skip to main |
skip to sidebar
This was the perfect day for cruising – even better than the day before - and so I decided to set off before dawn and get a half hour’s start on the day. This was an inspired decision for it meant that I was cruising into the brightness of the dawn and had turned before we had to cope with the actual sun rising above the horizon. It was soon light enough to see and to turn off all of our navigation lights etc and so we could cruise along at out modest 9-10knots without problems. The cruise went very well but it turned into a long debate about where we should stop and how far we could get.
Ideally, David really wanted us to stop at Ramsgate where his son could pick him up by car and take him back to Southampton to collect his own car and take it home. This would then be in good time for his outing with his mother the following day. Unfortunately, with the weather set to deteriorate as the week progressed and with me out of time to get Lady Martina round to London, that proposal would be no good for me and it would be better to get the boat into London this day. It would all hinge on how much time the cruise would take and what our arrival time in London would be. We first thought that we could get in by 8.00pm but, what with the darkness and the Thames estuary tide fast running against us it would be more like 10.00pm before we would eventually get there. The other factor was that I could not bring the boat up the Thames the following morning for they had arranged a full closure of the Thames Barrier for this time.
Once we arrived at Tower Bridge, there appeared no room at the jetty and so we moored up on the fuel barge, having checked with the barge owners who had no objection. 
Though the water buses had finished there was a good number of restaurant barges plying their trade on the river after dark, serving Christmas dinners and hosting Christmas parties but at least they did not speed too much not make a large wash; the idea being to lull their clients with a pleasant cruise. I served David and I a couple of beers as we relaxed after an epic voyage before we called it a night and retired to our bunks. This had been a very good day and now all that I needed to do was to fill up with fuel in the morning and then to try and get into Limehouse in time for my C.A. Council Meeting.
Tuesday December 11th 2007 The weather situation was even more in interesting to judge in the morning. The storm force winds and consequent swell had been slower to clear the Channel from the west and so the further and sooner we cruised east the more we would still find it a problem. In essence the shipping forecasts, that covered this wider area, and even the inshore forecasts, which were not very localised, would put off most sailors from
venturing out. However, I was armed with the very local forecasts and wind vectors reported by downloading the GRIB files and could see that close inshore and in the Solent area it would be calm and even sheltered as the winds had gone round to the north-west. Despite our best intentions to set off even earlier, it was just before 8.00am that we cast off as it took time to prepare the boat to leave in the absence of the specific knowledge and experience of Louise, my regular crew. We cruised out of the Itchen and along Southampton water and it soon became apparent that the vibrations from the props and shafts were a problem at high speeds and so we had to throttle back and settle for the much lower speed of 9-10knots. This immediately meant that any idea of cruising on to Ramsgate this afternoon was out of the question and we would have to thus settle for Brighton as our destination. Once we realised this, the rest of the journey was fairly straightforward and without undue pressure.
I let David handle the helm as I navigated and managed the boat’s systems and we arrived safely at Brighton black rock marina in early afternoon. I had used both Louise and Richard as shore-based plan reporting contacts and, having contacted them when we set out, I did the same upon arrival. This curtailment of the length of cruise today put our overall ambition of making London this week unlikely but we were pledged to carry on anyway. We got into Brighton around 2.00pm in the sunshine, though the day was quite cold. Much of the time spent washing off the boat and then getting all of the charts and electronics set up for the next leg the following day. By this time I had calculated that we would only manage to get to Limehouse if we did some cruising after dark and, because of the crab and lobster pots littering the coast as a hazard, the best place to do this was coming up the Thames where there were none allowed to be set. David Harrison was not keen to spend more that Tuesday on the boat, for he had an appointment in Bournemouth with his mother on the Wednesday trying to get her into the smart residential home. He went ashore and got some bread, ham, cheese and a few other chocolate biscuits and goodies for the cruise the next day and, whilst he was gone, I managed to get the rest of the boat ready for the day’s cruise ahead.
Distance: 55.5nm
Speed 10kn
Hours 5.5 hours
Fuel 158 litres
Leave 0730
Arrive 1300
Though the water buses had finished there was a good number of restaurant barges plying their trade on the river after dark, serving Christmas dinners and hosting Christmas parties but at least they did not speed too much not make a large wash; the idea being to lull their clients with a pleasant cruise. I served David and I a couple of beers as we relaxed after an epic voyage before we called it a night and retired to our bunks. This had been a very good day and now all that I needed to do was to fill up with fuel in the morning and then to try and get into Limehouse in time for my C.A. Council Meeting. 
