Lessons from a long passage

Our plan during the middle of November was to make a long passage out into the western approaches to the Channel, and perhaps pop into a port or two on the north Brittany coast. We had on board, three boat owners, one with a 22 footer kept in Boston, another with a Sadler 32 kept also on the east coast, and a third who owned a Dehler 34 moored in the Solent. All were looking for the chance to get some experience and add some miles to their log books for eventual Yachtmaster Offshore, though one said he was more interested in having some fun. The forecast was bloody, f8’s and 9’s from the south west were to prevail for the first two days, so we spent some time playing in the Solent and fighting wind and tides. There seemed a bit of a break in the weather coming up on the Wednesday, so we planned on sailing round the Isle of Wight, leaving Yarmouth with the last of the ebb, so that on turning round the Needles we would have wind and tide both going with us.

There were two major lessons which came out of this trip. The first was lookout with buoy identification. It is so easy, if you are not following a properly prepared pilotage plan, to assume that a buoy in the distance is the one you are looking for. As we came down to the Shingles Elbow red buoy just northeast of the entrance to the Needles channel, there were occasional squalls of rain which reduced visibility a bit, but not so much that buoys could not be picked out with binoculars. However the skipper for the day did not check the buoy colour or shape properly, and assumed it to be the Bridge westerly cardinal. As a result, a course steered to put this red buoy on our port side would have placed us close to the breakers on the Shingle Bank, but luckily we correctly identified the mark, and then picked up the cardinal. The lesson brought home in such a situation as this, is to have your plan properly prepared with courses and distances between navigation marks. If needs be, zero the trip log at each mark and always try to be one jump ahead of yourself when piloting. What I mean by this, is to identify the next mark but one when eyeballing the yacht in and out of harbour. If any of you would like a beginner’s guide to preparing a pilotage plan, email me and I will send you a copy of my notes. My contact details are available on my website: Arrow Yacht Enterprises.

When I have experienced skippers on board, I let them prepare and execute their plans without my input, unless something is going to go pear shaped. We had rounded St Catherine’s Point and had a strong spring flood pushing us along; we were sailing with just one third headsail and two reefs in the mizzen, making 6 – 7 knots through the water, and sometimes up to 9 knots over the ground. David was doing the navigation for the day and was quite relaxed about it all. It was he who had come along for the fun! The wind was up in the 20 – 25 knots range so we were making good progress, but it was quite clear that if we did not harden up in the SW wind fairly soon, we would end up being taken a lot further east than would have been good for us, and would have ended up with quite a beat back into Portsmouth. Rex, who had a lot less experience than the others on board, had clearly taken in what he had learnt during his theory courses, and pointed out what the tide was doing to us, and what the end result would be. David saw the wisdom of Rex’s point, and we hardened up and sailed on that point of sail all the way to the entrance to Portsmouth. The lesson here is to make use of your instruments, monitor your course over the ground (COG) and speed over the ground (SOG) and deduce what is happening to you. A quick estimated position (EP) on the chart will tell you what is going to happen to you in two hours time and often will save a lot of unnecessary sailing, particularly if you are trying to make that pub for supper or a pint before closing time!