The Wash to the Tweed

Is tweed washable?

I thought its manufacture involved certain very organic processes which may be undone by washing. :unsure:


Sorry. ?
 
The East Coast between the Wash and Whitby is a bit of a desert for yachts. The Humber offers some ports of call, but a) these are well inland if your aim is to get to the Tweed, b) are in a region with very strong tidal currents and c) are generally not all-tide, so you have to time your arrival. The Lincolnshire coast and the Holderness coasts have no shelter at all.

North of Whitby there are many harbours of various kinds; the Visit My Harbour web-site has details.

I am sure you are aware of it, but the entrance to the Tweed is not trivial. We put my father's boat aground there!
 
AntarcticPilot is looking at it from a passage-making point of view, but there are a number of harbours and rivers which provide cruising grounds for local boats or the cruiser who is not in a hurry e.g. Humber (various places), Bridlington, Scarborough, Whitby, Staithes, Hartlepool, Seaham, Sunderland, Newcastle, Blyth, Amble,.

Most of these have tidal and other restrictions which require attention and care.

I am not aware of any cruising guide which covers the whole area. Some info on the individual places in Almanacs (e.g. Reeds) and VisitMy Harbour as AP mentions. If you are interested in any particular place the local yacht club may be able to help.

Dylan WInter's 'Keep Turning Left' videos provide useful and entertaining supplementary info and colour on many of these places. KTL 6: Humber to the Forth « Keep Turning Left
 
LittleSister said:
AntarcticPilot is looking at it from a passage-making point of view, but there are a number of harbours and rivers which provide cruising grounds for local boats or the cruiser who is not in a hurry e.g. Humber (various places), Bridlington, Scarborough, Whitby, Staithes, Hartlepool, Seaham, Sunderland, Newcastle, Blyth, Amble,.

Most of these have tidal and other restrictions which require attention and care.

I am not aware of any cruising guide which covers the whole area. Some info on the individual places in Almanacs (e.g. Reeds) and VisitMy Harbour as AP mentions. If you are interested in any particular place the local yacht club may be able to help.

Dylan WInter's 'Keep Turning Left' videos provide useful and entertaining supplementary info and colour on many of these places. KTL 6: Humber to the Forth « Keep Turning Left
Click to expand...
My remarks were meant to cover ONLY the area between the Wash and the Humber and the Humber and Scarborough/Bridlington, specifically the Holderness and Lincolnshire coasts, where there are NO refuges or harbours. As I mentioned, once past Whitby there are many possibilities, as you enumerate.
 
Roger Oliver's book on circum navigating the Uk has an interesting section on this coast & the rest of it is an enlightening read if you are interested in UK cruising .
I have done the stretch twice but Berwick is not an inviting harbour. I lived there & the fishing fleet preferred Eyemouth for navigational reasons. I have seen boats on the Shad on a number of ocassions, I am told that there are now pontoons for visitors in the harbour. In the past the grain lorries would shower the boats with husks & one's boat would be filthy, if the Shetland Trader was loading in port. Freezer lorries noisy as well.
I avoided anchorages like Holy Island & Amble, so visited Blyth, which is 24 hour entry- but no fuel, I dodged the Tyne. Then Hartlepool ( twice but not 24 hour) & Scarborough ( nice but only once) Then straight to Grimsby ( see elswhere for my opinion on that one but safe once in)
If you have a boat capable of covering ground & you pick your tides I would only bother with those ports
Some say Whitby is OK, but I did not need to stop & just kept going. That was single handed.
There is the Northumberland YC's pilot book from Imray if still in print. I had it but cannot recall using it
 
There is no single pilot book other than the Cruising Association's Almanac. There is Imrays 'Tidal Havens of the Wash and Humber' though. There are members of this forum who have a lot of experience who can contribute.
 
Thanks for all this useful stuff. I’m planning to move back to my home city of Newcastle after a long time away and since Brexit has forced me to sell up and leave Europe but I don’t want to give up sailing, and Newcastle is too far from the East Coast rivers that I know from the 70s and 80s, I need to find out about this rocky, desolate, unforgiving NE coast that has always frightened the hell out of me. The Bristolfashion snippets make me think I could explore those places. I have ordered the Henry Irving book. Protected the NE isn’t but all may not be as grim as I thought.
 
We’re based in the Royal Quays marina, 2 miles from the sea up the river Tyne. It’s 24hr, all tide access unlike most of the other marinas in the stretch of coast you mention. Don’t let that put you off though, there are plenty of alternative places to anchor or berth if you allow for the tide heights.
We visited Berwick in Jul and it was an interesting pilotage to get in to a visitor pontoon with a very helpful harbour master.
The Farne Islands and Lindisfarne provide spectacular, viable anchorages when the weather allows.
Sailing down the Northumberland cost past the golden beaches and castles leads to Amble which has a lovely marina with views across dunes and up river to another castle.
Blyth is home of the RNYC and had all tide access as well as a welcoming bar aboard the club ship. The RQ is next refuge down the coast then Sunderland followed by Hartlepool which we find usually has a shallower approach than their website suggests.
The anchorage in Runswick bay provides a stopping off point or alternative to waiting in Whitby outer harbour for HW+/-2 when the bridge opens. Scarborough, in contrast to Hartlepool, is reported to have more depth than their guides suggest. There are one or two anchorages south of there on the way to the Humber.
 
WoodyP said:
Henry Irving's book, Forth Tyne Dogger, Blakeney point to St Abbs is available second hand , and could be just what you want.
Click to expand...
Yes a very useful book. Henry used to own the Sir William McCann (ex- City of Edinboro), a big Edwardian sailing trawler, gaff ketch rigged which I was lucky enough to crew on several times in the 1980's. He is quite a character and used to measure the circumference of the crews' heads with a tape measure, believing his own cranium to be unrivalled in diameter!
It is a very interesting coastline, with friendly and chatacterful harbours.
 
Gary Fox said:
Yes a very useful book. Henry used to own the Sir William McCann (ex- City of Edinboro), a big Edwardian sailing trawler, gaff ketch rigged which I was lucky enough to crew on several times in the 1980's. He is quite a character and used to measure the circumference of the crews' heads with a tape measure, believing his own cranium to be unrivalled in diameter!
It is a very interesting coastline, with friendly and chatacterful harbours.
Click to expand...
I heard that he spent a lot of time dried out waiting for the tide to get into a lot of places. Fascinating insight into an interesting man.
 
Henry Irving also has another Imray pilot book in print, 'Cook's Country: Spurn Head to St Abbs', which may be of interest.
 
I sailed up and down the east coast this summer and enjoyed the hospitality of RNYC at Blyth and Amble in your general area. I'd happily put a boat permanently in either one of the marinas.
 
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