The Big Move - part 2

The morning started hazy but with the wind as forecast. By 8 am it was clearing nicely and we fuelled and locked out as planned, leaving Alison at the lock.

I hadn't given much thought to a safety briefing for Alex - the forecast was good and I decided Alex needed to know what to do if I were to be injured or taken ill. I got him to fit a life jacket and to make sure he knew our course and destination and how to use the VHF to call for help.

Alex helmed as I raised sail. Robinetta's sails are really easy for one person to raise. It doesn't work quite so well if you forget, as I did, to tie the foot of the stay sail down! Before long we had turned off the engine and were running out past Harwich breakwater pushed by both wind and ebb and under a perfectly blue sky.

We headed straight for the Pye End buoy. It was now slack water but the wind was picking up. Alex was having trouble steering and I realised that there would be even more wind once we reached the Wallet so we put her head to wind and reefed the main. Things now became much easier as we headed for Walton pier.

As we neared the Naze a little bump made me aware that I should have been paying more attention to the depth! I quickly put the engine on and turned out to sea and we bumped gently two or three more times and then made it into deep water and got back on course and turned the engine off. In the bright sunshine I couldn't really
see the echo sounder and I had the chart plotter zoomed out too far.

The wind freshened even more as we passed Walton pier and we were doing well over 6 knots over the ground - the flood had now started - we had got the tides just right.

As we had the tide in our favour I decided to play safe with the wind and stopped to reef some more. This time I didn't even ask Alex to helm and just kept the tiller centred by standing in front of it as I furled the jib, dropped the peak and the gaff together and then hauled in on the reefing line. The 70 year old reefing gear works as well now as it did for Rayner in '37 and '38. I tightened up the throat and then the peak and got straight back on course. The whole process took perhaps one minute.

I was glad I had as the gusts kept getting stronger and we were still doing 5-6 knots over the ground (we don't have a log so I don't know what the water speed was).

With the north westerly wind coming straight off the land there was no fetch for the waves to build up and the sea state was very comfortable. The sun was still shining and it was very pleasant.

Before long we were being slowly overhauled by another gaffer. I think it was Avola. They passed us around Clacton pier and then another gaffer also passed us. This was good as it gave me a line to steer to clear the Colne bar.

It did cloud over, but stayed dry and there were still pockets of blue.

I got a bit confused at this point as the paper charts made me think I should already be able to see the North Eagle (and I thought I could) but it was nowhere to be seen on the chart plotter. I followed the other boats and eventually the buoys came up on the plotter. This is one of the bad things about small-screen chart plotters - it just isn't possible to set them up for the right level of detail at different zoom levels. In some waters they will be too cluttered and in others you need to zoom in to see any detail.

As soon as we got to the vicinity of the North Eagle the sea state got much worse. The fetch was now all the way across the Virley Channel and kept knocking us back.
It was quite uncomfortable, but quite safe. It didn't help that now we were turning towards the Blackwater the wind was coming ahead of us.

In the end I got irritated by the lack of progress and the effort of steering and put the engine on. This helped to move the apparent wind aft again and made it feel like we were motor sailing. Ideally we should now have started beating up the Blackwater but I was tiring and it was clear that the sea state would not make cooking lunch pleasurable so we punched through it with the motor. I left the sails up as going head to wind would have been uncomfortable and we were in the shallow channel between the Colne Bar and the Gunfleet Sands and I didn't feel we had much sea-room.

The first gaffer had disappeared by now and the second one headed up the Brightlingsea Reach towards the Colne. We headed up the Virley Channel with Bradwell Power Station as our main navigation mark.

We picked up the Nass Beacon and checked the route in on the paper chart. The plotter was useless - there are bugs in the overlap between captured charts on the Garmin here. We dropped sails by the Nass and continued into Mersea Quarters. Eventually, zooming well in on the plotter have us a good indication of the channel and we threaded our way through the moorings past Packing Shed Island and into the Thorn Fleet.

Alex made a really good job of picking up the temporary mooring we had been allocated and we tied up and pumped the dinghy up. Alison then turned up in the water taxi which took Alex ashore and Alison and I got the outboard set-up and headed off for a well deserved late lunch.