sound and into Kirkwall.
The Orkneys is definitely an interesting set of Islands and I’ll let some of the pictures we took there speak for themselves…, but I will make one statement …. You’ll need more than a week to explore the area if you want to experience the heritage, culture, and intriguing geography… we did not manage to cover half of what we wanted to do due to strong Easterly and Westerly winds which arrived the day after we arrived in Kirkwall and prevailed for the next 4 days.
Protected entrance to Kirkwall

The Italian Chapel

Visitors

How the Southern islands are linked by Churchill’s Barriers

Pentland Firth from South Ronalsoy

Ring of Brodgar

More archelogy discoveries

 

[Divemaster1]

Beach at Scara Brae

Scara Brae – Settlement 3,000 BC

I am also now in possession of a great booklet (well, John is making a copy) from Kirkwall Harbour which depicts in more detail the complex tidal streams around the islands and also describes in detail all the various harbour walls, breakwaters etc., which you will find around the islands.

 

[Whitelighter]

Brilliant report Alf,

Really nice to see some different cruising grounds

 

[rafiki_]

Yep, fantastic report Alf, and your boat is looking gorgeous. We too like the mix of pottering and blatting. You get to see so much more during a potter. If we run at displacement speed, we get about 3 Nmpg, blatting, 1 Nmpg. Off to .swansea from Penarth if the weather improves, but I think this will be a blat all the way in order to make the timings work.

 

[AndieMac]

Yes Alf, a very well put together, informative report, thanks for taking the time to post.

I assume all went well with Navigator, anything else planned for the rest of the season? A run up the Great Glen?