An early start south

 Having checked the tides for Saturday Julian and I decided that sleeping on Robinetta on Friday night and setting off around 4 a.m would get us an early start and let us take the last couple of hours of the ebb out of the Gairloch and down the Clyde. We had a houseful of guests staying, courtesy of our daughter and her partners who were with us for the summer, and getting Worm to the water’s edge and loaded up with a fortnight’s luggage was eased by having 6 people to help us with the task.

Once on board we got everything away, then settled down for an early night. Robinetta was rock solid on her mooring, and the sea smooth, but oddly enough I found it difficult to get to sleep although Julian drifted off easily.

The alarm went at 03:30 but the kettle did not go on for tea immediately. However we were motoring off the mooring by 04:25 on a windless morning. As we cleared the Rhu Narrows we felt a little wind on our faces, and decided to get the main sail up while we were motoring head to wind. This took longer than it should have done, as a second mast hoops of the season broke. Julian moved the hoops around and retied them, but at this rate we will have a laced on main sail by the end of the season. The ones we had put on as spares in Bristol are not lasting well.

As we followed the coast of the Rosneath Peninsula round into the Clyde the Southerly wind became useful, and we turned the engine off at 05:10 and reached towards Cloch Point. We saw the first ferry of the day heading for Dunoon, and a small cruise liner, the Azamara Quest passed us at 06:00, heading up the Clyde. The wind had gone very light by this point, but was still usable for another half hour as we closed on Cloch Point. By 06:30 our sail was over, and the engine took over to take us down the Clyde towards Bute.

Julian went below, and cooked us breakfast while I helmed, feeling progressively colder. Tee shirt, hoody, and oilskins had been plenty sailing, bit now we were butting into the wind I wanted some extra layers. I warned Julian, who put on his Erebus jumper before heading on deck with the plates.

Progress seemed very slow, heading straight into the wind and tide, and we lowered the main sail to reduce drag. This helped a little, but we were felt lucky when we reached 3 knots…. By 11:30 we were between Bute and Little Cumbrae, and the wind felt almost useable. The clouds had lifted a little and we could see where the sun was, which was a huge improvement on the previous 4 hours. We got the main sail up again, and tried beating past the end of Bute, but had to use the engine to make progress.

We did turn the engine off for an hour when we had more sea room but were only making 1.5 to 2.5 knots. We still had 10nm to go to reach our planned destination of Brodick, and since we wanted to be there in time for dinner we put the engine back on at 13:20.

Visibility got worse as the wind dropped, and the air was heavy with moisture. It soon began to rain, and visibility got so bad we needed to steer by compass as all landmarks disappeared into the murk. Steering 210° brought us into Brodick Bay, where we picked up one of the free mooring buoys at 15:38. Julian brought us up to it perfectly and I got the boat hook on the pick up buoy on the first attempt.

We had a cup of tea to warm up before rowing ashore in Worm to buy bread and fruit and have an early dinner. The rain kept on coming down and our oilies were soaked through, only drying off a little in the pub where we ate.

We were back on Robinetta just after 19:00. The wind was now coming from the North West, so we could have sailed towards Girvan for a shorter sail tomorrow, but the forecast wind force of 4-6 felt a bit too strong. Neither of us are very fit at the moment (not enough sailing) and we had already had a long day. The plan is to have another early start, and hope to pick up the last of the north westerly before it backs South West tomorrow.