Around Rattray Head

The Cruising Association recommend passing Rattray Head at slack water 1 NM off, or 5 NM in bad weather. As far as I can tell from the tidal stream atlas in Reeds and the diamonds on the charts, there is no slack water at the head! The locals said to do it with the tide and in the expected weather stay 2-4 miles off.
It was forecast northerly 4-5, reducing later. So it was going to be wind over tide. We had a choice of leaving at 5 am or 5 pm. 5 am would give us more options and neither of us wanted to spend more time in Peterhead so we got up at 4:30 and got ready and headed out. We told Peterhead Harbour we were heading for Fraserburgh or possibly Whitehills.

We raised sail in the harbour and turned the engine off almost as soon as we were outside. For the first time this year we had the prospect of making a passage under sail alone. I laid in a course leaving us about 3 NM clear of the head and ending near Fraserburgh.

For once the forecast was spot on. As we sailed best course to windward we headed into blue sky and sunshine. We tacked 1 NM east of the course and then back to it, making excellent progress. The wind strenghened and the seas were quite big but predictable. We put a couple of rolls in the main but left the No 1 Jib and staysail up.

As we got past the head the seas got very hard to deal with. With the sails as they were, although the balance was good we had lee helm which never feels good. The direct route was now the starboard tack which was almost parallel to the waves and was pretty horrid. Alison suggested heading out more and we tacked and it did seem to calm things down. I got very tired and Alison took over and asked for the jib to be furled. Suddenly everything got easier. I wish I had done that! We reefed the main more to balance the staysail and for a while it was really nice. We agreed Fraserburgh was far enough for today.

We got as far north as was sensible and turned west again. We had come a very long way round and after a while it became obvious the tide had turned. If we got it wrong we would start getting carried back to Rattray Head. Some times the waves were really big and it was very hard to control the boat, then it would calm down and be lovely sailing for a while.

As predicted the wind speed dropped and we were only making a knot against the tide. We shook some reef out and unfurled the jib. By now we were inside Fraserburgh bay with no chance of getting pushed back so we came off the wind and sped up.

Just as we put the engine on to drop the sails we got another gust. If we come here again we will keep sailing until we are in the outer harbour!

So we did make our first passage under sail. It has been a long wait. Outside Eyemouth we had a F7 and Robinetta coped beautifully. But that was off the land with no fetch. When the waves have a thousand miles of Arctic Sea and North Sea to build, F4 is more than enough. In future, we shall stay in port with winds of F5 or more from seaward.