Solent Myths and facts

[l'escargot]

...but as usual, after talking about "challenging waters" you have had to switch tack to now talk about racing, which was actually driven by the very rich...

Do you need new glasses? More a case of "as usual" you haven't read what I posted which was: "...It hasn't been the premier venue for racing for a hundred years or more because of unchallenging and easy sailing..." Instead, choosing to go off on one of your personal little rants and post a lot of nonsense effectively arguing that what you've said yourself, not what I've said, is wrong... :encouragement:

 

[alant]

Quite the opposite nowadays ... look at the way Olympic racing takes place well offshore to avoid nasty wind effects, tides and so on. However, let's not be too dismissive... the Solent may well be challenging for some people.

Must have been for Searush, cos he's only sailed there once & that was on Red Funnel!

 

[l'escargot]

Quite the opposite nowadays ... look at the way Olympic racing takes place well offshore to avoid nasty wind effects, tides and so on. However, let's not be too dismissive... the Solent may well be challenging for some people.

Ok, suppose we'll just have to accept you've got it right from your deserted corner of Scotland and all the thousands of others who choose to race here year in year out have got it wrong all along...

 

[dom]

Quite the opposite nowadays ... look at the way Olympic racing takes place well offshore to avoid nasty wind effects, tides and so on. However, let's not be too dismissive... the Solent may well be challenging for some people.

Fair point; the primary reason for this is however to prevent an unfair advantage being imparted on those with local knowledge. Incidentally this is not the case for bigger budget events like the AC. Here teams are fully expected to hire met men and in addition take thousands and thousands of readings regarding tides, currents, wind-bends, shift-dynamics, etc prior to any event.

The flipside of the coin is that the intricacies and protected nature of of the Solent make it a great destination for local racing.

 

[awol]

Ok, suppose we'll just have to accept you've got it right from your deserted corner of Scotland and all the thousands of others who choose to race here year in year out have got it wrong all along...

No, no, the thousands of Solentites have it absolutely right and those of us geographically or through pig-headedness unable to join them are just green with envy. It is just another example of a chip-on-the-shoulder minority jealous at the good fortune of the majority - Jim Murphy will, when he thinks of it, propose taxing all boats worth more than £0.5M to support the Scottish NHS. I seem to remember l'escargot's enthusiasm for a plethora of racing yachts was not quite so marked when they disturbed his afternoon a while back but I haven't got the time to try and find the posts.

 

[flaming]

Ok, suppose we'll just have to accept you've got it right from your deserted corner of Scotland and all the thousands of others who choose to race here year in year out have got it wrong all along...

Hmmm.

Solent racing can be very challenging.

When compared with other places I've done a lot of sailing - east Coast mud, Chanel Islands, Atlantic France etc Solent cruising however is extremely straightforward.

The most ridiculous conditions I've ever seen in the Solent was Cowes 2011. 25-30 knots from the west, east going tide, kicked up the steepest sea I've ever seen. About 6-10 foot and absolutely backless. We were airborne time and time again. I think 3 boats lost their masts that day.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Ok, suppose we'll just have to accept you've got it right from your deserted corner of Scotland and all the thousands of others who choose to race here year in year out have got it wrong all along...

I wonder how many of those racers would abandon competition and cruise the Solent instead if the races were held elsewhere. I haven't seen many accounts by Scottish sailors of annual cruises to Southampton, but perhaps they exist.

 

[l'escargot]

No, no, the thousands of Solentites have it absolutely right and those of us geographically or through pig-headedness unable to join them are just green with envy. It is just another example of a chip-on-the-shoulder minority jealous at the good fortune of the majority - Jim Murphy will, when he thinks of it, propose taxing all boats worth more than £0.5M to support the Scottish NHS. I seem to remember l'escargot's enthusiasm for a plethora of racing yachts was not quite so marked when they disturbed his afternoon a while back but I haven't got the time to try and find the posts.

If you remember correctly you would remember it was about 3 of them bouncing off my boat whilst I was tied up in a marina in Portsmouth Harbour... Not particularly relevant to this discussion is it? And yes they were Contessa 32s like you have who seem to race very enthusiastically in the Solent.

Here's the thread if you haven't time to look for it, more about boat handling in marinas rather than racing: http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthrea...hy-some-people-don-t-like-yachties&highlight=

 

[dom]

Speaking of myths: there's no doubt that the Western Solent can bump up in a big wind against tide blow. Yet some of the Portsmouth Pilots tell me that that the maximum significant wave height in the severest of winter storms is just 1.2m (circa 4') and that the absolute max is 1.5m (circa 5'). This seems somewhat low to me, but I could well be wrong.

Bramblemet have archived data, but it doesn't seem very user friendly in that one can only search one specified day at a time.

Anyone know the answer?

 

[JumbleDuck]

Speaking of myths: there's no doubt that the Western Solent can bump up in a big wind against tide blow. Yet some of the Portsmouth Pilots tell me that that the maximum significant wave height in the severest of winter storms is just 1.2m (circa 4') and that the absolute max is 1.5m (circa 5'). This seems somewhat low to me, but I could well be wrong.

Bramblemet have archived data, but it doesn't seem very user friendly in that one can only search one specified day at a time.

Anyone know the answer?

Wave heights as claimed by any yachtsman - including me - should be reduced by a factor of 2 for plausibility. It always seems worse in a small boat.

 

[dom]

Wave heights as claimed by any yachtsman - including me - should be reduced by a factor of 2 for plausibility. It always seems worse in a small boat.

Very true! I always write in the log (bit of paper if I'm honest) my estimation of the swell and wave heights whenever I pass a measuring buoy for future comparison with the actual data. It's become a bit of a joke now with the kids; "it was blowing 30kts mid-Channel, but dad says the waves were 2', ho ho!" Now self-praise is no praise and all that, but I've got quite good at it.

That said I've never sailed in the Solent during a full-on winter storm; so if the Pilots are right (which they probably are) then I can't have seen a wave in the Eastern Solent of greater than 4'. And that seems low even to my semi-calibrated intuition!

 

[Greenheart]

Here's a myth, beloved of folk who don't have regular experience of the Solent: "it's always busy". Three times I've been to Lee-on-Solent on fine early-summer Sundays in recent years (with binoculars) and each time, there wasn't a sail in sight, anywhere in the Eastern Solent. I don't mean not many, I mean not any. And only a minimum of shipping too.

If it had been an hour after dawn in December I wouldn't have been surprised, but conditions were perfect. On one occasion I started a thread here, to ask where everybody was.

Trouble is, anyone who has only visited when it's busy, can thereafter only picture it that same way. Very skewed point of view, though.

I hope Dylan didn't mean to engender the disagreement here?

 

[l'escargot]

Another myth is the constant chatter/radio checks/DSC calls on vhf. Yes, there are occasional spates like anywhere but even on summer weekends I find the radio surprisingly quiet for such a busy area.

 

[RalphyM]

Speaking of myths: there's no doubt that the Western Solent can bump up in a big wind against tide blow. Yet some of the Portsmouth Pilots tell me that that the maximum significant wave height in the severest of winter storms is just 1.2m (circa 4') and that the absolute max is 1.5m (circa 5'). This seems somewhat low to me, but I could well be wrong.

Bramblemet have archived data, but it doesn't seem very user friendly in that one can only search one specified day at a time.

Anyone know the answer?

Significant Wave Height is a statistical term to describe a mean wave height. The max individual wave height can be twice (ish IIRC) that of the given significant wave height

 

[dylanwinter]

Here's a myth, beloved of folk who don't have regular experience of the Solent: "it's always busy". Three times I've been to Lee-on-Solent on fine early-summer Sundays in recent years (with binoculars) and each time, there wasn't a sail in sight, anywhere in the Eastern Solent. I don't mean not many, I mean not any. And only a minimum of shipping too.

If it had been an hour after dawn in December I wouldn't have been surprised, but conditions were perfect. On one occasion I started a thread here, to ask where everybody was.

Trouble is, anyone who has only visited when it's busy, can thereafter only picture it that same way. Very skewed point of view, though.

I hope Dylan didn't mean to engender the disagreement here?

It was a question about the size of the place _ I can hardly be held responsible for a scrap about what a nice place for sailing it is.

I really enjoyed my time down there last spring and would have no worries about keeping a boat there

lots to look at, brilliant harbours to stop in, sheltered water, challenging and capricous tides, lots of great birdlife in the right places

of course given that there is bound to be a fairly standard ratio of nice blokes to ********s there are clearly more marine eejits and arrogant bores in the solent than anywhere else in Britain - fact

but proportionatly probably no more than the Clyde or the Crouch.

The fishermen are more polite than the average when it comes to making washes

the people who really take the biscuit are the military and rozzers on the Gareloch

never seen washes like them

I thought the wells fishermen were quite nasty but the Gareloch military washes are terrible

 

[prv]

Another myth is the constant chatter/radio checks/DSC calls on vhf. Yes, there are occasional spates like anywhere but even on summer weekends I find the radio surprisingly quiet for such a busy area.

I've never recognised the claims of constant DSC alerts - get very few of those. But ch16 voice is noisy at the weekend in season.

Pete

 

[dom]

Significant Wave Height is a statistical term to describe a mean wave height. The max individual wave height can be twice (ish IIRC) that of the given significant wave height

No I think you remember correctly all right. In an ocean context (and depending on weather system and current dynamics) about 1 in 10 waves will be bigger than the SWH, 1 in 100 50% bigger, and as you say 1 in 1000 twice as big. Incidentally for non-swell area like the Solent bigger waves will be a good deal less likely and remember we are talking about big storm events here.

I guess what I am saying is that I, and a couple of others ^^^^^, have a feeling that it's rougher than that in the Solent. Still, perhaps Seajet is right and us lot would be better off in the Serpentine in Hyde Park!

 

[JumbleDuck]

Here's a myth, beloved of folk who don't have regular experience of the Solent: "it's always busy". ?

Like the myth that Scotland is always quiet. Why, on a fine sailing day in the summer the Clyde can be crowded with literally dozens of boats and even on the other side of the Mull of Kintyre, in the Sound of Jura, I've seen as many as three other boats at the same time.

 

[awol]

Like the myth that Scotland is always quiet. Why, on a fine sailing day in the summer the Clyde can be crowded with literally dozens of boats and even on the other side of the Mull of Kintyre, in the Sound of Jura, I've seen as many as three other boats at the same time.

As an example, here is a quiet day in Oban Bay. You will note the absence of car ferries perched on the Scrat. The Solent does that kind of thing so much better.

 

[Greenheart]

Scrat? Elucidate please.