Learning in More dangerous waters

lEARNING IN MORE DANGEROUS WATERS

After our first learning experience on Enterprise we left her sat in a cradle in Haarlem with a leaky stern gland and went to crew for a friend on a cruise from Wales to the Southern coast of Ireland; what you might call 'a busman's holiday'. On our return, for the next five weeks we worked like demons at wire brushing, painting and cleaning every nook and cranny while we waited for the repairs to be done. During that time we made acquaintance with joggers and dog walkers on the tow path, house boat dwellers and even the man on the garbage clean-up barge. There was a group of boat owners who came to the dock several times a week just to sit on each boat in turn and drink beer just to escape from their wives. We began to understand the life of the river; even though it was hard work it was enjoyable but, it was hot and without being in the water Enterprise got so warm that we ended up camping in the cockpit.

Working Like Demons

Camping in the Cockpit - It was Hot

The problem with the stern gland was immediately obvious; it was made of mild steel and had become pitted over time so had to be replaced with a stainless steel one. That was easier said than done. Whereas a stern gland gasket can be replaced by simply uncoupling the prop shaft from the engine and sliding it backwards, replacing the prop shaft required lifting the engine out of the way, removing the propeller and  withdrawing it into the ship.

The Pitted Prop Shaft

Lifting the Engine to get Access

So we were back to living around engine parts again while we waited to get a new prop shaft and coupling machined in Rotterdam. The bearing needed to be replaced also, just to be on the safe side, and all these jobs were time consuming.

Removing the Bearing

The New Coupling

Machining the New Bearing

New Prop Shaft, Bearing and Rope Cutter

New Coupling, Anti-Vibration Coupling and Stern Gland Installed

Finally we were ready to sail. The plan was to lock out of the canal system at IJmuiden and cross the North Sea to Lowestoft in the UK. From there we would sail South to Ramsgate before crossing over to France at Calais and follow the French coast to Morlaix in Brittany. My brother had a farmhouse there and we could use it during the winter if we got 'cabin fever'.
It was not to work out that way,
            'The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Sailors Gang aft agley,
             An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
             For promis’d joy!',
                                                                  to paraphrase Robert Burns' poem 'To a Mouse'.
To catch the tide at IJmuiden we left in in the late afternoon when all our new acquaintances, who had watched us working, were around to wave goodbye. This was the next level of challenge; but it came a lot sooner than we anticipated. 200 metres off the dock the old Volvo engine, that had been coaxed back to life, seized up. The smiles and waves of the house boat owners turned to alarm as we drifted down onto their beautiful picture windows. We got the anchor down before we hit and then sat there in ignominy waiting for a tow back to the dock. All that effort and sense of  achievement came crashing down in an instant.

Ignominiously Being Towed to the Dock

Back Feeling Foolish

The decision was easy: a new reliable engine was needed. We opted for a 3 cylinder Yamaha but that meant that the engine mounting bed had to be altered to align with the prop shaft. This was a messy business involving grinding and welding and during that work we had to vacate the ship and camp in a shed on the dock. Luckily we had a marine engineer who really moved things along and next day the engine was removed and the new bed started.

Extracting the Volvo Through the Hatch

Goodbye to Unreliability

Emptying the Lockers - Body Language Says it All

Camping in the Dock Shed

Even with lots of protection the cutting process made the boat filthy and broke June's heart when we had worked so hard to clean it. With all the disruption it was obvious that we should install new bilge hoses, that were threaded through the engine compartment, new sea cocks and engine electrics.

The Engine Bed Fully Cut With Old Bilge Hoses

Even With Screening the Ship Was Filthy

A new propeller was required with size and pitch to match the new engine characteristics so we were into another lift out and relaunch. Finally, with final engine trials over, we were ready once again to start, just 9 days after our last fiasco. Such a quick turn around was phenomenal and a great tribute to Gerard Klomp. The pain was mitigated by the great hospitality that we experienced in the Netherlands.

The Finished Engine Installation

Great Hospitality - Gerard Klomp at the Right

This time we left quietly with heartfelt farewells and locked out into the North Sea at IJmuiden stopping briefly at the marina until the tide was right. The complete log of our impending  journey can be seen at the following link. You have to have Google Earth installed and remember to tick the boxes in 'Temporary Places' when it opens. Zooming in gives great detail and when you scroll over a yellow push pin the log book entry will come up. enterprise_cruise_2004_-_2.kmz
If you do not wish to bother with that here is a picture of the first leg. Incidently, it shows the multiple sandbanks in this shallow sea, many of which are exposed at low tide.

For the trip across to Lowestoft our friend Ron had joined us. The previous two days had been stormy but that had passed and the forecast was good, Force 3 but on the nose. It was dark when we left so we did not see the rather fearsome waves ahead. In our ignorance we had not realised that after a storm in this sea it takes a while for the waves to die down in these shallow waters. We also had not thought about the locker latches not being up to the job, until the lockers opened and spilled everything onto the cabin floor. It was an awful mess of broken crockery and spilled food. Once off the shelving coast the sea calmed down, June ordered us out of the cabin and spent the best part of the crossing cleaning up the mess. Ron, for the first and only time in his life experienced sea sickness and I ended up with a few nasty bruises. We never made that mistake again; the locker latches were replaced at the first opportunity and part of our pre-sailing check list was to secure the contents and put a bungee cord across them. As we gained experience, our pre-sailing check list got longer and longer.

Lowestoft Harbour Entrance

Arriving at Lowestoft we had an occasion to put our new engine to the test. Tidal currents here run North - South and can be very strong. We arrived to the South of the town with a strong Northerly current running; just where we should be. To enter the harbour we had to sail North past the entrance and do a 120 degree turn into the entrance. We were a bit nervous because if we got it wrong we would be swept past or worse, bump into the wall. At the precise moment we put full power on our new engine, the ship surged forward and we had a tremendous sense of achievement as we shot into the harbour.

The next day Ron left us and we wondered if he would ever want to sail on Enterprise again, (but he did many times). We had agreed to meet up with our son Howard and his two daughters to sail with them on the next leg South but the engine problems had made us days late and they had a deadline for getting back to Canada, so their sail was curtailed. We met up the next day and set sail as soon as the tide was right. By doing this we committed an error that every cruising sailor makes and we were to make many times; ignoring the elements because of the necessity to fit an itinerary that land based visitors have set up, usually for good reasons that are unconnected to the weather. The wind was heading us for most of the journey, although not exceeding Force 5, but wind against tide makes for steep, short seas and an uncomfortable ride. The girls were inexperienced sailors and consequently spent the whole trip down below feeling miserable. We should have waited another day for easier conditions and as a consequence may have put them off of sailing for the rest of their lives. However, the next day we sailed up the river to Ipswich and hopefully redeemed ourselves a little.

The Junction of the Stour and Orwell Rivers

We arrived at Shotley Marina at the junction of the river Stour  and river Orwell and encountered for the first time  the INOGEN system.

Guided Approach to the Lock at Shotley

 This is a rather clever system to keep a ship on track. These rivers are tidal and at low tide the marina is behind a wide mudflat. Therefore ships must lock in to the marina but to even get to the lock there is a long, straight dredged channel from the deeper water and it is important to stay in the middle of this channel. That is where the system comes in. The Inogen Leading Light is situated on the Starboard Side of the Lock Entrance. When a vessel is on the correct line of approach in the Entrance Channel a vertical Black line is seen in the centre of an orange screen. Any deviation from the correct bearing will cause the black vertical line to change to arrows. You just veer in the direction of the arrows to come back to the correct bearing.

Doggerland 10,000 BCE A Shangri La for Neolithic Man

Sail cruising is an occupation that brings one close to a whole new world of man's relationship to nature; not just the obvious one of a very personal relationship to the weather but how the flora and fauna relate to our presence and how there are hidden systems at work that directly impact us. Every scuba diver experiences a whole new world existing just out of sight below the surface. Whenever sailing on the North Sea I am very conscious that I am sailing over the lost world of Doggerland. Around 10,000 BCE much of what is now the North Sea was a fertile lowland, with highlands to the North, covered with forests and rivers. It was an migration route  for animals and man between what is now Britain and Europe. Neolithic man lived here (we have his footprints and even know that he wore leather footwear) in what must have been a benign environment for the time. But unknown to these people an abrupt period of global warming was starting that would profoundly affect their world. It was not an imperceptible change; collapsing ice sheets caused a sudden (140 years)  rise in sea levels of 7.5 metres.

 Much of Doggerland was submerged but the evidence of what it was like is still there under the sea. Storms and tsunamis caused by the destabilisation ate away at what remained until about 6,500 BCE when a huge tsunami caused by a sub-sea landslide to the north caused a break through to the southern channel and that changed everything. Europe was separated from Britain and tidal currents could sweep through the gap re-sculpting the seabed. That is still happening today for the sandbanks are continually shifting. The highlands to the north remained as an island until submerged about 5,000 BCE to become the Dogger Bank that is still there.
It all seems ominously familiar to today's situation. Perhaps that is what is inspiring the new archaeological push to explore this history.

Doggerland About 7,000 BCE Before the Giant Tsunami

Our Route Across the Thames Estuary

 From Shotley we set out South to cross the Thames Estuary to Ramsgate, a journey that was not quite as simple as we had imagined. This estuary has been the maritime highway of the world with so many famous voyages leaving from here when the world was just being explored. However, if you look closely at the adjacent map you will see that it consists of multiple sandbanks running NE, so if you are travelling parallel to them you pick your channel and proceed. If, on the other hand, like us you wish to sail across them it is a different story.  The channels between them have evocative names like ; Yantlet Channel (Sea Reach), Oaze Deep, Knock John Channel, Black Deep Channel which have been extensively marked. These are separated by slow moving sandbanks with names such as the East and West Barrows, the Nob, the Knock, the John, the Sunk, the Girdler, and the Longsands.  The passages across  them are called 'Gats'. We positioned ourselves to sail down the Black Deep and found ourselves out of sight of land but with exposed sandbanks on either side; a very strange experience. We then had to find the Fisherman's Gat and follow the winding channel over to the next deep channel. It made for a very interesting sail but not one that I would care to do in the dark.
On reaching Ramsgate the weather started to deteriorate with the wind building from the  South. Our route to Calais meant that we would have to sail south to the limit of the notorious Goodwin Sands and then East to Calais. This would be challenging to say the least but we decided to go for it.

The Goodwin Sands have an almost gothic reputation and for good reason. Since the first documented shipwreck on Goodwin Sands in 1298, more than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked here. Dozens of wrecks still lie underneath the sands and, because they become 'quick' on a rising tide, sometimes long buried shipwrecks reappear. Submarine SM U-48 is an interesting example; caught on the surface recharging batteries during World War 1, it was shelled by several ships and then chased into the Goodwin Sands, where the crew surrendered. An ignominious end for a U-boat that had sunk 34 vessels and captured two. The vessel reappeared in 1921 and then again in 1973 when the following photograph was taken over the northern part of the Goodwin Sands. Also, a twin-engined Dornier 17 bomber was discovered on Goodwin Sands seventy years after it was shot down during the height of the Battle of Britain. It is thought to be part of a large enemy formation intercepted by RAF Defiant fighter aircraft at midday on August 26, 1940 as they attempted to attack airfields in Essex. The pilot attempted a wheels-up landing on the Goodwin Sands, touching down but with the aircraft sinking inverted. The aircraft was in remarkable condition considering spending so many years under water. Other than marine concretion it is largely intact, the main undercarriage tyres remain inflated and the propellers clearly show the damage inflicted during their final landing. It has recently been salvaged and will be placed in a museum.

U-48 Emerges Again from the Sands After 53 Years Buried

A Dornier Bomber Resurfaces After 70 Years

The Sands  are about 16 km long and 6 km wide at their widest, but due to the tides and currents, the shoals are constantly shifting.  The Sands are completely submerged between 8 to 15 meters beneath the surface at high tide, but as the tide falls, the sandbanks break the surface and expose about a tenth of their total area. During these times, the sand is firm enough to walk upon.  In the Great Storm of 1703 at least 13 men-of-war and 40 merchant vessels were wrecked, with the loss of 2,168 lives. Among them was the Stirling Castle with the loss of 279 people; its timbers resurfaced in 1979, 256 years after it sank.

Chart of the South Goodwin Sands

Our Route to Pass the Goodwin Sands

We started with two and a half hours of hard flog past the West Goodwin's marker until we reached a point at which we felt that it would be safe to turn East because we could see the South Goodwin's lightship to port. (This lightship was in a James Bond thriller "Moonraker"). However, when we turned eastwards we were broadside to the  wind and waves and rolling badly. From starboard gunwale under to port gunwale under with every wave and making slow progress into the bargain. After half an hour of this we decided that we could not take any more and turned tail for Dover, but it was still an hour and a quarter rolling ride back. Luckily, the Dover coastguard who had been watching our progress on the radar took pity on us and let us into the shelter of the ferry entrance, a rare privilege for a yacht. So our plans were changed and perhaps just as well for my body seemed to say that it had had enough and after a hospital visit I was in bed for a while.

The unmanned South Goodwin Lightship Today

The manned Lightship in 1954 (4 sailors drowned)

Our new plans had us passing through the straights of Dover and along the South coast of England to Brighton, from where we would make the passage to Cherbourg. Then we would go  around Cap de La Hague, through the Alderney Race to Guernsey, finally across to Brittany and to Morlaix. It was 9 September when we left Dover and we were very conscious that we were much later than intended and going into a period of equinoctial gales.

Our Track from Dover to Morlaix

Leaving Dover we had a good run around to the new marina near Eastbourne called Sovereign Harbour. Doing between 5 and 6 knots  all the way is about as good as it gets. We should have known that that was too good to last for on the following day, off Beachy Head with two reefs in and a heavy swell, the first reef line parted. We must have started to learn something by then for we decided to abort the sail and turned back to Sovereign Harbour. It paid off for two days later we had a great sail to Brighton.

Beachy Head

The leg from Brighton to Cherbourg requires careful planning as the tidal currents in the Channel are strong and become very strong the closer you get to France. The strategy is normally to aim for the final destination and not worry about being swept up and down until getting closer to your destination, at that point you want the tidal stream to sweep you in the direction that you want to go. It is all a matter of arriving at the right place at the right time. If you get it wrong, you cannot possibly fight the current and have to wait out a tidal cycle holding your position with the engine until the current turns in your favour.
After a wait of a day in Brighton there was a weather window and we set sail at 05:15 on 25 Sept 2004. What we did not know was that this was one of those rare times when the weather forecast was wrong. 6 hours out and the wind became Force 5 and 10 hours out Force 6 with building seas. After that it built more and we could not keep the log but rather focus on survival one wave at a time. Our speed had dropped right off so of course we missed the rendezvous with the tidal current and had to try to hold our position off the Barfleur peninsula for 6 hours in those conditions. We had no auto-helm so somebody had to stay at the wheel all the time. Theoretically the other one should have slept but we were so frightened of falling asleep at the wheel that we both stayed in the cockpit, one trying to keep the other awake. We could see the flash of the Barfleur lighthouse  and knew that it should be off the port bow but frequently it suddenly appeared off the starboard quarter so we knew that the other had fallen asleep at the wheel. It was a night that we will never forget.

Barfleur (Gatteville) Lighthouse That Was Our Lifeline

In those conditions you develop tricks for staying awake, for me it was to remember the people who had gone before me in those waters. Over this very spot passed William the Conqueror in 1066 when he sailed from Barfleur to join the invasion fleet heading for Britain.

Memorial To William's Embarkation at Barfleur

Also, very close to where we were, another event happened that changed the course of British history. On the 25 November 1120 a ship known as 'The White Ship' hit a rock off Barfleur and all but one on board were drowned. The problem was that one of those drowned was the heir to the throne of England and that triggered a devastating civil war. These waters carried the westerly flank of the great invasion fleet of D-Day, 6th June 1944. Understanding the currents and weather in this area makes one realise just how difficult that invasion was.

Contemporary Documentation of the White Ship Disaster

Western Flank of D-Day Invasion

Eventually we made it into Cherbourg's inner harbour but were so tired and disoriented that we found ourselves in the restricted area near the naval dockyard with a rib approaching us at high speed full of sailors armed to the teeth; an alarming experience. They escorted us out of that area once they had determined that we had no malicious intent but the response seemed disproportionate, however we were later to learn why. Eventually we tied up in the marina and the relief was overwhelming. A few minutes later another yacht came in and tied up near us. The three young men aboard jumped ashore and kissed the ground! We discovered that they had sailed from Portland in the UK and been caught in the same weather, at least that validated that it was not our fault that we got caught too. Then the next morning the Barfleur lifeboat came in with a yacht lashed to the side. It turned out that the yacht had left Brighton 8 hours after us intending to catch the next tidal cycle but after being caught like us they had called the lifeboat. So we felt pretty pleased with ourselves since the crews on those other two yachts were probably 40 years younger than us.
A couple of days later we discovered the reason for the robust response to straying into restricted waters when we were asked to participate in a protest flotilla trying to stop two vessels from docking in Cherbourg. They were carrying plutonium from decommissioned missiles under the Nuclear Disarmament Agreement between the USA and the USSR to be reprocessed in France.

Plutonium Carrying Ships' Arrival

Request to join the Protest Flotilla

We had promised to spent a couple of weeks with friends in Tuscany, Italy ( we had expected to be at our final destination by then), but we had lost so much time that we were only in Cherbourg. So we left the ship there, rented a car and drove to Italy. We did not get back until 21 October which pushed us into full winter conditions for sailing to our destination. However, our leg to St. Peter Port Guernsey, through the Alderney Race, was straightforward. Again it is a matter of getting the currents right. The water divides at Cap de la Hague with some continuing West and some doing a left turn down the Alderney Race where currents can reach 12 knots at times so you not want to have wind against tide. The turning point is always rough but it does not last long until you are through it.  In rougher water one holds onto the edge of the spray hood and I guess that the arc that supports the edge had had enough and collapsed on this passage. It turned out to be a rather flimsy aluminum affair so once we reached Guernsey we had new stainless steel arcs made to support the spray hood. So that delayed us a couple of additional days before we continued on 5 November to the Brittany coast.

St. Peter Port, Guernsey

The old port, where the marina is located, would dry out at low tide if it were not for the lock gates at the entrance; so once inside you cannot get out until the tide is high enough to open the gates. Since the tidal currents are extremely strong one must plan one's passage to harness them to advantage, which often means leaving when the gates are still closed. When that is the case you leave the harbour before the gates close and wait at a deep water pontoon outside them. We needed to do that, so on the next morning we set the alarm for 4:30 and slipped away at 05:30. Those early morning starts are one of the highlights of sailing;

you feel that you are the only person waking up at that time and then you hear another engine start in the distance; you slip the lines and inch away into the darkness but as you approach the open water other pin pricks of light appear on other boats converging and you breath a sigh of relaxation since you know that you got the calculations right (or everyone else got them wrong too!). An hour or so later and you are all alone as the sky to the east gradually lightens. It is an almost spiritual experience as the first rays of sunlight come over the horizon and the water surface is turned to a brilliant reddish gold. It only lasts a few minutes but in those moments everything seems reborn and worthwhile.

The most fascinating thing about the waters that we were about to sail across is their currents and strength of those currents. The above picture-link is an animated depiction of them. As the video plays out you will notice how the water draining out of the Bay of St. Malo meets the incoming tide and a circular tidal current pattern is set up. The only place in the world where this occurs, as far as I know. With all this water being driven in and out of a confined area, St. Malo is the place in Europe with the highest tidal range at Springs, nearly 12 m (or 40 ft). Looking at these currents you can see how important it is to get it right even if that means setting the alarm for 4:30am!
The trip across to the Brittany coast was straightforward and the weather good. There are two rocky plateaux but they are well marked so the only challenge is to make sure that you are positioned not to be swept onto them by the currents. On the other hand, the same cannot be said for the Brittany coast which is extremely rocky and indented with coves and estuaries, often protected by outlying rocks. This is what makes it so attractive and a navigational challenge. The approach to our destination, Port Blanc, was a good example for it cannot be seen at all from the sea. The skipper gets the ship in the right position, then sails for the rocks on the right bearing and as you get close (provided that he has not lost his nerve and done a U turn) the entrance gap opens up and he arrives in a beautiful cove ringed by a former fishing village.
All went according to plan and we had just moored up to a visitors buoy and put the coffee pot on when a motor boat arrived alongside and somebody claiming to be the Harbour Master told us brusquely that the Port was closed and we had to leave immediately. After some discussion we left, but not without some trepidation for there was only an hour of daylight left and there was no access to the next port of Perros-Guirec because the lock gates were closed. We moved along the rocky shore and picked a spot where we thought that we would be sheltered and not go aground at low tide, then dropped the anchor as darkness fell. We always have a sleepless night at a new anchorage worrying if the anchor will hold or slowly drag and we will find ourselves on the rocks in the morning.

Chart of This Part of the Coast

Our experience at Port Blanc was extremely unusual as ships are never forced to go back out to sea. In discussions with other sailors later their consensus seemed to be that there was some clandestine event scheduled for that night, probably smuggling, and our unusual presence so late in the year disrupted that. We have wondered ever since.

Typical Coastline in this Part of Brittany.

After this unpleasant experience we were anxious to get to our destination of Morlaix. This would be our final navigational challenge for the year. It is famous as being a refuge for the Corsairs, sort of legalised pirates. They chose the spot because in the days before modern navigation it was just about impossible for strangers to find their way in and that is what makes it so fascinating today. The City of Morlaix is located at the head of a river that dries out at low tide and which flows into a long shallow estuary which in turn, exits to the sea through a narrow rocky entrance. Outside the entrance is a maze of rocks reaching way out to sea. We had been there before on another yacht  but it always requires extreme caution. There is a detailed description of the Morlaix approach in our Blog for 2011 'Cold Welsh rain to Warm Basque Rain'.

The Approach to Morlaix Estuary

Morlaix Estuary

The Morlaix River

The lock gate at Morlaix only opens 1 hour before High water to one hour after High water in daylight hours so it is usually  impossible to arrive at the estuary and travel straight through to Morlaix. Our solution was to find an anchorage spot as close to the oyster beds as we dared and wait overnight to go up on the rising tide. That way if you go aground you just wait for the tide to lift you off. This spot is idyllic in the early morning with the quiet only broken by the chiming of a distant church bell across the misty waters. We have anchored here a couple of times since and it has always been a magical moment in the morning. This time we crept along in the morning mist and up the Morlaix River  to arrive in time for the first lock opening. What a relief as the gates closed behind us and we had completed our very challenging cruising season. All the money in the world could not have bought the experiences that we had had.