Days 10 and 11. Lowestoft to Wells to Grimsby

The 0400 start happened as planned - well 0415, but the intention was there - and we left Lowestoft under grey skies but surprisingly light for that time in the morning. Full sail up and a broad reach, the best angle of sailing for comfort and speed, down past the rather dull coast of Suffolk. Unfortunately we were punching into the fairly strong tide which was running the other way so slow progress was made even though the boat speed showed 6 to 7kn as we had the engine running as well, we were only making 3 to 4 over the ground but we expected this to change at 10am which it duly did and our speed picked up. The need for haste was that at Wells-next-the-sea, our destination and some 60 miles from Lowestoft,there is only a 2 hour window in which one can get a 6ft draught boat into the harbour, as it is over a huge sandbank and up a river. Unfortunately with the wind from the NW as we rounded the bulge of Norfolk the wind came more and more on the nose so we had to start tacking and tacking into the wind. This really wasn't in my passage plan and I started to worry about not hitting the tidal window at Wells. Then the wind dropped to nothing. So engine on and more motoring. My calculations said that we would be in time if we continued like that. BUT! The wind suddenly returned at 20 to 25kn from the direction we wanted to. Gamaldansk only has a little engine, not designed to punch her through the waves and wind. But what a stalwart she is! At full throttle, with steam and black smoke belching from the exhaust (don't tell Greenpeace) we made it to the Wells fairway bouy, where the harbour master was waiting to guide us in, with minutes and centimetres under the keel, to spare. Dave and Patrick were as relieved as me as they both had to be back in London for work and had no desire to continue to Grimsby!
Wells, apart from being a bugger to get in to, is a beautiful little fishing harbour in the middle of the flat North Norfolk salt-marsh. It may be called Wells-next-the-sea, but it should be called Wells-bloody-miles-from-the-sea. It took half an hour to get up the river! We were assisted in mooring next to the Albatross, a 19th century dutch sailing barge, now used as a restaurant and bar, although she sometimes is sailed still, by a mad Dutch chef who also own the boat.
I must give a mention to the harbour staff, who's names I didn't ask, who were incredibly helpful, both on the phone and in person.Thank you guys.
Having bade farewell to Dave and Patrick, Pete and I had a really chilled evening listening to music on board whilst I did nav stuff and Pete cooked up a mean chilli with garlic bread. Then a couple of pints in the nearby Golden Fleece and an early night, with the prospect of an 0500 start to get the tide out of Wells.
On the subject of Chez Caskey, I, and those who have been on board so far, are constantly amazed at the food, drink and other comforts that appear from Pete's kitchen. The only man I know who can cook up a storm, in a storm, and not be affected by sea-sickness or the fact that the boat is going up and down like a lift. Big respect!
We left Wells at 0500 as planned, to a beautiful sunrise. I managed to not run aground going down the river and over the sandbanks, which had been a big worry for me as there was no nice harbour master to show me the way out at that time in the morning. Luckily the fishing boats were leaving so I just followed them and got to sea with no incident.
The wind was set fair for our 55 mile run across to Grimsby and we had the best sail of the trip so far. A close reach with first reef in main and genoa, Wogan on the radio, a fair tide and bacon butties and tea from Chez Caskey. It was so nice to just sail, not have to run the engine for extra speed and no set arrival time to stick to. As it was we arrived early for the lock at the marina, which is open for two hour each side of high tide, so about two miles off we dropped the sails, put the engine and the kettle on, and spent an hour pottering up to the marina so we could get the lock whilst it was open and not have to pay a fee of ten quid. Tight or what?
Grimsby marina is in the middle of nowhere - well not nowhere, but in the middle of what is left of what was once the center of the British fishing industry. If you like maritime industrial it's the place for you. Good folk at the sailing club though. Good prices and friendly faces. Andy, the berthmaster, who was there to take our lines as we arrived, has already offered us a lift to the supermarket to get supplies and I'm using the clubs internet to do this. Thanks to them.
Pete and I get a day off tomorrow as I had anticipated an overnight run to Grimsby but as we left early we are now a day in hand. Looking forward to an early night and a lie in.
Thanks to Nico for his entertaining comment on the last blog. Have a read. Not quite sure what's happening with the comments - some have been e-mailed to me and some appear on the blog. I think you have to click on comment rather than the envelope.
Hi to everyone and thanks for reading. Keep in touch.

Days 7, 8, 9. Dover to Ramsgate to Brightlingsea to Lowestoft.

Pete and I had a gentle downwind sail leaving Dover just after lunch and pootled to Ramsgate in 3 hours. We berthed in the marina where David Lawson, chairman of the local Sea Cadets who is following our trip with interest, had arranged a discounted slot for us. It was powerboat racing weekend in Ramsgate so the place was heaving - funfair, a very loud band on an outside stage and lots of powerboat types wandering around wearing T-shirts proclaiming that they were a mechanic or navigator. How does powerboat racing navigation work then? "Go around that buoy as fast as you can"....? Beats me. We welcomed Dave and Patrick on board and their first job was to get me to the top of the mast to sort out some of the new wiring that was too slack and had popped out of the mainsail track meaning that we couldn't get the sail up. Easily sorted, then off to the Royal Temple Yacht Club to meet David Lawson and a couple of G&Ts. Phwah, Phwah.
Out of Ramsgate the next morning in flat calm conditions. I got the leaving protocol wrong due to faffing about and not concentrating. I called the port control too late asking for permission to leave the inner harbour and was told quite curtly "Gamaldansk, you have already left! Please proceed straight to sea. Port control out!" Oops. But we turned left and for the first time we were heading north!
Due to lack of wind we mtored most of the way across the Thames estuary which was dull for all except for when I tried to take a short cut across the SW Sunk. The chart plotter said there was enough depth but the echo sounder and the keel said different. First a little bump on the bottom then bump, bump, bump, stop. Bugger! We had run aground out of sight of land. I'm used to seeing a hundred feet of water when out that far. I got all the crew, fat gits that they are, to hang of one side of the boat which lifted the keel off just enough to turn around and return on our incoming track. So we had a 10 mile detour around the sand bank. I was really nervous now as we had to cross some more shallows on the entry in to Brightlingsea and my faith in the charts and the plotter had now been dented. My fears were unfounded and we crossed the Spitway with 3 metres under the keel.
Brightlingsea sounds better than it looks. We moored on a pontoon opposite a scrapyard quay where ships come in and take the scrap away. There are improvements happening tho. A marina is being built and with a bit of dredging will make a nice destination. I met up with Nico Shipman, a fellow GK29 owner who did the circumnavigation last year. He has a great website (from which I pinched some of the text for mine - thanks Nico) http://www.summersailing.co.uk/ .
We had a few pints at The Yachtsmans Arms courtesy of Ken the landlord and met a few of the locals. Pete even had a really interesting chat with a real live Essex girl!
Left early at 0720 the next morning to get the fair tide up to Southwold. Very little wind again. Got the spinnaker up for the first time but not for long as our course changed onto the wind, it was the first time we've had the full sails up since leaving Fowey. We started punching a strong tide at lunchtime and our speed dropped right down to 2.5 kn. Sizewell B power station seemed to be abeam for hours. After calling the Southwold harbour master and being told we wouldn't get in on an ebb tide due to it running at 6kn we decided to run on to Lowestoft another 13 miles north. There was a thunderstorm in the distance which we thought would clear away before we got there, but soon realised that we were running straight into it. So oilies on, sails down and engine on. None too soon, as it hit us in a matter of two minutes. From sun and calm to a raging maelstrom in the blink of an eye. The wind went up to 20kn from all directions, the sea was all over the place and someone was throwing large chunks of ice at us really hard. It absolutely threw it down and the lightning was hitting the water all round. Does any know what you should do at sea in a thunderstorm? I don't. I strikes me the last place you want to be is near a tall metal spike in the middle an open sea. Answers on a post card please. We came out the other side of it to bright sun and the most fantastic rainbow of which we could see the whole arc from sea to sea perfectly framing a large cargo ship. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with a wide enough lens to capture it.
We arrived in Lowestoft at 2115. A couple of pints and a Chinese and early bed.
Today is a rest day as we leave for Wells-next-the-sea at 0400 tomorrow. Time to catch up with a couple of jobs aboard, laundry and a bit of R&R.
Al Boyd has published his photos of last week on a website so I haven't put up any here. It's at http://homepage.mac.com/atboyd/PhotoAlbum3.html. Some great shots. Thanks Al.
Pete says "Phew, what a scorcher this summer is".
Thanks to all who are still interested and following our adventure. It's great to read your comments so keep them coming. Don't care what you have to say, it's just nice to have the contact.

Days 5 and 6. Itchenor to Eastbourne to Dover

My apologies to those of you who have been logging on and not finding a daily
blog. We've had a couple of long days and the idea of getting the computer out
and being interesting and witty is is a long way from my mind when we arrive
somewhere wet and knackered at 9.30 in the evening.Also sorry for the lack f phots. Al Byd was ships photgrapher for the week and
when it came to downlading his camera to my lappy last night before he left the
computer didn't see the camera. So he's going to email the interesting ones to me
for later publication.We had a good wednesday evening in Itchenor. My brother Simon came and had a meal
in the pub with us at The Ship Inn. The meal was generously provided by the boss
Silas and the lovely Jenna provided copious ale. We also had a visit from the
lifeboat crews from Hayling Island who were on excercise that evening. Both the
ILB and the Atlantic class RIB crews made the effort to come up from the lifeboat
house and came alongside the boat and stayed for a chat which was really nice of
them especially as they gave us a bottle of wine to help forward our efforts. It
was good to see you guys and it made us all feel that our efforts are being
appreciated.We slipped from Itchenor at 9am with a forecast of force 5 to 6 becoming 7 later.
I thought this was alright as we would be going downwind. As we crossed
Chichester Bar there was a gale warning on the VHF with F8 expected within 6
hours. It was decided to carry on as we would be near Eastbourne when it hit. As
we rounded Beachy Head the vis dropped, it started raining, the wind got up to 25
to 30 kn and the sea started to get bigger. I had to call a merchantman on the
radio who was overtaking us on our port side just when we needed to turn to port.
The nice Russian captain duly obliged and altered course to pass us astern. We
got into the lee of Beachy Head so the sea settled down a bit and we broad
reached up to Eastbourne. We had however put up the main with 2 reefs earlier
which proved to be a mistake as it was a complete bitch to get down and pack in a
big sea with a huge gust of 40 knots as we were doing it. We arrived safely in
the marina at Eastbourne at 2130 to a well deserved burger from Chez Caskey and a
couple of pints in the local pub served by a very well endowed barmaid. I
personally didn't notice but the others did!Friday morning dawned bright but still blowing a hooly. The forecast was for the
wind to drop later so we did some jobs around the boat and left at midday. Half
an hour out I realised I'd made a bad call and should have stayed in but by this
time it was too late - going back straight into the wind was not an option. So we
hung on and had the most scary and exhilirating ride through my and the others
first full gale. We were pooped once by a wave breaking into the cock pit which
filled Petes cup of tea with sea and took away the bottle of ready mixed outboard
fuel. It was decided we would run for Folkstone as it at least has a sea wall we
could hide behind but very little else as the port is no longer used
commercially. When we got there we found it almost impossible to tie up by the
wall due to the swell coming round the end of jetty so we put the hook down, had
a cup of tea and half an hours break and decided to carry on the last 6 miles to
Dover. By this time the wind and sea had calmed a little and we had a good run
into the marina arriving at 20.00, relieved and feeling rather proud of ourselves
and even prouder of Gamaldansk who had performed flawlessly. What a great boat
she is!We are now sitting in The Flagship, a pub and cafe right by the marina, owned by
Dave, a top geezah, who entertained us to supper and beer last night and
breakfast and internet this morning. Thanks Dave. Jon Bray has come down from
Tonbridge Wells on his bike to say hello and drink tea. He'll be joining us in
Scotland.We lost Ian and Al last night - it's been a great week with them - and Pete and I
have a lazy 15 miles to do to Ramsgate this afternoon in beautiful sailing
conditions, where we will meet Dave and Patrick for the next legs up to Wells in
Norfolk

Salcombe to Swanage to Poole to Itchenor

Days 2,3 and 4.
First a couple of apologies. A) To those of you who have not been able to view the comments on the blog. I'm not sure why this is but when I get a wifi connection (this is coming via Ians phone, so is text only - photos later) I'll try to sort it out. B) People have be asking why days 2 and 3 are missing....well read on.
Having lost a day in Salcombe for repairs we went back into the water at 7am on Monday. I was awake but the crew slept on and they all had the same "flying" dream as the boat was picked up by the crane and plonked back in. Hurrah - no leaks. She is dry for the first time I know of. So we left Salcombe at 9am with a view to seeing how far we could get to catch up on time. After a long day of directly down wind, which need a lot of concentration, and not a small amount of rain we arrived in Swanage, Dorset at 11pm. We tried to tie up by the pier as suggested by the almanac but it was not a good mooring for various reasons. So we looked by the other boats moored nearby for something suitable. We ended up tying onto a spare bouy but on inspection we saw it was attached by nothing more than a small piece of blue rope to the seabed. Not good enough for a yacht in a force 7!
So I had to make the decision to go on another ten miles to Poole harbour and put into a marina, where we finally arrived at 0215.
In the morning at 8am they tried to charge me £42.50 for our 6 hour stay. I made a bit of a fuss and this was reduced to £14. You can get cheaper parking in central London!
Off from Poole at 0900 to get a fair tide and there followed a cracking sail past the Needles (over the Christchurch Shelf which was a complete maelstrom - photos to follow) and down the Solent to Itchenor which is where we now lie as I write this. In the Solent we had a strong following wind but a fairly flat sea so we managed the highest speed I have ever had from Gamaldansk - 10.2 knots through the water. This was achieved using only the jib!
So we are back on track timewise despite the early hiccups and it's off to Eastbourne tomorrow.

Day one. Fowey to Salcombe

Day one. Well nobody said it was going to be boring! The weather for our start was inclement to say the least. Our leaving of Fowey coincided with the J24 class race weekend in the harbour and we were a bit concerned that they considered the conditions to rough to race. I joined Shawn on his RIB to look at conditions at the harbour entrance and further out and we decided that once we got across the bar at the entrance we would have a reasonably easy if rough sail to Salcombe. So leaving only half an hour after we had intended, we set sail in 15 to 25 knots of wind and a huge quartering sea making between 6 and 9 knots. However it soon became apparent that there was a lot of water inside the boat. She's never been completely dry but this was exeptional. Pete and Al Boyd ended up bailing most of the way to Salcombe as the water was on the wrong side of the boat for the bilge pump to work. When we had moored up we found that there was a leak from the bolts that hold the rudder on. This was duly repaired and re-sealed which took a couple of hours with help from a couple of great lads from Island Cruising Club sailing school, Craig and Lee the Launch, who we press-ganged into standing on our bow for an hour in the rain to raise the stern out of the water (these guys later took us to their sailing school bar) - so, four people standing on the bow, a bit of a Heath Robinson rig attached to the mooring bouy to pull the bow down and me working from the dinghy to avoid my weight on the stern, just managed to get the rudder bolts out of the water! Unfortunately it turned out that it wasn't the bolt holes leaking but a split in the GRP (fiberglass) next to the mounting. So this morning (day two) we had to be craned out of the water to investigate. What we found made me think that the whole trip was in jeopardy as there was a huge mess of de-laminated GRP around the rudder mounting. I had to go off into the adjacent car park and have a moment on my own and a call to Sal who said lots of encouraging things. But after inspection by Paul from the boatyard we now have a GRP expert, Lindsey, who is fixing it as I write and says we'll be back in the water at high tide tomorrow. We've now got some catching up to do so it might entail a 24 hour dash to Itchenor. Decisions will be made tomorrow once we're back in and know what the weather is doing. So for now it's down to Lindsy and we're off to the pub.
Afew hours later .......... it's now fixed and I fear we might have a dry bilge for the rest of the trip. Quite a blow expected tomorrow but from the West so we're good for aiming for somewhere near the Isle of Wight. Watch this space for the next exciting instalment of Around Salcombe with a Sound Crew.

Ready for the off

Friday evening and just a few hours to go. Caskey and I have provisioned the boat today and done some sort of a stow. A couple of jobs to do tomorrow (bracket to stow the out board and a fresh water leak) and we should be set for the off at 1030 on Sunday. The weather is going to be atrocious - force 6 and chucking it down but at least the wind will be from the SW so we'll have a brisk but soggy run to Salcombe.
Stubbles on the water taxi pointed out something quite pertinent today - I've got my dates wrong and we won't be arriving back with the Red Arrows, well we will if I wait an extra week! Hey ho. Tamsin has just issued a press release telling the world that we're getting a fly-past. Oops.
Next one will be from Salcombe I hope.

At Last!!

Arrived at the yard today to find a finished boat! See photos opposite. Very happy. She's looking fantastic and something to be proud of. She went into the water this afternoon - I wasn't there due to a dentist appointment - but I've heard nothing from the yard so I assume she floated! Just sorry I couldn't be there to get photos of her in the crane strops.
The press launch is now planned for 1030 on Monday next week so anyone who can come and support (and possibly get on the telly or in the press) then please fill ya boots.
Work, for me, is now finished until I go off to Reading Festival for Delta/Nokia at the end of August (assuming we're back in time) so I can now get on with the preparations for the trip and organising the builders to gut the house while I'm away.
Still trying to get charts sorted out. I've managed to blag a few from contacts I've made through the internet (thanks Mike) and Hansome Bob has said he'll get some Scottish ones. If anyone feels they can come up with a chart or two for their leg I'd be prepared to show my gratitude in many ways....!
I'll see if I can get some photos of the good ship Gamaldansk afloat tomorrow.