Heading North again

With a weekend of decent weather in the forecast we decided it was safe to leave Southwold to head north. I say decent weather, but that did not mean good wind. North Easterly, going North Westerly later meant we would have head winds all the way to Grimsby. We wanted to do the whole 114 miles in one shot as a delivery trip so that meant motoring. Lowestoft was the only sensible closer place to stop, and at less than 15 miles from Southwold we could always duck in there if the sea conditions were too rough for an overnight passage.

After taking a look at the waves of the harbour mouth we backed off the pontoon and motored out of Southwold against the last hour of the ebb. Robinetta's trusty stay sail was the only one flying as we left harbour. It's function as a steadying sail helped keep Robinetta from rolling too much as we motored across the swell towards Lowestoft, but there were times when it felt as though we were in a washing machine... Luckily we had the shelter of various sandbanks to minimise the swell and as we reached Lowestoft we decided that yes, we were up for heading to Grimsby.

Lunch was packet soup, and just as I was about to put the lid on my travel mug a nasty bit of swell knocked Robinetta about. Julian's soup, in a bone china mug, did not even slop over the side, my wide based travel mug fell over and tomato soup spilled everywhere... We were making good progress with the tide still under us, but we knew it would not last.

The wind shifted a little to the west, and as we were still heading north east Julian unrolled the jib to see if it would draw. It did, so we got the main up as well. The engine stayed on, but motorsailing felt much steadier that just motoring. We settled into watches at 7pm. The sea state was still too rough for our tiller pilot to cope, so two hour watches made sense. By ten we were heading slightly more to the west, and the jib began to flog so I rolled it away and centered the main sail. The only other event of that watch were crab pots. They were well marked, but in the dark I did not see them until they were level with the cockpit. First one to port, about 2metres away, then 15 minutes later one to starboard, only 1 metre away. Both were much closer that I would have left them in daylight.

The stars were clear, with Orion, the Dipper, and Cassiopeia very easy to spot, but the sliver of Moon sank below the clouds on the horizon early on. I could lie back in the cockpit and navigate by keeping the handle of the dipper against the mast, which was fun, but it was very cold. When off watch down below I only took off my lifejacket and oily jacket as I huddled beneath two sleeping bags. Even my boots stayed on

I came back on watch at 3 am, when the tide was against us and we were only making 2 knots even with the engine at full revs. We were making the expected progress though, passing between two wind farms, and all was well until 04:50. That is when the engine died. I had asked Julian to check that both fuel tanks were open as we passed Lowestoft, and he thought that they were, but the way the engine stopped felt very much as though we had run out of fuel rather than any other problem.

I called Julian to investigate, but it took him a little while to come up, so I got us sailing in the meantime. We could not head anywhere useful, but at least we were not going backward with the tide. Once he was ready he had a look at the fuel tanks, and realised that maybe one of them had been closed after all. After a little bit of a struggle I got the fuel tank open, but of course that was not the end of the event as Julian had to bleed the engine before it would start. At least it was beginning to get light, so I could see to sail while Julian worked below. At 06:20 the engine fired up again and we could make forward progress again.

By mid morning we had the main sail down and stowed as it was not helping us along at all.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, and we made better time than expected, passing the Outer Ross Reach safe water mark at 14:27. We had the tide under us taking Robinetta into the Humber at 5 knots in bright sunshine. The north westerly wind was much warmer than the north easterly had been, so even though we were still heading straight into the wind Julian managed to shed a layer of clothes.
Only his oily jacket though!

We were ready and waiting to enter the Grimsby Fish Dock when the lock went onto free flow at 6pm, which was two hours earlier than we expected to arrive. Quarter of an hour later we were safely moored up in the Humber Cruising Association marina, and even got to the bar before it shut.

One good thing about running a tank virtually dry is that we now finally know exactly how big the tank is. I squeezed in 19.6 litres when I filled up. The other tank took nearly 15, so running the engine at virtually full revs for 30 hours is our maximum safe usage. We normally run our engine more gently than that!