On my original outline plan for the cruise, today is the day we should have been back in Fambridge. Obviously, we're not! This is not a problem and I'd always allowed for the possibility we might be a few days adrift. I was, and remain, keen to minimise the amount of "sailing to a deadline" as that always leads to a lot of motoring, a slightly stressed crew and sometimes poor decisions (such as going out when the conditions are beyond your comfort level - although I will never sail if the conditions are going to be seriously iffy).
So I have no regrets about the decision to wait out the weather for a day here in Sovereign Harbour, and yesterday was definitely a day to stay in port (solid F5 rising F6 with, by the afternoon, getting on for a metre of swell and wave action from the South West. It would have been no fun at all)..
Nor can I regret the decision earlier to avoid the Solent madness and stay in Yarmouth over the weekend or, for that matter, the earlier still decision to have a full day in Alderney. Those decisions were good decisions at the time based on the weather forecast we had for the coming week which did not include the cold front that brought yesterday's "no go" conditions.
A further factor has put a slight crimp in my plans - Pagan has developed a significant amount of fouling below the waterline. I didn't notice anything significant during our time in the Channel Islands nor did it become evident on the passages to Alderney and then onwards to Yarmouth but a distinct loss of performance was evident on the run from Yarmouth to Brighton.
We are, and it's significant, at least half a knot slower and possibly as much as a knot slower than I would normally expect. The effect on Monday was to put us into Brighton when I had realistically expected Eastbourne to be feasible (although had we been able to get a berth we'd have aimed for Newhaven but that'a another story).
We just were not going quite fast enough to get there at a sensible time. Whereas I had expected to carry a fair tide all the way to Beachy Head, if not beyond, it was on the turn when we cut and run for the nearest harbour having had enough.
The situation was not helped by my unwillingness to pile on the revs and burn diesel to compensate. I had a growing suspicion that all was not quite well in the engine cooling department. Whilst there was, to the casual eye, plenty of water being ejected from the wet exhaust my growing familiarity with the boat had me a niggling feeling that it wasn't as much as usual. I also felt that perhaps the exhaust noise was more than normal too (another sign of a lack of water).
So I suspected that we had a partially blocked intake filter. Not sufficiently blocked to make stopping and investigating at sea necessary but the suspicion was enough to make me unwilling to use high revs and risk overheating our venerable Mercedes OM636.
My suspicions were justified yesterday when we removed the filter boc cap and found the cage filter partially blocked with weed. Whilst we were down in the engine bay, I also removed and cleaned the air filter (a job I really should have done before we left but it didn't seem too bad at the time) as it was starting to look a bit claggy. It certainly wasn't critical but it was a fifteen minute job and it won't hurt.
There's not a lot we can do about the weed on the bottom other than live with it. That basically means passage planning at 4 knots instead of 5 knots so that we're not chasing a short schedule.
That brings me to the other "problem". A consequence of being several days behind my original draft plan is that the optimum passage times for a fair tide are going awau from us. The tide times progress day by day getting around 50 minutes to an hour later each day. Obviously, this means the tidal stream direction changes from (in the Channel) an east flowing tide to a west flowing tide and back again an hour later each day.
This means that whereas (for example) on Monday the best time to leave Sovereign Harbour to go to Dover would have been 07:00 with an eta of 19:00 it's now 09:00 with an eta of 21:00. And that's before we knock a knot off our speed. And it doesn't take into account that we had to accept a damn near drying berth here in Brighton as the visitor berths were complete and utter chaos. (That's another story I'll come back to later). The effect of that is that we can't leave here at the optimum time today (09:00UT) as that is low water and it will be at least an hour and a half, possibly two hours, later before there's enough water to get out of the finger berth.
We could, of course, leave early but that would mean punching a foul tide for at least three hours. With a weedy bottom. It would be slow, tedious and burn copious quantities of diesel. I think not.
So the upshot of all that is that reaching Dover today from Brighton is not an attractive plan. It could be done and if it had to be done it would be done but the key factor is that we do not HAVE to be back in Fambridge until Saturday (and it would not be a total disaster if we weren't back until Sunday). I'd like to be back sooner but I don't HAVE to be back sooner. It's that old monster of deadline sailing rearing it's ugly head again.
So today we're short hopping around Beachy Head to Sovereign Harbour. That will take three to four hours (some guesswork is involved until I've assessed how fast we can realistically expect to go through the water) which, of course, takes three or four hours off the run from there to Dover tomorrow.
Dover back to Fambridge, a passage I'd normally consider perfectly do-able in Pagan, might prove to be similarly afflicted by a reduction in average speed as Brighton to Dover. So we may end up short hoppng from Dover to Ramsgate to cut the long passage into a third and two thirds again.
That would get us back in the Crouch on Saturday which is acceptable (although I would really have liked to get home this coming weekend) but too late to get back on our berth. Which then raises the prospect of there being no space on the river pontoon when we get back. With loads of kit to offload.
So we might have to go into Burnham for the night and move upriver when space appears on Sunday or even Monday. Rich can hop the two stops on the train to fetch his car and get off home from Burnham without too much inconvenience (although he would prefer to travel on Satuday and have a day at home before work on Monday). I'll happily single hand the hour or so back upriver.
Much depends on how we go today. I'll take the hit and burn the diesel as long as I'm happy that we're not going to strain the engine and if we can crank up the revs and regain our lost speed then getting back from Dover on Friday becomes feasible again.
Once back in Fambridge I have another dilemma. Looking ahead, the next opportunity to get Pagan onto her berth is a week on Saturday. But if I don't make it home this weekend I definitely want to be home next weekend. And from there it's only two and a half weeks before I'd have to travel down to Fambridge a few days ahead of our late August ten days aboard in order to get her off the mud again.
Leaving her on the river pontoon for that length of time at this time of year might cause some grumbles (as we'd be blocking a space that could be used by paying visitors) so I'm contemplating seeing if there's a mooring free that we could use for a few weeks.
Once we're back from our August mini-cruise, which will be local pottering about, that's effectively our sailing for this year over. There's weekends available at the back end of September and late October when the tide would be right to get on and off the berth but we've used up Jane's holidays getting the three two week breaks in the Spring and Summer.
So I'm contemplating having Pagan out of the water fairly early in September, especially as there's only a limited amount I can do about the fouling with her afloat, and getting stuck in to the job hunt asap. From there we can make plans for carrying out the work that either needs doing or we want done and know where we're at for next year.
And my mind is all but made up (I just need to persuade Jane) about going back on a swinging mooring next year. The mud berth is great for the convenience of being able to simply hop straight on the boat when we arrive in Fambridge by car but it's a massive pain in the backside when it comes to planning to go out and use the boat. It only works now because my time is totally flexible (especially right now when I'm effectively unemployed!), it is going to be a massive crimp in our style if, as I'm hoping to do for a year or three, I get a "proper" job with a steady income.
Nothing above is a disaster. It's simply musings on options so that I've got my ducks lined up in a neat row and can choose which one to chuck in the pot and cook.
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