Eyemouth towards Arbroath, arriving at Tayport.
We now have a light southerly wind at last, and the swell from the north is much easier. The circumnavigators are off, leaving Jackie on her own awaiting a new crew.
The first surprise was the inshore waters forecast on VHF, the coastguard announced it as usual and then said that it would not be broadcast due to 'industrial action'. This was repeated at intervals all day.
Towards the Isle of May, a warship ( 089 I think ) passed us and I noted that it was not squawking AIS. This seems a little unreasonable as they are not actually in combat here.
Sailing up past the Isle of May and then past St Andrews was perfect, but we seemed to have a little swell from both the north and the SW. My timing for Arbroath harbour was out, we had missed the lock for the inner gate, and I could not get hold of the harbourmaster to see if we could get shelter in the outer harbour.
The weather was deteriorating, so I decided that it would be safer to enter the Tay rather than Arbroath with the unpleasant swell from the SE. Turning brought us beam on to the swell, and the floor inside Serenity started to fill with plates, paper and anything that was not nailed down. We were really being thrown around.
We kept our course and were joined by a large group of dolphins who followed us down the channel and they left once the swell abated. They were fantastic, within a metre or so of Serenity, but we were so busy holding course that we could not photo them
The pilot books and Reeds Almanac show access to Tayport at HW +- 4 hours and we were dead on LW. As we only draw around 1m, I thought we might just get to a wall. We just needed to stop somewhere. We tried from one direction and hit the mud, then from another direction and hit more mud. I then noticed someone on a radio on the quay, so went to ch16 ( from the Tay harbour Ch ) and they were guiding us in. They pointed out the leading line ( the triangle about the minibus, and the tide guage ) and we ran down it.
The depth sounder said 0.8m at one point, but we scraped in and onto a pontoon birth.
It was great to be tied up. Everyone was very friendly, we were given a key and found a Chinese takeaway and a pub. I slept well.
The first surprise was the inshore waters forecast on VHF, the coastguard announced it as usual and then said that it would not be broadcast due to 'industrial action'. This was repeated at intervals all day.
Towards the Isle of May, a warship ( 089 I think ) passed us and I noted that it was not squawking AIS. This seems a little unreasonable as they are not actually in combat here.
Sailing up past the Isle of May and then past St Andrews was perfect, but we seemed to have a little swell from both the north and the SW. My timing for Arbroath harbour was out, we had missed the lock for the inner gate, and I could not get hold of the harbourmaster to see if we could get shelter in the outer harbour.
The weather was deteriorating, so I decided that it would be safer to enter the Tay rather than Arbroath with the unpleasant swell from the SE. Turning brought us beam on to the swell, and the floor inside Serenity started to fill with plates, paper and anything that was not nailed down. We were really being thrown around.
We kept our course and were joined by a large group of dolphins who followed us down the channel and they left once the swell abated. They were fantastic, within a metre or so of Serenity, but we were so busy holding course that we could not photo them
The pilot books and Reeds Almanac show access to Tayport at HW +- 4 hours and we were dead on LW. As we only draw around 1m, I thought we might just get to a wall. We just needed to stop somewhere. We tried from one direction and hit the mud, then from another direction and hit more mud. I then noticed someone on a radio on the quay, so went to ch16 ( from the Tay harbour Ch ) and they were guiding us in. They pointed out the leading line ( the triangle about the minibus, and the tide guage ) and we ran down it.
The depth sounder said 0.8m at one point, but we scraped in and onto a pontoon birth.
It was great to be tied up. Everyone was very friendly, we were given a key and found a Chinese takeaway and a pub. I slept well.
posted by Jenny Bailey @ 20:25
2 Comments:
At 18 June 2008 at 22:11 ,
Unknown said...
I have this sort-of half-formed theory that the corkscrewing involved the natural period of the boat resonating with the (occasional, but nasty) series of holes in the water. Not helped by, perhaps, a similar period in the autopilot control loop - it seemed to be less worrying, although much harder work, when we turned off the autopilot and steered manually.
At 19 June 2008 at 03:08 ,
Old Bonezee said...
Wouldn't it be great if the dolphins could learn the leadimg lines into all the difficult harbours. They'd make great harbour pilots...
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