Stuck on the berth

I went to Tollesbury on Wednesday to put things aboard Robinetta ready for the weekend. I had been told that the owner of her current berth was coming back soon, so I also needed to check out the new berths available. In the end I moved her round to a new berth that would be hers in the long run, with the only question being would we be able to get out at neaps?

This morning, at 6am we unfortunately discovered the answer to be no.With high pressure, and only 4.1m forecast for the tide we were stuck on the berth. We tried to move Robinetta for about half an hour around high water, and we could not get away, although we did carve ourselves a bit of a channel by aggressive use of the engine....

When I looked at this berth on Wednesday the bottom was completely smooth, but Robinetta has already carved herself a hole, with mud piled up in a cushion around her, and we could not push ourselves out of it.

Back to Tollesbury

After looking at the tides we decided to leave Burnham around 8 am to head home. Many of the OGA boats had further to go, being based up the Wallet, so set off much earlier, and some based in the Blackwater decided to take the Raysand channel rather than the Spitway, so were leaving later.

The wind direction looked good for sailing once we were in the Blackwater, so we decided to make for the Spitway. I thought we would be motoring down the Crouch and had planned my timings accordingly, but Julian has the sails up and the engine off while we were still in the middle of the Burnham moorings! We did manage to sail for a couple of hours, while the tide was with us, but by the time we reached the Outer Crouch buoy (no2) at 09:50 the tide was against us and with the light winds were were hardly making anything as we tacked.

Motor sailing brought us within a cable of the Swin Spitway buoy by noon, and I began to cut across the sands on the Buxey side, watching the depth gauge carefully. We never had less than 3m beneath us and on this heading we could reach, so I soon turned the engine off.

We had a gorgeous sail across the Spitway and into the Blackwater, only dropping the main sail once we were at the entrance to Woodrolfe Creek. Even then we did not turn the engine on, but headed up Woodrolfe on the tide, using the staysail to give us steerage way. We wanted fuel (the first of the year) and sailed all the way into the marina. Once there we did need the engine for maneuvering!

Having been away for over 3 weeks we were very pleasantly surprised to only need 15.3 litres to refill the tanks. This shows the difference between local cruising without an agenda and an occasional race, and cruising with a purpose as we had been doing for the previous 5 years.

By 15:05 we were back on our berth in the Saltings, after a lovely holiday.

Racing cancelled

After spending Friday ashore, visiting Battlesbridge by train from North Fambridge, today was supposed to be the Crouch Race. It has previously been held in May, but last year the weather was so bad that no one turned up to race. This year there were plenty of boats ready to race, but no wind for them to race with.

Titch and Snoopy

After postponing the start for two hours in the hope that some wind would come up the decision was reluctantly made to cancel, and have a parade of boats down to Burnham where there were moorings booked instead. We were supposed to leave together at noon, but this did not really happen and the boats straggled down stream, with some trying to sail.

Julian "dressed" Robinetta on the way downstream to try and make a bit more of an event of it, and we left the flags up as we caught the launch over to the Royal Burnham YC for the final event of the Summer Cruise, the prize giving dinner.

We did not win anything (we did not expect to), but we had had a really lovely week sailing with like minded people and beautiful boats. The East Coast OGA Summer cruise remains a great week of sailing and socialising.

Across the Spitway to the Crouch

West Mersea was our last port of call in the Blackwater for the OGA summer cruise. Today we had a self timed passage race through the Spitway and into the Crouch. We wanted to use every bit of tide we could, so decided to leave West Mersea two hours before low water to take the last of the ebb down river, cross the Spitway at low water, then take the first of the flood up the Crouch. This works fine for Robinetta, drawing 1.4m, but on a spring tide owners of deeper draft boats were reluctant to do the same. Another reason for reluctance was it meant leaving around 5am...

We crossed the start (Nass beacon bearing 0M ) at 05:17. Sunrise exactly, and on a lovely broad reach.

passing the Wallet Spitway buoy

Three boats did the same as us, and we sailed almost in company down the Blackwater and to the Spitway. Once through we had to harden up, and beat into the Crouch. It was only just after low water and there was very little tide to help. We had wanted to go north of the Swallowtail Bank, but could not make the course, so ended up in the main channel, tacking as close to the sand banks as possible. We could see them clearly, which helped!

We had almost made it to the end of the Swallowtail bank when we saw Transcur beating down on the other side of it. Being later over the Spitway she had more tide assist so could make the course. Why didn't I think of that?

Beating into the Crouch is not generally much fun, but after we were clear of the Swallowtail the making tacks got longer, and I enjoyed myself handling the jib while Julian helmed. I could see a lot of seals on both the Buxey and the Foulness sands, and once we were passed the Inner Crouch buoy there were other things to look at too.

We finished our race at 10:46, on the Royal Burnham YC line, then continued on up the Crouch towards Fambridge. Despite Julian's dislike of beating up the Crouch he wanted to keep sailing not put the engine on, so we stayed under sail all the way to North Fambridge, only getting the engine on after we had passed the Yacht Station pontoon where we were to moor the for night.

Once we had everything away we motored back and rafted up on Rely.

Heybridge to West Mersea

This was the day of the Ladies Helm/Skipper and Junior Helm race. We had tried hard to borrow a junior to helm Robinetta for the race, but all the young ones has better (i.e. faster) offers. I never feel right competing in this race as it is meant to encourage people who do not otherwise take the helm. Julian was also feeling slightly grumpy as he had nothing to do but crew,  so I decided that our official "class" was Lady Skipper, and as skipper I would put Julian on the helm. This is not really in the spirit of the race, but it made Julian happier.

The start at Osea Island was a bit confusing as we could not see Emmanuel, the start boat, very well and it was a down wind and down tide race. I got Julian to stay back from the line and we kept having to avoid other boats. Julian was getting grumpy again from my lack of aggressiveness, and we made a poor start, trailing at the back and getting further behind.

The turning mark on the Mersea shore, where the race headed back towards West Mersea, proved elusive. It was one of the West Mersea YC racing marks, and we had the lat/long for it which we had put in the chart plotter. The rest of the fleet seemed to be much further down river than where we knew it should be, then we heard a call on the radio. No one could find it, so the race would now turn at an 8 knot speed limit buoy.

Initially we felt rather grumpy about this, seeing where the rest of the fleet were, and declared that we would turn at the proper buoy. Only when we got to where it should be we could see nothing but an 8 knot speed limit buoy.... This was much closer to the shore than the race mark should have been, but we could see it, and it was in approximately the right position. We used it as our turning mark, and were suddenly back in the race.

The beat back towards the finish line, the Nass beacon bearing 195M, was hard work, but good fun. We rarely push Robinetta, but she had carried full sail on the broad run/run down river, and now we were beating she was healed well over, with the gunnel under. The flat seas meant I felt quite safe with this, and we short tacked up the Mersea flats to avoid the worst of the ebbing tide. We raced against Titch, who went so close to the shore she ran aground, then held our own against Crescent Moon at the line.

We got the sails down just after the beacon and called up the yacht club who were organising moorings for us. They gave us one that was nice and easy to find, and we picked it up without any problems.

We met Ed who was running the race when we were at the yacht club that evening, and confessed to not finding the "right" mark either. He told us it had sounded as though we would lodge a protest when we called him up during the race!

Heybridge Basin

The promised strong winds had arrived by 09:00, so when Julian hauled up the anchor he needed the engine on to bring Robinetta up to it. We were heading up river on the flood tide with the wind behind us, so the engine soon went off, and we sailed at 3 knots on the stay sail alone. This was plenty fast enough as the first lock in to Heybridge was not until 10:15 and we only had a mile to go.

The first lock in was for the smaller boats (as they drew less water), so we were part of a small flotilla heading up river and milling about waiting for the lock to open. Julian put the engine on again to help him tack after I got the staysail down but he otherwise used the wind on the cabin sides to maintain steerage way while I got the bowsprit in.

When the lock opened the lights stayed red for a few minutes as a couple of boats headed out, then the gaffers were called in. Snoopy was closest so went in first, but Robinetta was close behind and the two boats took the port and starboard berths. We had expected a boat to come and raft between us, but that did not happen, despite there being about 10 boats in the lock. Once we got out into the basin I noticed that Rely and Ellen, the two largest boats on the cruise, were already there. They had locked in the previous evening which made today's lock management much easier.

Snoopy moored right up in the corner of the lock, when we brought Robinetta in behind her. Within minutes both boats had another three rafted up outside them. The second lock brought in the larger OGA boats, and the "fun" was over by high water at noon.

Gafferteering

Today's activity was new to us, although it had been part of the East Coast Summer Cruise for a few years. We were supplied with a start line and finish point, and given five hours to make our way from one to the other. We did not have to start at any particular time so could make the best use of the tide to get between the two via any route. On the way we needed to plot a course past a selection list of buoys/ navigation marks, each of which had a value between 10 and 50 points. Those with low values were close to the direct route, while the more distant or difficult to reach ones gave more points. The draw back was that each minute taken over the 5 hours lost a point.

There was another prize for the best "selfie" taken as we passed a mark.

Julian and I opted for a very conservative course, crossing the start line at Bateman's Tower to broad reach up river to the Colne no.17 buoy, then beating back down again and into the Blackwater, past Colne no.8 buoy, then across the Mersea Flats. We were aiming for the Nass beacon, but the wind went very light, and there were several dinghy races going on in the area under the control of the West Mersea Yacht Club. We were asked to keep clear, and Julian reluctantly put the engine on for a couple of minutes. We were racing too!

It took an agonising 20 minutes to get close enough (2 boat lengths) to the Nass beacon to get our points. We took a photo, then sailed slowly against the tide up river to Osea Island. We reached the finish mark ten minutes late, so our 30 accumulated points went down to 20. Faster boats had an advantage (although I was told there was a handicap correction), but the most important factor was working the tides to collect the high value points in the least possible time. It was great fun, and it scattered the boats all over the rivers and estuary. I heard one boat collected 60 points, then was 50 minutes late at the end mark, while another collected the same and was 50 minutes early (no points were added for early finishing)!

We dropped the anchor at 16:25, very close to low water, in 3.7m, feeling we were as close to the shore as it was sensible to be. A couple of the boats that had arrived earlier had rigged their tenders to sail, and younger members of their crews were racing each other through the anchorage. This was the first time we had regretted not having our own tender with us.

The beach at Osea is mostly shingle and gravel, but below the half tide mark this is covered in a layer of mud and weed, so we waited on Robinetta until we saw people beginning to land, then phoned and asked for a lift ashore. Twilight, a new smack boat had just landed her mother ship's crew ashore, and was dispatched to collect us.

Nearly the whole fleet of 27 were at anchor off Osea during the barbecue, but as the party died down and people returned to their boats many moved. High winds were forecast, and the anchorage was a lee shore, so some took moorings down river at the Marconi sailing club, while others moved to the other side of the bay. We decided to stay put, having confidence in our anchor and a feeling that the winds were not going to be as strong or as early as expected. A select group of 7 or 8 of the smaller boats stayed put too, and spent a quiet night.