Round Mull of Kintyre into Clyde

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dunedin

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Has anybody got a simple rule of thumb guide as to the right time (relative to HW Dover or whatever) to leave Gigha or Islay to round the Mull of K eastwards to optimise the tidal gates.
Been trying to work it through using Imray but too late in the day and my brain hurts.

Imray gives a rule of thumb westbound but not eastbound

thanks
 
If I was doing it (which I have in the past) I would look up the tidal chartlets in my almanac, note when in relation to HW the west/ north-west tide begins to kick in at a fixed point , and then figure out how long it is going to take me to get to that point. You need to know speed of your boat, but there is no great maths in it.
 
Any use ?

For amusement only - probably completely wrong ;)

scot-tides.gif


Andy
 
If I remember correctly, leaving Gigha + or - 6 hours HW Dover will give you the tide most of the way - but not all- rounf the Mull.
Enjoy

Donald
 
As Donald says, leaving Gigha between +6 HW and -6 HW Dover gives at least 6 h of favourable tide, on paper at least. However, both times I have done this I have found southgoing tide increasing to about 4 kts as you approach the Mull, but once round the corner at about -2 HW Dover quickly into 1-1.5 kts of foul tide until well E of the Mull. The tidal atlas shows it should be E-going at this time. Perhaps there is an eddy close inshore and it would pay to go further out?
 
I did it on one occasion last year from E to W and hit 30k N wind off the lighthouse. Looked for the so called inner passage but only found breakers hitting the rocks. Swept through the overfalls at 8k OTG clinging on for dear life wandering WTF I was doing there! The 30k wind was not forecast and not apparent on the east side of the Mull (we had had a very pleasant sail down from Lamlash). The overfalls were visible from a long way off and I should have gone further out to avoid them,but was expecting to find the inshore passage .Came back the next week with water like a mill pond,and had 2 further roundings without incident. It's a hell of a long way up to Gigha though (esp against 30k on the nose!!)
 
If you have the luxury of 3 or 4 crew and a spare £60 or so, the Crinan Canal is a pleasant day out. Less crew and the MoK becomes more attractive - single-handed, a necessity. Been round it 11 times in the last 3 years with another 2 times likely this year and only once was it a bit of a nightmare - that was in a race otherwise I would have waited for a tad less wind, preferably not against the tide. In terms of elapsed time, if you are going fto the upper Clyde, it doesn't make much difference - it takes about a day through the canal and a day to go round Kintyre.

However I do have the luxury of being time rich and having a boat that doesn't even think of slamming. I'm also pretty mean!
 
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Mull of Kintyre Passage

Rather than go through the Crinan Canal which is very busy and therefore slow and now quite frustrating to use with it leaky locks which are getting harder and harder to open; you could take the ebb to Rathlin or Glenarm stop overnight and then take the flood to Campbeltown or Lamlash.
Glenarm to Campbeltown via Sanda Sound is basically across tide so not time restricted.
However the Mull is not as fearsome for a modern sailing boat as the CCC pilot implies; if conditions are bad you want to avoid wind over tide as the rough bit can extend for 3-4 miles and take an unpleasant hour to negotiate however it goes down quite a bit at slack water.
I would tend to avoid it if the wind is more than about 20 kts. unless it has some North in it.
The bad bit is west of the Headland (off the lighthouse and southward) the sea approaching Sanda Sound is more like a steep chop unless tide and wind are together when it will be smooth and fast.
 
Thanks all for your help. I too have been round before a few times, mostly in fine weather - and through canal other times (went out that via Crinan with just 2 of us).

I have a double constraint of limited time and limited crew, so considering a non stop round the bottom. However, with an Inshore Waters forecast of "South 5 to 7, perhaps gale 8 for a time" when we would need to leave it looks like Crinan here we come, short handed or not!
 
Crinan Canal Passage

Dunedin
If you are short handed and need help coming back through the Canal I may be able to help you (I live at one of the locks and do it for friends and club mates and recently helped cover for the regular pilot when he hurt his ankle) If you need me I meet you at lock 13 , though it might cost you a beer, I regard it as a good work out. I have a preference for raggies over mobos if possible.
 
Round the Other way!!

I am going the other way round the Mull next week. What advice does the panel have, considering southerlies up to 20+kts possible?
Will the inshore passage via Sanda sound be OK in this weather?
 

Thanks :cool:.

It's an animated gif file - you need to scan the same part of the tidal atlas for each hour then combine them into a single gif file (using photoshop, or one of the many free utilities available).

I did it last year to try and get a feeling for the tidal flows around Jura for a canoeing trip, hence the 'rough and ready' appearance - it takes a lot of patience to get each image perfectly registered.

This one was more use:


Juratides.gif



And I did one for Anglesey, too:



tides2.gif




Again, just for my own personal amusement and to help get a feel for the tides. "Not For Navigation", as they say :)

Andy
 
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