Plymouth Sound: entry in a storm

[jdc]

I've only been into Plymouth in a true gale twice: once a southerly, and once a westerly. Both occasions I went via the western entrance. That's not to say the eastern would have been unsafe - I don't know - just that the western one is, for me, a known quantity.

During the S gale I was single handed in a 28' boat, and apart from a of couple over-friendly waves joining me in the cockpit, it was no issue. The W gale (a steady 9) was in a 42' boat and as soon as past Rame no problem: by the bridge we had to shake out a reef or two. An easterly gale might have been different.

In a true storm (ie F10+) goodness knows! I'd probably prefer to make Falmouth, if only because there are fewer ships to encounter.

 

[Hermit]

T42 = ample, warm, dry, well-rested professional crew, thus thinking straight, superb nav kit, radar and navigator‘s plotting position, dedicated navigator, not being bounced about a lot, high bridge position giving good visibility - even in storm conditions, twin engines for redundancy, no need to tack or gybe, and no need to worry about lobster pots.

Small yacht in storm conditions - not so much

But a tadge bigger than most yachts so a little less room? And perhaps a little harder to turn?

Comparing relative sizes of the Western and Eastern Entrance is a bit like comparing Saturn and Jupiter - both massive compared to Earth.

 

[john_morris_uk]

T42 = ample, warm, dry, well-rested professional crew, thus thinking straight, superb nav kit, radar and navigator‘s plotting position, dedicated navigator, not being bounced about a lot, high bridge position giving good visibility - even in storm conditions, twin engines for redundancy, no need to tack or gybe, and no need to worry about lobster pots.

Small yacht in storm conditions - not so much

Depending on tasking/training scenarios ‘well rested’ might be a tad optimistic. Furthermore the bridge team always has a mixture of makee-learnee and experienced older hands so there’s still a frisson of tension in a gale entering even a well known and charted harbour.

Having said that there’s so much redundancy and layers of checking something’s gone seriously wrong if there’s a problem.

 

[KeelsonGraham]

Remember it well. I spent a week on Southampton many moons ago.

 

[Ingwe]

As others have said normally take the westerly entrance but there is one big exception. With a wind speed above 25kts, wind direction of about SSW and the tide going out strongly you can end up with some very nasty extremely steep waves off Penlee point, unfortunately at that wind angle you are going to be virtually dead down wind as well so can easily loose control and crash gybe so it is better to go in the Eastern entrance in that wind angle because it gives you much better gybe angles and you can give Penlee and if necessary Rame head itself a wider berth.