Friday 18.7.14 - 1700
Arrive at GYC to prepare the boat and launch. The floating
pontoon from which we can leave at any point on the tide is already full of 'east coast cruisers' preparing for an early start tomorrow. Kate helps me set up
and we launch Spray at 1800 in hot sunshine and a glassy Thames (a rare state
for this reach but possible at slack water). I am feeling poorly but decide
to plug on with it. Once launched I have to circle for ten
minutes, practicing with the new motor and waiting for someone to move off the pontoon to make space. I end up
with a good sheltered place right on the pontoon rather than in a three deep raft - happy.
Saturday 19.7.14 - 0700
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| Sailing into fitful easterlies |
Grey with f1-2 light wind from the east - just what we need! - this
is going to be a day of motor-sailing. I set off with four or five other boats at 0730 on top of the tide and with
the best chance of getting all the way down Sea Reach before the tide turns. The new outboard motor (Yamaha 6hp) is
a delight giving 3.5 - 4kn at about 1/3 full revs. Yesterday evening while
ambling about waiting for space on the pontoon I was doing 1.5kn at tickover. I
would actually like it to be slower for really gentle manoeuvres but it seems that this boat
moves too easily through the water for that. I can see that I will not be
pressing the new outboard much - which may not be so good for it but will
give lovely quiet motoring, and is what I hoped for. I raise the main to Motor
sail into the headwind and hope I am shaking out the reef for last time today. This operation takes too
long with my current set up of boom and down haul which comes up from the deck,
threads through the tack and back down to the cockpit. I must must fix this so that it becomes easier to do in a wind and seaway. One of the many advantages of the
Drascombe loose footed sail is the speed with which you can make adjustments.
The boom I have added is a big improvement up wind and and down, but it needs refining to
become more convenient. Anyway as it turns out there
are going to be several reefings and unreefings today in these fitful
easterlies.
There are bursts of serious rain around Crossness, coming down so
hard that the water goes white with bouncing drops and the wind is lost. I
motor on. After the rain the sun
and a sense that the day might turn out well, which it does, but for the wind
direction. I am sailing in company
with the other GYC boats although each at some distance from one another. It will be interesting
to see who gets in to Queenborough and when.
There is the usual 'wind over tide' chop at Gravesend and I notice some
strange over falls along the south bank, making me wonder what the profile
of the bottom is here. Anyway no time to linger, on we go to the increasingly bigger Thames
and the bend round to the Sea Reach. This point in the journey downriver is
always a relief, generally the wind improves here with a greater fetch and I
feel as though we have finally shaken off London. The wind does improve but is
still easterly so we tack round the corner and into the long east-west stretch
of Sea Reach itself. There are seals on the north bank, lying like logs,
presumably sleeping off a fishy dinner. Seals seem to have a pretty easy life
here.
After more motor sailing I finally turn off the outboard
for the first time today(!) and sail properly, tacking up the southern side of
the Reach, avoiding the shipping (which is busy), and turning smartly when the
depth gets below 2m. If we weren't having to zigzag down the river on this long beat
there is a good contour/shelf we could be sailing down in a straight line for miles
using the depth gauge as guide. Anyway it is the most interesting sailing of
the day involving reefing and unreefing as the wind changes. The wind is fitful
and a gust catches me unawares in a ragged tack - I ship a bit of green water
and curse my poor sailing. To make up for it I make myself sail steadily on the
the same tack long enough for the water to drain out of the scuppers to leeside
without any falling back into the cockpit from where I would have to pump - a
last resort.
The sun is hot now and I shed layers progressively and don more
sun cream. This leg down sea reach, although long, is my favourite. On the
north bank are the shipping terminals and oil refineries and the deeply
uninviting looking Holehaven. In contrast to the south it is rural and marshy. Looking south the Isle of Grain is not like the rest of Kent, like Sheppey it has the quality of another place, somehow apart
from the rest of Kent. It remains (until Boris
gets his hands on it) relatively unpopulated. Less so at its Eastern end where the
chimney from one of our bigger power stations is a landmark one is aware of for
many miles. Across the Thames to the north
is Canvey Island, then Southend and by now we really are in the sea. Every time I come here it seems to be a
steep 4ft (plus) chop and Spray lives up to her name, requiring me to put oilies
back on despite the heat. I am conscious of feeling pretty awful by now and start
wondering about the wisdom of this cruise with what feels like oncoming flu.
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| Grain Power Station |
Rounding as close to the Nore Swatch buoy as I have patience for,
we start to enter the Medway. There is stronger wind now and it has finally moved into
the south east, so annoyingly is still heading us. To the East is the wreck of the Montgomery, which always frightens me and to the West Grain Fort, a much altered Martello Tower, whizzes by to starboard. I think of all the times I have passed it and the different conditions. I arrive into Queenborough
and a mooring on the concrete barge nearly an hour ahead of my passage plan time. I have been gaining slowly on my
waypoint timings all day, it's the affect of motoring comfortably slightly
quicker than my expected sailing speed made good. The usual friendly reception
amongst other GYC boats and but for feeling pretty ill an excellent convivial
evening. I cut this short to
repair to bed and make big the decision to pull out of the East coast
Cruise from here on. Horrible but
the right decision.
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| Grain Fort - it's becoming a friend! |
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| Sheerness - Napoleonic and scruffy |
Sunday 20.7.14 - 0700
I text kate to tell her my decision and amazingly she appears on the shore at Queenborough by 8.45 to rescue me. We go home and I sleep till evening when we go back to collect the boat with the trailer. The people at Queenborough are extremely friendly and helpful, in a Dickensian sort of way. It is slightly surreal bringing the boat to the slipway and hauling out to the sound of a kind of Cajun country and western sing-along in the pub next door but it sort of fits the place.
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