Sunday, 37 knots - Yikes !

LONG_KEELER

LONG_KEELER

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Still trying to recover from being blown around last weekend with wildly optimistic weather forecasts.

In true East Coast and British tradition, am willing to give it another go this weekend.

Can anybody find any reasonable forecasts other than the above BBC version which is giving 37 knots for Sunday ?.

Or should I just cut the hedge and watch Formula 1.
 
Here you go....

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I intend to be out racing my Walker Bay 8, but it is looking a tad breezy, I grant you.
 
Given last weekend all forecasts got wind direction (at least where I was crossing form Dover to Bolougne) wrong by 180 degrees, wind force at half what it was and a wave height wrong by a factor of at least 3 who cares what they say!
 
34 knots in Brightlingsea at lunchtime, we came around from the Crouch to Brightlingsea this morning (Sunday 22nd) and it was certainly a good solid 5/6. Not many people out, I also abandoned a planned trip up to the Orwell as I did not want to be coming down the Wallet into a strong breeze. Burnham worked out okay though although we were down to 0.6 metres under the keel coming across the Spitway at LW.
 
we wimped out. We went to Tilbury Fort instead and sat on the tops watching the racers from Gravesend. There was one yacht with full sails up battling to tack up the river. There was much oohing and aahing from my little crew - sure they were going belly up a few times! Exciting to watch though :-)
 
wheeee

We managed a blast down the crouch with very little sail out, there were a few others out for a sail, think we can say it was a good shake down, must be getting better nothing fell of or broke:)
 
windy

We left Burnham at 8am this morning heading for Bradwell.
We recorded one max gust of 40knts!!

It was certainly lively out there!!!!!!!!!! :eek:

It gave the boat a good shake down (and all those on board!) D:)


Ian and Sarah
 
Went out on Blackwater on Saturday.
From Miibeach round Osea and back, very blowey about 26 knotts.
Bottled out on Sunday, was to much for me.
No one out ,just a few boats coming home after staying out all night.
Funny thing, all came hom on engine...
 
Tried to go back down the Orwell on Sunday pm to pick up the mooring. We (me and kids) only succeeded in flipping the dinghy, lossing the oars, fuel and seat.

By the time we got up to Ipswich Haven, it was so bloody windy that the new burgee, only fitted on Saturday, had broken the staff and gone to join the seat, oars and fuel.

Also saw a smallish yacht (Nonsuch) break away just off Pinmill, beautifully miss all the other moored boats and, I think, end up on the beach, east of the houseboats.
 
Boat on beach..

On Sunday boat with crew, must have pulled anchor.
Landing in beach by Osea caravan site.
Prob could not get engine on fast enough.
It was blowing like mad on Sunday, on the Blackwater..:eek:

They could not push yacht out far enough in the surf to get prop to push em out..
 
Forgot to mention.
On Saturday well windy off Millbeach.
Had a pig of a time picking up my strops, and securing lines from my swing mooring..:mad:
 
We came back from Ramsholt to the Orwell(SYH) yesterday(sun).Wind on the nose so motoring.Blowing a good 5 with gusts up to a low 7.It didn't calm down whilst entering Harwich either .As the berth is downwind I dropped the canopy.Just as it went down a wave hit the side and soaked me.If there is a god he has a sense of humour that is for sure.
 
We enjoyed Saturday and Sunday. Just under reefed jib we were creaming along the Orwell with a few other hardy sailors out but it did not seem that bad. There were white horses just outside SYH but I think that was as much wind against tide (11am) Sunday
 
Our weekend on the Blackwater

I had a great weekend on the Blackwater last weekend, 1st sail of the season and 1st for my nephew Felix aged 11.
We managed to see 7.3 knts, which has to be the fastest my Westerly Griffon's been, we had a reef in the main and a good couple of wraps on the Genoa.
We stayed the night at West Mersey moorings, which was pleasant but not without its misshaps.
It was our 1st time there, so we gently pottered our way down Mersey fleet to the moorings by the pontoon, guided by a chart I had downloaded from eastcoastpilot.com.
We picked up a likely looking buoy and after making fast we were informed by the mooring taxi that it was only ment for boats up to 16ft, he pointed out another buoy we could use, they're the big orange ones by the way.
It was actually nearer to the pontoon, so we moved and made fast again.
This was in a strong wind and a receeding tide and with my 73 yr old father picking up the buoy, not too easy, he is fit but rather hard of hearing.

As we readied to go ashore, we found our tender was missing, it was there at the last buoy, we stopped and asked the mooring taxi if he had seen it, to no avail, at last we spotted a possibility on the Mersey shore, I was taken by Taxi to the pontoon, and found in all the surrounding mud our tender had washed up on the hard. I rowed back, not believing our luck.

We had an evening on Mersey and even a low tide we were able to get back to the boat.

The next day we were guided to the best time to leave by the ever helpful mooring taxi, I do not resent the £10 mooring charge as it was well earned and so much good advice was given.

My son, who was also along, and nephew enjoy the bumpy ride back to Millbeach moorings, I'm not sure the engine did, the wind was right on the nose, at times she had to be on full throttle just to punch through the waves but hugging the Bradwell coast at about 3m depth, kept us out of the worst of it, another piece of advise from the ever helpful moorings taxi.

The wind was pretty constant at 26knts, gusting frequently to 33knts for the whole journey and was blowing onshore by the time we reached our moorings, however we did manage to gain the mooring reasonably, my father grabbed the buoy while i kept the boat motoring into the wind.

The hard part was using my rather unstable tender to get ashore, we decided to run to the nearest slipway. I dropped the kids of 1st and then went back to pick up my father. The tender was getting rather full of water and by the time we were all ashore was half sunk.

I hauled the drowned tender up the slipway to be greeted by Tony (Millbeach), he had a pint in hand and smile on his face, after watching our stylish dismount from the bar.

All in all, a great weekends sailing!:)
 
Well done mike.

"Top draw" write up Mike.
I take my hat off to you,
Nice to see one of our club members come home safe and sound..:)
 
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