Leg 4 Weymouth to River Dart (Lyme Bay)

Date:- 05.05.11 Name: Morgen Crew: RD (Richard Dempster), From: Weymouth To: Dartmouth Comments: The Biggest / hardest leg so far

Wind Strength / direction: Southerly Force 3 Sea State: Slight Distance: 60.7 Nautical miles Time Taken: 13 hours 15 mins

Four ‘o’clock am rise. No matter what time I leave I will have to go through two tidal gates. I chose to leave at 4:30 so that I could have the tide with me for the middle of Lyme Bay, this way I get the full five hours of tidal flow. When the alarm went off I just couldn’t get up, I think the past week is catching up with me and I feel extremely tired. I did something I never do and that was to turn over and go back to sleep for half an hour. I had set the boat up the night before so all I had to do was have a quick breakfast cereal and orange juice and then up on deck. It was still dark so I turned on the Navigation lights and cruising light. I had let the dinghy down the evening before and this was now tied to the foredeck.

Not a bad morning!
The Tide was still coming in so I released the forward spring first as I was pointing in to the oncoming tide and then sprung myself out on the stern spring so as to miss the boat in front of me and the one behind me. Successfully done I set off on the longest leg so far. I have to be honest here this was by far the biggest step I had taken so far. To say that I was a little apprehensive is an understatement. If the sea state was as bad as when I arrived at Weymouth I was in for a horrendous journey. To put Lyme bay in context, you are as far out at sea as if you had crossed the channel and I lost site of land at about 8:30am and did not see land again until 5:15pm that’s eight and three quarter hours without anything but the horizon to fix your eyes on. I was very nervous indeed.
The sea was quite choppy to begin with and as I passed Portland Bill I attached myself to a safety line. I think being single handed you very quickly realise that you have to be safe as if I went over the side there is no one to know. Fran phoned me at about 8:30 and said to make sure I attached the hand held VHF to my life jacket as at least then if I went over the side I could use the radio to contact the coastguard. Not a bad idea. Whilst on the subject of coast guards: The only radio transmissions I heard all day was from the coastguard. Mostly weather updates on channel 86 but once a call from another boat about 10 miles away from myself at about midday. The caller explained that one of the crew was having a serious asthma attack and had collapsed at the stern of the boat complaining that he could no longer feel his arms and he could barely breath with pains in his chest. The coastguard very calmly went about her business finding out the location and the extent of the illness / injuries etc and at the end of the radio broadcast which only lasted a couple of minutes explained that help was on its way. There was nothing I could do to assist so I carried on my way. After about twenty minutes to thirty minutes I heard the skipper of the vessel on the radio again asking where the casualty had been taken as he would like to visit him in the hospital when he got back to port in about four hours time. Now that’s what I call service. What an unbelievably good, fast reactive response to an obvious emergency. True professionals and there when we need them most.
As it happens the sea state turned to slight and the wind settled at a reasonable 11 knots. This caused another slight problem though. Even though it was a lovely calm sunny sailing day it meant that I wouldn’t reach Dartmouth until the following morning according to the chartplotter information on ETA. I haven’t as yet sailed through the night except once for a short leg through the solent whilst on a ‘Competent crew’ course with a yachtmaster. There was only one thing to do to increase my speed. Drop the Jib and mainsail and hoist the cruising shute. The large billowing sail that some would call a spinnaker that blows out at the front of the boat. After digging around in the Port stern Lazarett I pulled the cruising shute out and dragged it up to the bow of the boat. (glad to be harnessed on) The boat was being thrown around quite a lot and it was difficult to tie the cruising shute bag down and feed all of the control lines back to the safety of the cockpit. But once done the Shute filled up and took shape on the starboard front quarter increasing my speed from 1.2nmh to 5.6nmh and the ETA on the chart plotter came down to arriving at approx 8.30pm. I knew this would improve as at the moment the tide was against me. Once it turned my ETA dropped to approximately 5:15pm. This was good news as it meant I would be arriving whilst it was still light.

The boat ghosts along

This was quite an eye opening experience as I was worried that I may find being out at sea with no site of land for hours disorientating and frightening. But to my surprise it was actually quite relaxing and having had the experience of force five and six seas on my way to Weymouth I had a very real respect for my little boat and felt quite safe. Maybe it was the fact that the weather was so settled. But it felt good. Although I was very tired I had to keep a constant look out for other vessels. I thought to myself that I could see the horizon about a distance of 10 to 12 miles. It wasn’t until the AIS (Automatic Identification System) picked up a cargo vessel that I realised that actually my view was only two nautical miles. There was a haze over the water which made the edge of my visibility look like the horizon but in actual fact was the edge of mist on the water. This is a bit of an eye opener as my little Morgen lops along at a leisurely 6 knots and these tankers travel anything between 20 & 30 knots and can’t turn very well to avoid us. So a look out was kept. Having said this I did drift in to a very short sleep whilst sitting upright which I know I mustn’t do again. Its too dangerous.

A lot closer than I thought!

Look at the bow wave!
What a relief though to see land again. I spotted it at about 4:45pm visibility was now up to five miles and I could just see the dark outline of the hills surrounding Dartmouth. I made a quick mental note of the time and phoned home. Saying I’ve spotted dry land and everything was OK. No sooner than I had finished the phone call the cruising shute let fly. A sudden bang and then lots of noise as the Tack line which holds the bottom of the Shute to the boat snapped either from strain or from some chaffing. But it had to be brought back under control which is really difficult. I put the boat on to auto pilot and scrambled up on deck with my safety line attached although it gets in the way, its better than falling in to the briney and waving the boat goodbye as it sails itself in to the distance. I caught hold of the Clue line which is the other end of the sail and dragged as much of the sail as I could on board. Once I fastened this line I could then drop the snuffer ( A sock which engulfs the sail) effectively dowsing it. I was then able to put the sail back in to the sail bag and tidy up all the lengths of ropes which were now scattered about the deck. Although this doesn’t seem like a huge thing to do it took about an hour of constant work. By the end I was dripping with sweat and out of breath (I really wish I had got myself fitter for this adventure) I was also at the Entrance to the river Dart so needed to get all the fenders and mooring lines out and secured before I entered the harbour. So I took off my waterproofs as I was beginning to swim in my own sweat and hastened about the deck once more.

I was able to then sit back and take a few pictures of the entrance to the River dart and what a panoramic view it was. There is real drama coming in to this very picturesque place what with the two castles either side of the shipping lane. Then it opens up and you can see the houses which look like they have been painted on to the hillside, with all the colours of the rainbow. Absolutely lovely. Fantastic views.  I radioed ahead for a visitors berth for the night but got no reply so I thought I will just have to chance it and go in to the first available spot. After booking in to Dart haven marina I had found that I had infact nicked someones permanent berth and had to move Morgen to pontoon ‘A’ number 42. This done I was able to put the boat away for the night.

Some of the rocks to miss at the entrance to the River Dart

But once in ‘Majestic’

One of the castles at the entrance

Lovely
I have decided to go home on Saturday as I have only had one week at home in the past six weeks. I shopped around for the cheapest berth I could find so I could leave the boat for a week and go home and see the family. They probably don’t miss me but I miss them! Its one of the hard things for me. Being away from them, I miss Fran and even though one daughter is at university and the other is a teenager I still miss them and have at times found it very lonely and I have only just really started. Gulp. I would like to share this with them and although I have taken lots of pictures it still is not the same as having the actual experience together. I have moved the boat to the Darthaven Harbour Authority moorings thanks to a very helpful guy at the marina office who told me the cheapest solution to leaving the boat for a week was to moor up at the visitor moorings. This however still cost £100.80 and I still have an £82.00 train fare to fork out for. Arghhhh. That’s the Scotsman in me talking. But still arghhhh!!
Anyway Home sweet Home tomorrow.