My idea was to hop over to Tenby and get there about an hour before high water, maybe have breakfast and a quick look around and then leave on the ebb. The pilot recommends pushing the weak tides across Camarthen Bay to Worm Head and then picking up the east going flood past the Gower.
I started getting the boat ready - unfrapping the lines and getting the crutches off and then went below to do the engine checks. There isn’t much to do - just the alternator belt tension and the oil level. It is always fine.
Except it wasn’t. The dip stick showed empty and however many times I checked it still showed empty. Alison checked too. Empty.
I looked down into the bilges. Black. I put my finger in. Oil.
I poured a little oil into the reservoir, and got Alison to start the engine. As soon as the engine turned over I saw oil dripping from the front of the engine. We stopped the engine.
The good news was that the engine would start, and that the oil was dripping, not spurting, so we should be able to run the engine for short stretches of time if we needed to. “Need” was the operative word.
The wind was light, but useable, from the west and forecast to increase, so we should be able to get to Swansea under sail. Without the engine we would be very slow against the tide so we needed to leave. Now.
I got the staysail and the main up and went forward to haul up the anchor. Even with her headache Alison could helm. We had 30m of chain down to cope with the 7m tidal range so it took a little while to haul in but the anchor came up clean with a little kelp. We picked up speed as soon as we were off and the only difficult bit was getting the anchor out of the water with the chain being pushed under the keel by the forward motion.
I don’t think we have ever arrived at an anchorage with the engine off and anchored for the night and then left again the next morning all without the engine. We’ve done one or the other but not both. It felt good.
We got away about 8 am.
Alison laid in a course to take us straight to Worm Head, but I looked at the tidal streams and decided we would be best staying inside Carmarthen bay for as long as possible to stay out of the strong ebb in the main channel, so we aimed much more inshore.
We heard a firing range calling up the coast guard at 08:40, to announce that the range as active but did not catch which range was calling. If it was Penarth range we were in potential trouble. Alison tried phoning them, but got no reply, so we relaxed; two minutes later she saw a rib heading toward us at speed.
Yes, Penarth Range was active, and our original south-easterly course was OK but we mustn’t head across the range.
We gybed.
The rest of the day was a series of long gybes. We had about knot (mostly less) of tide against us until about 15:30. We were really lucky and never lost the wind but our speed over the ground was between 1 1/2 and 2 knots so it took until then to get to Worm Head at the western end of the Gower peninsula. It did go very light for a while and we dropped the jib and stay sail and managed to goose-wing the main with the old spinnaker we use as a down wind sail in light airs. Once the wind picked up again it was much easier to broad reach on the normal fore-sails.
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| Worm at Worm Head |
Then we started to pick up speed. Slack water let us get up to 2.5 to 3.5 knots and then the flood got going and we got up to 4, 5 and sometimes 6 knots.
Alison called Swansea Marina to let them know we wanted to come in and we only had very limited ability to use our engine. They were comfortable with that and said to radio once inside the breakwaters.
We really had no idea what time we would arrive. The last lock in (in Summer) is 21:30 and for most of the afternoon the chart plotter said we would not make it. But we knew the flood would help and once it started our arrival time on the plotter started coming down. Once we were less than 10 miles away it stuck stubbornly at 19:41. That was good - we had both the 20:30 and 21:30 lock times available.
Our last gybe took us onto the track into Swansea. For the first time we were on a beam reach and Robinetta creamed along as the sun set. By the time we were a mile outside Swansea breakwater it was dark. The channel was narrow and well lit. Alison put two fenders on each side, and set bow and stern lines so we wouldn’t be in a hurry later.
I was slightly confused by what looked like two orange lights where the breakwater should be. We found out soon enough! They were the headlights of a large coaster coming out of the harbour. We had drifted over to the port side of the channel so I turned sharply port to give her a bit more room as she stormed past.
I never saw a green or a red light on that ship.
We looked forward and there did seem to be another pair of similar lights ahead. It didn’t look like they were approaching so we carried on.
Then they got bigger and further apart. A second big ship was coming out. This time we had got onto the starboard side of the channel and the ship turned a little to starboard, presumably to give us room.
If we come into Swansea again, we will find out what the shipping movements are. If we had left a listening watch on channel 14 we might have heard their departure announced. We did that in Liverpool - we had been too pre-occupied with our engine to think about it here.
After that it got easier. The wind eased and we passed between the breakwaters doing about 3 knots and I called the Tawe Lock on the VHF. I didn’t get any answer on the main VHF so I got out the hand-held and tried again. Nothing. I brought the hand-held on deck and we carried on. The wind kept dropping.
Then I got a call from the lock. They had been in the Marina Office and were moving down to the lock for us.
Even though we had missed the 19:30 inbound lock and the 20:00 outbound one was due there didn’t seem to be a problem. We discussed our situation and they were happy we continued on under sail up the river but we would have to be under power in the lock.
I went down and put oil in the engine. I waited a bit and checked the dipstick - it read just full - good.
We furled the jib and dropped the main and put a single tie on it. The engine went on and I went onto the foredeck and pulled the staysail down and we motored gently into the lock and tied on.
A big catamaran came in beside us. I put a little more oil in. We locked through and were guided to a marina berth.
Whew.
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