Part Two " A trip to London and back"

Day 3 Nieuwport to Ramsgate [56sm]

Another day, another story. A beautiful day, wind force 3 to 4, sunny, air temperature 5° C, wave height 0,5m to 1m. Perfect weather for crossing the English Channel.

 

yeah,.. ski gloves at helm

We kept inside the sand banks and passed Dunkerque and then before Calais we went up to the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS). We crossed the TSS under engine and caught the tide perfectly so we dropped out of the TSS nearly in Ramsgate. 

 waiting for a gap

 At Ramsgate Marina we all celebrated the successful crossing. A Belgian doctor from our small fleet came up with a plastic bag full of wine and filled up our glasses with a smile on his face and the sentence “Trust me, I´m a doctor and that wine is intravenous””

And for dinner we managed to find a small Indian restaurant.

A perfect day…

Day 4 Ramsgate to Chatham, canceled

Indeed, the trip for the day was cancelled, as a force 7 hit the coast and so the fleet stayed in the marina. It was quite relaxing, so everybody had a chance to repair their boats or just read a good book or have a walk. 

On the VHF I heard a Mayday from a catamaran which was outside in the channel and their engine had died. An hour later we saw the Ramsgate Lifeguard towing him in.

At dinner my father and I started to have an argument about our fuel consumption and whether we still had enough. Eventually we agreed to walk to  the fuel station and get 3 canisters of diesel. Luckily we made this decision.  

Day 5 Ramsgate to  London (80sm)

Since the trip to Chatham had been cancelled, it was decided to go to London in one day.

The alarm clock went mad at 4 in the morning and we motored out of Ramsgate. There was nearly no wind.

 

Ramsgate at dawn

 The headless sailor

 And so we motored up to the Thames Estuary. Only as the sun comes up the wind picked up and we set sails and sailed up the Thames past the Guntowers, Dartford Brigde, Thames Barrier Millennium Dome, and Greenwich.

 Crossing the Meridian

The engine of one boat from our fleet, the Freedom, died on the Thames. Hank and Harry were able to give them a tow up to the Limehouse basin. As we met in the evening they told us their story. The tow line broke 2 times. As they reached the lock for the Limehouse basin they were quite exhausted. Everyone, even I, was focussed on trying to help the Freedom to get into the lock. Only my parents thought to help Hank and Harry in the lock, and out of this a friendship grew. Hank ended his story with the words “I’m getting too old for this b….” 

 Limehouse basin at night

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Part One " A trip to London and back"

A couple of years ago, my parents and I took a sailing trip across the Channel to London and back. We sailed in a small fleet with 8 Dutch yachts. My parents boat, “Do it”, is a Dufour 31 which was built in 1977. She is a very fine boat if you ask me. 

The journey started at the end of April and the fleet was organized by the Oceanpeople

Day 1, Grevelingen to Roompot [30sm]

So we arrived quite early in our marina and stuffed everything on “Do it”. And I just forgot my boots, which I regretted later. After I placed my stuff at the navigator bed next to the chart table, we set sail. But we were stopped at the Grevelingen lock, because it was broken. We had to wait; nobody could give us a clue when the lock would be repaired. And we were the only boat at the lock. Time for some chips. Later in the afternoon the lock opened again.

After leaving the lock, we entered the Oosterschelde and now the wind reached a fine force 8. But “Do it” did a very good job with a jib 1 and a fully reefed mainsail and we smashed through the waves, a sail of a lifetime.  We covered the distance of 25 nautical miles in no time. (Wibbly wobbly timey wimey ). 

We arrived just before the sun melted into the ocean at Roompot Marina. We were the last boat to get in, and we arrived just in time for the briefing for the trip starting on the next day. “Do it” was inspected by Paul of the Oceanpeople and his parting words were “ Well, all safety gadgets are on board at least in duplicate, so if anybody else drops anything, you guys might be able to help them out.

We made friends with the other  crews and were invited by Hank (67) and Harry (70) on their Fisher 40. It was a pleasant evening with too much alcohol.

Day 2 Roompot- Nieuwport (55 nm)

 

The alarm clock went mad at 5 in the morning, definitely too much alcohol! We crossed over to the Neltje Jans Lock to get out onto the North Sea. 

 The fleet assembles

The wind was a force 5 NW, quite fresh. 

The North Sea, well  it was stirred up from the force 8 the day before.  There is a German saying “Nord See ist Mord See” translated it means “North sea is Murder Sea”. And I could almost understand the saying on that day. We had waves between 2 and 4m in height, in very quick succession and they came in quite chaotically. First, we had to go straight out through “Hompels“ (sandbank before the Oosterschelde ) and we were quite beaten up by the waves. 

I sail through the “Hompels“ quite often and it is quite famous for its chaotic waves. Outside at buoy Kaloo the chaotic waves usually disappear but this time they still came in very short succession.We were on a jib 1 and a fully reefed main sail again. And the wind decreased over the course of the day, but the waves stayed the way they were. So we had to change the sails nearly every hour, which meant I changed the sails, because we needed the speed to get through the waves. Reef 2 out, full main, change of clothes(a wave came by and said “Hi”) Jib 1, Genoa II, change of clothess II, (thank you, Dad, couldn’t you have avoided that by steering the boat better) , Genoa I.

On my second change of clothes, I may have had a small argument with the helmsman… 

Me: “Dad, why don´t you have a rolling Genoa on your bloody boat?”

 Dad: “But you also don´t have a rolling sail on your boat, why would anybody need them?”

Me: “Yeah but my sails don´t weight 10 to 20 kg each, and I am still in my 20s, rather than nearing the end of my 50s.”

Dad: “It’s fine, we could handle them if necessary.”

Me: “Yeah I see, I handle them, I haven´t seen you on the foredeck the whole day.”

Dad: “No need, you did an excellent job with the sails and the waves!”

Me: “Thanks!”

Dad: “Next time we only set the High Aspect (Genoa II).”

After changing the sails for the sixth time, we finally made it to Nieuwport.

My balance sheet for the day:

-          Six sail changes. Eight incidents of being sea sick. (Turns out that dried ginger doesn´t help with sea sickness).Air temperature 5 degrees.Bloody fingers, cold salt water and 5°C air temperature not a good combination…

S

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