Route Check - Portishead to Weston + Anchoring options

[vodzurk]

Dug out these from 2007 We sold them the dinghy! as you can see they wanted to see if it would carry them ashore!

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Lol, love it. Great pictures too, thanks for sharing. I'm not sure why I find it so amusing, 3 guys in a dinghy, judging if they should buy it, whilst in the middle of the channel, what's odd about that!

First picture is interesting too... 6 boats anchoring up... nice to see that we can! (obviously pending tide/depth).

We're intending on visiting the Holm's... though possibly next year now, what with season fast running out, and beer to be drunk in The Boat Inn @ Chepstow, Cardiff, etc .

 

[vodzurk]

Have you not got a locker that you can store it in and only bring it out when you need it? Or another option is to put an outboard bracket on the transom above the bathing platform so it's in the down posistion with the leg sitting on the platform?

It's too heavy to bring out whilst at sea. Can barely lift it. After forum advice I went for 6hp instead of 4hp. Was a struggle to get it on whilst docked. As a result, I'm not confident I could secure it even on dead calm waters, so it's gotta stay fixed on. Also, if we got a tender in future, we're limited to "quite large" for the same reason .

That all said, should we ever need to use it for it's prime purpose (safety), in the channel's 15mph current, I'm sure we'll be very grateful of it!

Edit: Also, no locker big enough. Would have to just be on the seating/bed or floor, rolling around.

 

[TOKOLOSHI]

The 3 men in a boat have just paid for it!:encouragement:

 

[tatali0n]

Dug out these from 2007 We sold them the dinghy! as you can see they wanted to see if it would carry them ashore!

Isn't that the landing beach on Flat Holm, rather than Steep Holm?

 

[tatali0n]

Another concern we have currently is regarding busy locks. We've got the lock-dock pretty nailed down, but the new addition of Aux has thrown a right bloody spanner in the works... ... in that we're not sure what to do with regards bumping it. In the current position on port side, the aux prop comes only a few inches from the side of the boat... which is causing some head scratching for me at the moment... as just a tiny 1-degree angle of bow-drift smacks the bloody thing into pontoon.

The Cardiff locks are, in some respects, easier than Penarth; the pontoons stand about a meter proud of the water, so at gunwale height more or less. Surprising how much easier that makes it coming alongside.

Are there fenders made for Aux props/shafts?

You can fender most things with a little bit of ingenuity. If you're really concerned about it, could you protect the skeg with some foam padding or pipe lagging or something? Although I imagine it's pretty robust anyway, they generally bear the brunt of any casual, accidental grounding.

I put a fender over our bow anchor sometimes when coming into a crowded lock. It's not that I don't trust Dad not to shunt the boat in front, it's just that, well, he has in the past. Albeit if I'm totally fair, I'd also have to add the only single time that's actually happened was when we first took the boat out for a sea trial under the direct supervision of the broker than sold her to us, so not really his fault and you probably don't need to panic if you see us coming into a lock behind you

The other thing you might want to try in the lock (if you don't already) is putting a spring on to stop your boat surging when the water starts to flow.

And hey, the season ain't over yet! (though these hurricanes are irksome )

Damn right it ain't!

 

[TOKOLOSHI]

Yes it is! Flat Holm

 

[vodzurk]

The Cardiff locks are, in some respects, easier than Penarth; the pontoons stand about a meter proud of the water, so at gunwale height more or less. Surprising how much easier that makes it coming alongside.

Ooooh, so might not even need to hop out to hook the cleat! The wife will love that! Our main hassle is the nervousness in hopping off if there's *almost any* motion... and then the 3-5 seconds for her to shout that the rear is secured. 5-10 seconds is an eternity when boats are steaming in behind and besides you, and caring not that you don't have a bow thruster, keel or that your canopy acts like a sail with the slightest of wind on such a small boat.

You can fender most things with a little bit of ingenuity. If you're really concerned about it, could you protect the skeg with some foam padding or pipe lagging or something? Although I imagine it's pretty robust anyway, they generally bear the brunt of any casual, accidental grounding.

This is a good call. I'll have a think about odds and sods like pipe lagging that I can source to put some guard around it. Might also be less humiliating than the current thought of "just bubble-wrap the f**k out of it!"

I put a fender over our bow anchor sometimes when coming into a crowded lock. It's not that I don't trust Dad not to shunt the boat in front, it's just that, well, he has in the past. Albeit if I'm totally fair, I'd also have to add the only single time that's actually happened was when we first took the boat out for a sea trial under the direct supervision of the broker than sold her to us, so not really his fault and you probably don't need to panic if you see us coming into a lock behind you

Ouch! That's a fear I have too, but think we're past it now... wifey is getting good at the "just secure the back, with as little slack as you can, as fast as you can!"

The other thing you might want to try in the lock (if you don't already) is putting a spring on to stop your boat surging when the water starts to flow.

Also a good call. Last lock-in, we were at about the 1/3 mark from the front, with no other boats thankfully. That surge certainly bounced the boat around... we had to keep our foot on the front starboard fender to keep it in place, else we'd have scuffed the hell out of her.

Damn right it ain't!

Lol, now we just need less hurricanes! As eager as I am, I think I'll give the 2.4m predicted wave height + 43 knot winds a miss on Saturday!

Anybody fancy a nice relaxing day at sea in this?... lol...

Yes it is! Flat Holm

Ahhh, was thinking that beach didn't look like any spot I saw around Steep Holm!

 

[tatali0n]

Ooooh, so might not even need to hop out to hook the cleat! The wife will love that! Our main hassle is the nervousness in hopping off if there's *almost any* motion... and then the 3-5 seconds for her to shout that the rear is secured ..... wifey is getting good at the "just secure the back, with as little slack as you can, as fast as you can!"

Indeed. Though if I'm handling the lines and Dad's on the helm, I always hop out anyway, just a paranoia thing; I figure once I'm on the pontoon with both lines in hand we're safe no matter what he does.

I expect you know this, but one of the most useful tips anybody ever gave me about bringing a boat alongside a pontoon short-handed is to get the stern line onto a cleat first, then you can hold the boat in against the pontoon by gently motoring ahead against the line whilst you secure the bow.

Of course, if you drop a line in the water in the meantime, things can go horribly wrong

Lol, now we just need less hurricanes! As eager as I am, I think I'll give the 2.4m predicted wave height + 43 knot winds a miss on Saturday!

Absolutely gutted. Managed to blag myself a space aboard a Wayfarer for Lydney Yacht Club's Bullo Banger on Saturday. Basically a dinghy race, launch from Lydney with a pack of sausages and a couple of matches, sail up past Sharpness, through the Noose and around the corner to land at Bullo Pill just below Newnham-on-Severn. Cook your sausages using only your couple of matches and whatever driftwood you can scavenge from the shore, and then when the tide turns race back to Lydney Harbour.

The first one to land back at the slipway without food poisoning wins.

I have a suspicion they're probably going to cancel in the face of F8+ south-westerlies. I shall just have to content myself with racing my Enterprise around the cans on the lake at Frampton instead on Sunday.

 

[vodzurk]

It's Friday, 12:15am, my night seeking alcohol has succeeded.

But also, upload has too...

At 1:24, i have the photo of what looks like bubbilicious action going on to the west of Steep Holm... is this normal? It looked like the shelly/rocky outcrock was to my port... same as starboard.

Don't quite see it in the video, but if I go frame by frame... I can see it dropping to 3.5m on my sonar... which should have not been possible... my calculation was 5m+... hence the panic with the SUDDEN drop.

(gunna reply to tatali0n whilst sober!)

 

[tatali0n]

Those waves are pretty typical behaviour for tidal races in the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary when the weather's calm. If you take a broader view of the chart, you can see the seabed goes from 2.7m below datum off the southwestern edge of Steep Holm, down into a 17.7m hole in the seafloor, then runs into a ridge stretching out from Brean Down that comes up as high as 6.9m as it approaches the Holm. Off the end of Rudder Rock you've actually got a hole in the seabed that drops down to 35m then pops back up within not much more than a cables length to 3.4m, which might explain what you saw on your depth sounder.

It all gets a bit choppy when you run a Bristol Channel tide over it, but as long as you avoid the Holm itself, and that gravel spit, there isn't much you can hit.

A bit of trivia. I think those waves in the race you video'd off your starboard bow out towards Weston bay are clapotic waves. Sailing up from Lydney on a calm day, the estuary often does that as it goes over Ridge Sands passing Sharpness. Had me mesmerised the first time I saw it.

Great video, by the way. You obviously had a lovely trip.

 

[bitbaltic]

Yeah upwellings and bubblings of all sorts occur in lots of places esp around the edge of races. We were in that bit of water in the Holmes Race last year with absolutely no wind and over a period of 20 mins it went from pancake flat to greater than 1m waves rolling the boat all over the place- simply the start of the incoming tide.