Thursday, August 20, 2009
Off St Martin
Time And Tide
So here we are - we managed to leave Marans on time yesterday. We tied up in the lock - the only boat going out, but then a power boat roared up the canal and shot into the lock far too fast. Turned out to be Dominique who runs the yard where we have been wintering. He was en famille and entirely in control of his boat in a Dominique kind of way.
The plan was to go onto the visitor’s buoys at St Martin and leave early to get to Les Sables d’Olonne with a West wind before the North Westerly came in to spoil our fun. Well, we did the first part of the plan, but the leaving early part didn’t quite happen. I had hoped we would catch the 0703 weather forecast and then leave, but the forecast didn’t come and by the time we called Chassiron to get it repeated, found it’s now available continuously on VHF channel 63 and listened to it, it was all getting a bit late. The first part of the trip would have been have been fine, but we would have had a bit of a knock about in the NW wind which is exactly the direction we need to go. So we made the prudent decision to hang out until early afternoon when we can get into St Martin on the tide. There’s a harbour gate that opens for a few hours, around high water. (1445 today)
St Martin is a very pretty harbour with a market that sells oysters etc. It gets very busy in tourist season, with lots of restaurants, ice cream sellers, evening markets - all quite pricey - this is a rich island with Parisian’s parachuting in. There are some very classy holiday homes, hiding behind high walls. For us, there’s a small beach nearby, and we can top up the tanks with diesel so that we don’t need to stop at Les Sables unless we have another reason.
Last night was a bit noisy. Mooring buoys are good since you know they aren’t going to drag, but not so good in that they bang on the hull of the boat when the wind and the tide are not both going in the same direction. Since the tide turns every 6 hours, its going to be noisy quite a lot of the time. Imagine sitting in a Portacabin with a relentless teenager kicking a football against the wall, occasionally missing it. Yes, it’s like that.
Sorry that this blog is uni-media. Between us we managed to leave all the possible connecting leads for the camera and the digital recorder at home. I thought I had tracked one down in Super-U. Al opened the box and what I had though would be a friendly USB lead, turned out to be a weird extra-terrestrial one. I got on the pink bike, pedalled back to Super-U and ended up exchanging it for a nailbrush, deodorant and wishy-washy yellow towel, none of which is really useful for sending sounds and pix whizzing round the virtual world and onto a computer near you. I really would like you to share the sounds of Snork Maiden so maybe we’ll make a podcast for when we get home.
Al’s almost deserted his digi-recorder, having been quite seduced by his iphone and its many apps. Favourites are 4-track recorder, tuning fork, chart plotter and wind-speed meter (yes, really). Unfortunately the battery life is pretty pathetic, and it’s far too expensive to let it connect to the Internet.
He’s been recording potential hits this morning; I’ve been sitting on the foredeck re-stringing the safety lines with zigzags to stop the sails falling off the deck.
It’s 1255, wind speed 15Knots, wind direction W/NW, depth 16 feet, weather sun and high cloud, moon - none. Time for lunch, see you later, shipmates.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Time And Tide
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Off St Martin
Time And Tide
So here we are - we managed to leave Marans on time yesterday. We tied up in the lock - the only boat going out, but then a power boat roared up the canal and shot into the lock far too fast. Turned out to be Dominique who runs the yard where we have been wintering. He was en famille and entirely in control of his boat in a Dominique kind of way.
The plan was to go onto the visitor’s buoys at St Martin and leave early to get to Les Sables d’Olonne with a West wind before the North Westerly came in to spoil our fun. Well, we did the first part of the plan, but the leaving early part didn’t quite happen. I had hoped we would catch the 0703 weather forecast and then leave, but the forecast didn’t come and by the time we called Chassiron to get it repeated, found it’s now available continuously on VHF channel 63 and listened to it, it was all getting a bit late. The first part of the trip would have been have been fine, but we would have had a bit of a knock about in the NW wind which is exactly the direction we need to go. So we made the prudent decision to hang out until early afternoon when we can get into St Martin on the tide. There’s a harbour gate that opens for a few hours, around high water. (1445 today)
St Martin is a very pretty harbour with a market that sells oysters etc. It gets very busy in tourist season, with lots of restaurants, ice cream sellers, evening markets - all quite pricey - this is a rich island with Parisian’s parachuting in. There are some very classy holiday homes, hiding behind high walls. For us, there’s a small beach nearby, and we can top up the tanks with diesel so that we don’t need to stop at Les Sables unless we have another reason.
Last night was a bit noisy. Mooring buoys are good since you know they aren’t going to drag, but not so good in that they bang on the hull of the boat when the wind and the tide are not both going in the same direction. Since the tide turns every 6 hours, its going to be noisy quite a lot of the time. Imagine sitting in a Portacabin with a relentless teenager kicking a football against the wall, occasionally missing it. Yes, it’s like that.
Sorry that this blog is uni-media. Between us we managed to leave all the possible connecting leads for the camera and the digital recorder at home. I thought I had tracked one down in Super-U. Al opened the box and what I had though would be a friendly USB lead, turned out to be a weird extra-terrestrial one. I got on the pink bike, pedalled back to Super-U and ended up exchanging it for a nailbrush, deodorant and wishy-washy yellow towel, none of which is really useful for sending sounds and pix whizzing round the virtual world and onto a computer near you. I really would like you to share the sounds of Snork Maiden so maybe we’ll make a podcast for when we get home.
Al’s almost deserted his digi-recorder, having been quite seduced by his iphone and its many apps. Favourites are 4-track recorder, tuning fork, chart plotter and wind-speed meter (yes, really). Unfortunately the battery life is pretty pathetic, and it’s far too expensive to let it connect to the Internet.
He’s been recording potential hits this morning; I’ve been sitting on the foredeck re-stringing the safety lines with zigzags to stop the sails falling off the deck.
It’s 1255, wind speed 15Knots, wind direction W/NW, depth 16 feet, weather sun and high cloud, moon - none. Time for lunch, see you later, shipmates.
Off St Martin
Time And Tide
So here we are - we managed to leave Marans on time yesterday. We tied up in the lock - the only boat going out, but then a power boat roared up the canal and shot into the lock far too fast. Turned out to be Dominique who runs the yard where we have been wintering. He was en famille and entirely in control of his boat in a Dominique kind of way.
The plan was to go onto the visitor’s buoys at St Martin and leave early to get to Les Sables d’Olonne with a West wind before the North Westerly came in to spoil our fun. Well, we did the first part of the plan, but the leaving early part didn’t quite happen. I had hoped we would catch the 0703 weather forecast and then leave, but the forecast didn’t come and by the time we called Chassiron to get it repeated, found it’s now available continuously on VHF channel 63 and listened to it, it was all getting a bit late. The first part of the trip would have been have been fine, but we would have had a bit of a knock about in the NW wind which is exactly the direction we need to go. So we made the prudent decision to hang out until early afternoon when we can get into St Martin on the tide. There’s a harbour gate that opens for a few hours, around high water. (1445 today)
St Martin is a very pretty harbour with a market that sells oysters etc. It gets very busy in tourist season, with lots of restaurants, ice cream sellers, evening markets - all quite pricey - this is a rich island with Parisian’s parachuting in. There are some very classy holiday homes, hiding behind high walls. For us, there’s a small beach nearby, and we can top up the tanks with diesel so that we don’t need to stop at Les Sables unless we have another reason.
Last night was a bit noisy. Mooring buoys are good since you know they aren’t going to drag, but not so good in that they bang on the hull of the boat when the wind and the tide are not both going in the same direction. Since the tide turns every 6 hours, its going to be noisy quite a lot of the time. Imagine sitting in a Portacabin with a relentless teenager kicking a football against the wall, occasionally missing it. Yes, it’s like that.
Sorry that this blog is uni-media. Between us we managed to leave all the possible connecting leads for the camera and the digital recorder at home. I thought I had tracked one down in Super-U. Al opened the box and what I had though would be a friendly USB lead, turned out to be a weird extra-terrestrial one. I got on the pink bike, pedalled back to Super-U and ended up exchanging it for a nailbrush, deodorant and wishy-washy yellow towel, none of which is really useful for sending sounds and pix whizzing round the virtual world and onto a computer near you. I really would like you to share the sounds of Snork Maiden so maybe we’ll make a podcast for when we get home.
Al’s almost deserted his digi-recorder, having been quite seduced by his iphone and its many apps. Favourites are 4-track recorder, tuning fork, chart plotter and wind-speed meter (yes, really). Unfortunately the battery life is pretty pathetic, and it’s far too expensive to let it connect to the Internet.
He’s been recording potential hits this morning; I’ve been sitting on the foredeck re-stringing the safety lines with zigzags to stop the sails falling off the deck.
It’s 1255, wind speed 15Knots, wind direction W/NW, depth 16 feet, weather sun and high cloud, moon - none. Time for lunch, see you later, shipmates.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
On the Canal in Marans
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
On the Canal in Marans
So here we are back on Snork Maiden, hoping to leave this afternoon. We arrived via Easy Jet to La Rochelle on Sunday, schlepping around 70Kg of luggage between us - no wheelies since they don’t fit on the boat very well. After a couple of hours dozing and reading under a tree in Place Verdun, we caught the local bus to Marans then struggled into town. (Taxi apparently on holiday). Our favourite café was open and so we stopped for a drink and met a nice Belgian man, attracted by Al’s guitar, which they got out and played for a bit. By that time it had cooled down a bit, and so we set off on the second section of the route march, only to be caught up by Belgian Derek on his bike, offering to load up our heaviest bags and wheel them down to the boat. So he did, and we arrived without any major joint dislocations.
Snork Maiden was fine - of course. It always takes us a couple of days to get ready - packing the boat, flushing tanks, cleaning her and just getting used to being on board. Sorry - this will be a short one - Al’s just got back with 10L of diesel, and I have to go and collect the laundry that he dropped off in the machine on the way. We’ve paid up for our berth and now there’s very little to do except head for the open sea!
Oh yes, and post the blog - almost forgot in a flurry of downloading weather forecasts.
Incidentally - you don’t get to read the best blogs ‘cos those are all written in my head whilst doing other things!! I’ll try to remedy that.
On the Canal in Marans
So here we are back on Snork Maiden, hoping to leave this afternoon. We arrived via Easy Jet to La Rochelle on Sunday, schlepping around 70Kg of luggage between us - no wheelies since they don’t fit on the boat very well. After a couple of hours dozing and reading under a tree in Place Verdun, we caught the local bus to Marans then struggled into town. (Taxi apparently on holiday). Our favourite café was open and so we stopped for a drink and met a nice Belgian man, attracted by Al’s guitar, which they got out and played for a bit. By that time it had cooled down a bit, and so we set off on the second section of the route march, only to be caught up by Belgian Derek on his bike, offering to load up our heaviest bags and wheel them down to the boat. So he did, and we arrived without any major joint dislocations.
Snork Maiden was fine - of course. It always takes us a couple of days to get ready - packing the boat, flushing tanks, cleaning her and just getting used to being on board. Sorry - this will be a short one - Al’s just got back with 10L of diesel, and I have to go and collect the laundry that he dropped off in the machine on the way. We’ve paid up for our berth and now there’s very little to do except head for the open sea!
Oh yes, and post the blog - almost forgot in a flurry of downloading weather forecasts.
Incidentally - you don’t get to read the best blogs ‘cos those are all written in my head whilst doing other things!! I’ll try to remedy that.
On the Canal in Marans
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
On the Canal in Marans
So here we are back on Snork Maiden, hoping to leave this afternoon. We arrived via Easy Jet to La Rochelle on Sunday, schlepping around 70Kg of luggage between us - no wheelies since they don’t fit on the boat very well. After a couple of hours dozing and reading under a tree in Place Verdun, we caught the local bus to Marans then struggled into town. (Taxi apparently on holiday). Our favourite café was open and so we stopped for a drink and met a nice Belgian man, attracted by Al’s guitar, which they got out and played for a bit. By that time it had cooled down a bit, and so we set off on the second section of the route march, only to be caught up by Belgian Derek on his bike, offering to load up our heaviest bags and wheel them down to the boat. So he did, and we arrived without any major joint dislocations.
Snork Maiden was fine - of course. It always takes us a couple of days to get ready - packing the boat, flushing tanks, cleaning her and just getting used to being on board. Sorry - this will be a short one - Al’s just got back with 10L of diesel, and I have to go and collect the laundry that he dropped off in the machine on the way. We’ve paid up for our berth and now there’s very little to do except head for the open sea!
Oh yes, and post the blog - almost forgot in a flurry of downloading weather forecasts.
Incidentally - you don’t get to read the best blogs ‘cos those are all written in my head whilst doing other things!! I’ll try to remedy that.
On the Canal in Marans
So here we are back on Snork Maiden, hoping to leave this afternoon. We arrived via Easy Jet to La Rochelle on Sunday, schlepping around 70Kg of luggage between us - no wheelies since they don’t fit on the boat very well. After a couple of hours dozing and reading under a tree in Place Verdun, we caught the local bus to Marans then struggled into town. (Taxi apparently on holiday). Our favourite café was open and so we stopped for a drink and met a nice Belgian man, attracted by Al’s guitar, which they got out and played for a bit. By that time it had cooled down a bit, and so we set off on the second section of the route march, only to be caught up by Belgian Derek on his bike, offering to load up our heaviest bags and wheel them down to the boat. So he did, and we arrived without any major joint dislocations.
Snork Maiden was fine - of course. It always takes us a couple of days to get ready - packing the boat, flushing tanks, cleaning her and just getting used to being on board. Sorry - this will be a short one - Al’s just got back with 10L of diesel, and I have to go and collect the laundry that he dropped off in the machine on the way. We’ve paid up for our berth and now there’s very little to do except head for the open sea!
Oh yes, and post the blog - almost forgot in a flurry of downloading weather forecasts.
Incidentally - you don’t get to read the best blogs ‘cos those are all written in my head whilst doing other things!! I’ll try to remedy that.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Overwhelmed by water
13 July 2009
Bristol
Overwhelmed by water
Here’s a quote from today’s Indie:
“Ten divers and two crewmen had a lucky escape when they were rescued from their sinking boat. The divers were set to dive in waters off Bolt Head, South Hams, near Plymouth, when their boat became overwhelmed by water yesterday.”
It’s an odd use of the word 'overwhelmed', but I think I know what they mean. I felt overwhelmed by water during our last day out with Snork Maiden on 27 June. We left Ile d’Oleron with a plan to sail back to the Sevre Niortaise (the river leading up to our port of Marans) and spend the night on a waiting buoy, ready to pass into the lock at 1030 the next morning. The river and its estuary are hugely tidal, and it’s necessary to reach the buoy marking the estuary channel approach on time - two hours before high water. Calculations made, we left Boyardville around 10 am catching the open tidal gate about an hour and a half after HW. We had plenty of time to spare, so went to the buoys off Boyardville beach and had lunch, lazed around, waited for the afternoon breeze and then took off in the general direction of La Rochelle. We had little luck with the wind more or less on the nose. We made a reasonable course to windward, but the hoped-for shift never came, and mid-afternoon found us debating whether to go into La Rochelle one last time, or to put the motor on and head for our rendezvous with ATT (the Aguillon safe water buoy). By this time we had used up our decision time, and applied ¾ throttle to motor at around 4.5 Knots. We passed the buoy promptly at 1800, and all should have been plane sailing from there on.
The channel is not too hard to follow, and by the time we reached the upper part of the river, it was a beautiful evening with birdsong, fields of bleached corn - as bucolic as it comes. There are a few buoys just downstream of the lifting bridge - it lifts in synchrony with the Bruallt lock, to allow boats to enter and exit around HW during daylight hours. There’s only one buoy that isn’t broken in the area close to the bridge on the starboard bank, and that was occupied. There are a couple of others, but the water seemed too shallow at 15 feet or so (our depth gauge is steadfastly Imperial, in feet and fathoms). There is a tidal drop of around 2.5 metres, so that means we have, hmmm, about 5 feet of water left… (We draw 5ft = 1.52 metres.) I am suddenly a bit less confident about this decision, and Al asks me how I knew we had enough depth. I say, a bit weakly, ‘I just know.’ Well, nobody is going to take that for much of an answer, so Al, being somebody, gets on the phone to the lock keeper (they are almost on first-name terms by now, so often has he checked the lock times) and asks about the depth. The lock keeper asks how much water we have now, what we draw, then consults some oracle, and says we should be all right for the night. We just about have time to turn tail and run for the sea, but we don’t, opting to stay the night in this very pretty place. After all, the worst that can happen to us is that we sink gently into the mud for a few centimetres (or inches if you are of the Imperial persuasion). So we thought.
Low water was 0200, so I stayed awake, periodically looking at the depth meter, shining a torch on the ever-approaching bank (we woke the snoozing ducklings) and now and again slept nervously until that critical time was past. Or so I thought. We settled, as predicted. I checked the mooring buoy - all fine.
I go back to sleep, soundly now, until Al woke me around 0400 to tell me the boat was tilting, and did I want to have a look. I did. I put my sailing jacket on and went out to see a roiling, boiling whirlpool on the upstream side of the boat, away from the current. The poor Snork Maiden was trapped between her mooring buoy, on the upstream side, and the pushing current on the downstream side - the force of the incoming tide shoving her sideways. It was not nice. The water streamed past at what looked like a good 5 knots, and the whirlpool effect was probably caused by the yacht’s underwater profile. The noise was quite disturbing, and the power of the water undeniable. It was quite different from any of the river experiences we’ve had before. I added the lifejacket and harness to the sailing jacket and checked the buoy once more. It looked robust, with a strong welded metal loop and a steel bolt fastening it to what lay beneath (hopefully a big lump of concrete). I put a second mooring line on, slacker than the first so it wouldn’t rub, and so that the second would hold if the first gave way. Al, having dome his bit as watchdog, went back to bed while I read my book, listened to the water, monitored the rise of the tide, and hoped that nothing bad had happened. By 0800 a few more boats had arrived full of sensible people who had anchored somewhere quiet, or spent the evening eating seafood in La Rochelle. Their boats obediently turned their bows to the stream, but Snork Maiden remained obstinately and ungracefully stuck crossways in the river. We hoped that she would break free from her entrapment, and swing to the tide, but it was not to be! And now the wind was in the game, blowing from the East and opposing the tide.
At around 10.00 the bridge began to lift to let the upstream boats out. There were several of these, since there had been some sort of vintage boat rally the day before in Marans. This complicated things, since some vessels were under sail, and therefore all over the place. We decided to start the engine, and wait until everyone else had got clear before casting off. By now we were expecting the unexpected! Actually, nothing bad did happen - we just slipped away from the buoy, and made full-speed ahead for the bridge. By now we were well in the rear of the small flotilla, and I was terrified that the bridge was going to close before we could get through. Fortunately a human bridge keeper grinned at us, and waited. (Speculate, dear reader, on what it must be like to have a job that only demands that you be at your post twice a day for about half-an-hour!)
The lock went smoothly. We were rafted on the lock pontoon with three other boats, including a couple of people we had met before, including Jaques, from Marans, and another bloke with a very loud voice who we had locked through with last year.
Given all the things that can go wrong, none of them did, and there was a lot of companionable chatting about future sailing plans and destinations
Soon we were out and into the canal. We were met by M.Coindeau, looking less impassive than usual as he skidded around in an aluminium skiff. He told us the harbour was pretty full, but if he could, he would find us a place on an empty finger pontoon. He skidded off, leaving us to the herons, the ducks and jumping fish as we ambled up to what we now think of as our homeport. Twenty minutes later he was back to shepherd us in. Snork Maiden is back home, at least for a while.
The river adventure was scary, but in hindsight, there was no danger apart from the obvious one of being swept away. But the boat is uneasy, and stressed in those conditions - not something I’d like to repeat. I had faith that the waiting buoys would have depth, but hadn’t checked this - it would have been easy enough to have put the question to the lock-keeper the previous day. When I re-checked our pilot book and almanacs, there was only one piece of information, and that said that the moorings were good for 1.2 m. Now that is a generality, and if we had re-read this we might have taken a view that we could have let the keel settle the remaining 30 cms and not minded too much. It was a lesson in river tides that we’ll be bearing in mind for the future - and more generally, not to take rivers for granted - ever.
Now we’re home and talking about future sailing plans - more soon.
Now if you find you forget to check out the adventures of the Snork Maiden, you can use an RSS feed to deliver them to you. (I know some of you do.)
About RSS - this is a way to get yourself automatic updates from sites that interest you, but that update intermittently - like my blog, heh heh!
I use Google:
http://www.google.com/reader
but there are many more.
You can also add Picasa albums in the same way.
http://picasaweb.google.com/wikidrat/SNORKMAIDEN2009#
Bristol
Overwhelmed by water
Here’s a quote from today’s Indie:
“Ten divers and two crewmen had a lucky escape when they were rescued from their sinking boat. The divers were set to dive in waters off Bolt Head, South Hams, near Plymouth, when their boat became overwhelmed by water yesterday.”
It’s an odd use of the word 'overwhelmed', but I think I know what they mean. I felt overwhelmed by water during our last day out with Snork Maiden on 27 June. We left Ile d’Oleron with a plan to sail back to the Sevre Niortaise (the river leading up to our port of Marans) and spend the night on a waiting buoy, ready to pass into the lock at 1030 the next morning. The river and its estuary are hugely tidal, and it’s necessary to reach the buoy marking the estuary channel approach on time - two hours before high water. Calculations made, we left Boyardville around 10 am catching the open tidal gate about an hour and a half after HW. We had plenty of time to spare, so went to the buoys off Boyardville beach and had lunch, lazed around, waited for the afternoon breeze and then took off in the general direction of La Rochelle. We had little luck with the wind more or less on the nose. We made a reasonable course to windward, but the hoped-for shift never came, and mid-afternoon found us debating whether to go into La Rochelle one last time, or to put the motor on and head for our rendezvous with ATT (the Aguillon safe water buoy). By this time we had used up our decision time, and applied ¾ throttle to motor at around 4.5 Knots. We passed the buoy promptly at 1800, and all should have been plane sailing from there on.
The channel is not too hard to follow, and by the time we reached the upper part of the river, it was a beautiful evening with birdsong, fields of bleached corn - as bucolic as it comes. There are a few buoys just downstream of the lifting bridge - it lifts in synchrony with the Bruallt lock, to allow boats to enter and exit around HW during daylight hours. There’s only one buoy that isn’t broken in the area close to the bridge on the starboard bank, and that was occupied. There are a couple of others, but the water seemed too shallow at 15 feet or so (our depth gauge is steadfastly Imperial, in feet and fathoms). There is a tidal drop of around 2.5 metres, so that means we have, hmmm, about 5 feet of water left… (We draw 5ft = 1.52 metres.) I am suddenly a bit less confident about this decision, and Al asks me how I knew we had enough depth. I say, a bit weakly, ‘I just know.’ Well, nobody is going to take that for much of an answer, so Al, being somebody, gets on the phone to the lock keeper (they are almost on first-name terms by now, so often has he checked the lock times) and asks about the depth. The lock keeper asks how much water we have now, what we draw, then consults some oracle, and says we should be all right for the night. We just about have time to turn tail and run for the sea, but we don’t, opting to stay the night in this very pretty place. After all, the worst that can happen to us is that we sink gently into the mud for a few centimetres (or inches if you are of the Imperial persuasion). So we thought.
Low water was 0200, so I stayed awake, periodically looking at the depth meter, shining a torch on the ever-approaching bank (we woke the snoozing ducklings) and now and again slept nervously until that critical time was past. Or so I thought. We settled, as predicted. I checked the mooring buoy - all fine.
I go back to sleep, soundly now, until Al woke me around 0400 to tell me the boat was tilting, and did I want to have a look. I did. I put my sailing jacket on and went out to see a roiling, boiling whirlpool on the upstream side of the boat, away from the current. The poor Snork Maiden was trapped between her mooring buoy, on the upstream side, and the pushing current on the downstream side - the force of the incoming tide shoving her sideways. It was not nice. The water streamed past at what looked like a good 5 knots, and the whirlpool effect was probably caused by the yacht’s underwater profile. The noise was quite disturbing, and the power of the water undeniable. It was quite different from any of the river experiences we’ve had before. I added the lifejacket and harness to the sailing jacket and checked the buoy once more. It looked robust, with a strong welded metal loop and a steel bolt fastening it to what lay beneath (hopefully a big lump of concrete). I put a second mooring line on, slacker than the first so it wouldn’t rub, and so that the second would hold if the first gave way. Al, having dome his bit as watchdog, went back to bed while I read my book, listened to the water, monitored the rise of the tide, and hoped that nothing bad had happened. By 0800 a few more boats had arrived full of sensible people who had anchored somewhere quiet, or spent the evening eating seafood in La Rochelle. Their boats obediently turned their bows to the stream, but Snork Maiden remained obstinately and ungracefully stuck crossways in the river. We hoped that she would break free from her entrapment, and swing to the tide, but it was not to be! And now the wind was in the game, blowing from the East and opposing the tide.
At around 10.00 the bridge began to lift to let the upstream boats out. There were several of these, since there had been some sort of vintage boat rally the day before in Marans. This complicated things, since some vessels were under sail, and therefore all over the place. We decided to start the engine, and wait until everyone else had got clear before casting off. By now we were expecting the unexpected! Actually, nothing bad did happen - we just slipped away from the buoy, and made full-speed ahead for the bridge. By now we were well in the rear of the small flotilla, and I was terrified that the bridge was going to close before we could get through. Fortunately a human bridge keeper grinned at us, and waited. (Speculate, dear reader, on what it must be like to have a job that only demands that you be at your post twice a day for about half-an-hour!)
The lock went smoothly. We were rafted on the lock pontoon with three other boats, including a couple of people we had met before, including Jaques, from Marans, and another bloke with a very loud voice who we had locked through with last year.
Given all the things that can go wrong, none of them did, and there was a lot of companionable chatting about future sailing plans and destinations
Soon we were out and into the canal. We were met by M.Coindeau, looking less impassive than usual as he skidded around in an aluminium skiff. He told us the harbour was pretty full, but if he could, he would find us a place on an empty finger pontoon. He skidded off, leaving us to the herons, the ducks and jumping fish as we ambled up to what we now think of as our homeport. Twenty minutes later he was back to shepherd us in. Snork Maiden is back home, at least for a while.
The river adventure was scary, but in hindsight, there was no danger apart from the obvious one of being swept away. But the boat is uneasy, and stressed in those conditions - not something I’d like to repeat. I had faith that the waiting buoys would have depth, but hadn’t checked this - it would have been easy enough to have put the question to the lock-keeper the previous day. When I re-checked our pilot book and almanacs, there was only one piece of information, and that said that the moorings were good for 1.2 m. Now that is a generality, and if we had re-read this we might have taken a view that we could have let the keel settle the remaining 30 cms and not minded too much. It was a lesson in river tides that we’ll be bearing in mind for the future - and more generally, not to take rivers for granted - ever.
Now we’re home and talking about future sailing plans - more soon.
Now if you find you forget to check out the adventures of the Snork Maiden, you can use an RSS feed to deliver them to you. (I know some of you do.)
About RSS - this is a way to get yourself automatic updates from sites that interest you, but that update intermittently - like my blog, heh heh!
I use Google:
http://www.google.com/reader
but there are many more.
You can also add Picasa albums in the same way.
http://picasaweb.google.com/wikidrat/SNORKMAIDEN2009#
Overwhelmed by water
13 July 2009
Bristol
Overwhelmed by water
Here’s a quote from today’s Indie:
“Ten divers and two crewmen had a lucky escape when they were rescued from their sinking boat. The divers were set to dive in waters off Bolt Head, South Hams, near Plymouth, when their boat became overwhelmed by water yesterday.”
It’s an odd use of the word 'overwhelmed', but I think I know what they mean. I felt overwhelmed by water during our last day out with Snork Maiden on 27 June. We left Ile d’Oleron with a plan to sail back to the Sevre Niortaise (the river leading up to our port of Marans) and spend the night on a waiting buoy, ready to pass into the lock at 1030 the next morning. The river and its estuary are hugely tidal, and it’s necessary to reach the buoy marking the estuary channel approach on time - two hours before high water. Calculations made, we left Boyardville around 10 am catching the open tidal gate about an hour and a half after HW. We had plenty of time to spare, so went to the buoys off Boyardville beach and had lunch, lazed around, waited for the afternoon breeze and then took off in the general direction of La Rochelle. We had little luck with the wind more or less on the nose. We made a reasonable course to windward, but the hoped-for shift never came, and mid-afternoon found us debating whether to go into La Rochelle one last time, or to put the motor on and head for our rendezvous with ATT (the Aguillon safe water buoy). By this time we had used up our decision time, and applied ¾ throttle to motor at around 4.5 Knots. We passed the buoy promptly at 1800, and all should have been plane sailing from there on.
The channel is not too hard to follow, and by the time we reached the upper part of the river, it was a beautiful evening with birdsong, fields of bleached corn - as bucolic as it comes. There are a few buoys just downstream of the lifting bridge - it lifts in synchrony with the Bruallt lock, to allow boats to enter and exit around HW during daylight hours. There’s only one buoy that isn’t broken in the area close to the bridge on the starboard bank, and that was occupied. There are a couple of others, but the water seemed too shallow at 15 feet or so (our depth gauge is steadfastly Imperial, in feet and fathoms). There is a tidal drop of around 2.5 metres, so that means we have, hmmm, about 5 feet of water left… (We draw 5ft = 1.52 metres.) I am suddenly a bit less confident about this decision, and Al asks me how I knew we had enough depth. I say, a bit weakly, ‘I just know.’ Well, nobody is going to take that for much of an answer, so Al, being somebody, gets on the phone to the lock keeper (they are almost on first-name terms by now, so often has he checked the lock times) and asks about the depth. The lock keeper asks how much water we have now, what we draw, then consults some oracle, and says we should be all right for the night. We just about have time to turn tail and run for the sea, but we don’t, opting to stay the night in this very pretty place. After all, the worst that can happen to us is that we sink gently into the mud for a few centimetres (or inches if you are of the Imperial persuasion). So we thought.
Low water was 0200, so I stayed awake, periodically looking at the depth meter, shining a torch on the ever-approaching bank (we woke the snoozing ducklings) and now and again slept nervously until that critical time was past. Or so I thought. We settled, as predicted. I checked the mooring buoy - all fine.
I go back to sleep, soundly now, until Al woke me around 0400 to tell me the boat was tilting, and did I want to have a look. I did. I put my sailing jacket on and went out to see a roiling, boiling whirlpool on the upstream side of the boat, away from the current. The poor Snork Maiden was trapped between her mooring buoy, on the upstream side, and the pushing current on the downstream side - the force of the incoming tide shoving her sideways. It was not nice. The water streamed past at what looked like a good 5 knots, and the whirlpool effect was probably caused by the yacht’s underwater profile. The noise was quite disturbing, and the power of the water undeniable. It was quite different from any of the river experiences we’ve had before. I added the lifejacket and harness to the sailing jacket and checked the buoy once more. It looked robust, with a strong welded metal loop and a steel bolt fastening it to what lay beneath (hopefully a big lump of concrete). I put a second mooring line on, slacker than the first so it wouldn’t rub, and so that the second would hold if the first gave way. Al, having dome his bit as watchdog, went back to bed while I read my book, listened to the water, monitored the rise of the tide, and hoped that nothing bad had happened. By 0800 a few more boats had arrived full of sensible people who had anchored somewhere quiet, or spent the evening eating seafood in La Rochelle. Their boats obediently turned their bows to the stream, but Snork Maiden remained obstinately and ungracefully stuck crossways in the river. We hoped that she would break free from her entrapment, and swing to the tide, but it was not to be! And now the wind was in the game, blowing from the East and opposing the tide.
At around 10.00 the bridge began to lift to let the upstream boats out. There were several of these, since there had been some sort of vintage boat rally the day before in Marans. This complicated things, since some vessels were under sail, and therefore all over the place. We decided to start the engine, and wait until everyone else had got clear before casting off. By now we were expecting the unexpected! Actually, nothing bad did happen - we just slipped away from the buoy, and made full-speed ahead for the bridge. By now we were well in the rear of the small flotilla, and I was terrified that the bridge was going to close before we could get through. Fortunately a human bridge keeper grinned at us, and waited. (Speculate, dear reader, on what it must be like to have a job that only demands that you be at your post twice a day for about half-an-hour!)
The lock went smoothly. We were rafted on the lock pontoon with three other boats, including a couple of people we had met before, including Jaques, from Marans, and another bloke with a very loud voice who we had locked through with last year.
Given all the things that can go wrong, none of them did, and there was a lot of companionable chatting about future sailing plans and destinations
Soon we were out and into the canal. We were met by M.Coindeau, looking less impassive than usual as he skidded around in an aluminium skiff. He told us the harbour was pretty full, but if he could, he would find us a place on an empty finger pontoon. He skidded off, leaving us to the herons, the ducks and jumping fish as we ambled up to what we now think of as our homeport. Twenty minutes later he was back to shepherd us in. Snork Maiden is back home, at least for a while.
The river adventure was scary, but in hindsight, there was no danger apart from the obvious one of being swept away. But the boat is uneasy, and stressed in those conditions - not something I’d like to repeat. I had faith that the waiting buoys would have depth, but hadn’t checked this - it would have been easy enough to have put the question to the lock-keeper the previous day. When I re-checked our pilot book and almanacs, there was only one piece of information, and that said that the moorings were good for 1.2 m. Now that is a generality, and if we had re-read this we might have taken a view that we could have let the keel settle the remaining 30 cms and not minded too much. It was a lesson in river tides that we’ll be bearing in mind for the future - and more generally, not to take rivers for granted - ever.
Now we’re home and talking about future sailing plans - more soon.
Now if you find you forget to check out the adventures of the Snork Maiden, you can use an RSS feed to deliver them to you. (I know some of you do.)
About RSS - this is a way to get yourself automatic updates from sites that interest you, but that update intermittently - like my blog, heh heh!
I use Google:
http://www.google.com/reader
but there are many more.
You can also add Picasa albums in the same way.
http://picasaweb.google.com/wikidrat/SNORKMAIDEN2009#
Bristol
Overwhelmed by water
Here’s a quote from today’s Indie:
“Ten divers and two crewmen had a lucky escape when they were rescued from their sinking boat. The divers were set to dive in waters off Bolt Head, South Hams, near Plymouth, when their boat became overwhelmed by water yesterday.”
It’s an odd use of the word 'overwhelmed', but I think I know what they mean. I felt overwhelmed by water during our last day out with Snork Maiden on 27 June. We left Ile d’Oleron with a plan to sail back to the Sevre Niortaise (the river leading up to our port of Marans) and spend the night on a waiting buoy, ready to pass into the lock at 1030 the next morning. The river and its estuary are hugely tidal, and it’s necessary to reach the buoy marking the estuary channel approach on time - two hours before high water. Calculations made, we left Boyardville around 10 am catching the open tidal gate about an hour and a half after HW. We had plenty of time to spare, so went to the buoys off Boyardville beach and had lunch, lazed around, waited for the afternoon breeze and then took off in the general direction of La Rochelle. We had little luck with the wind more or less on the nose. We made a reasonable course to windward, but the hoped-for shift never came, and mid-afternoon found us debating whether to go into La Rochelle one last time, or to put the motor on and head for our rendezvous with ATT (the Aguillon safe water buoy). By this time we had used up our decision time, and applied ¾ throttle to motor at around 4.5 Knots. We passed the buoy promptly at 1800, and all should have been plane sailing from there on.
The channel is not too hard to follow, and by the time we reached the upper part of the river, it was a beautiful evening with birdsong, fields of bleached corn - as bucolic as it comes. There are a few buoys just downstream of the lifting bridge - it lifts in synchrony with the Bruallt lock, to allow boats to enter and exit around HW during daylight hours. There’s only one buoy that isn’t broken in the area close to the bridge on the starboard bank, and that was occupied. There are a couple of others, but the water seemed too shallow at 15 feet or so (our depth gauge is steadfastly Imperial, in feet and fathoms). There is a tidal drop of around 2.5 metres, so that means we have, hmmm, about 5 feet of water left… (We draw 5ft = 1.52 metres.) I am suddenly a bit less confident about this decision, and Al asks me how I knew we had enough depth. I say, a bit weakly, ‘I just know.’ Well, nobody is going to take that for much of an answer, so Al, being somebody, gets on the phone to the lock keeper (they are almost on first-name terms by now, so often has he checked the lock times) and asks about the depth. The lock keeper asks how much water we have now, what we draw, then consults some oracle, and says we should be all right for the night. We just about have time to turn tail and run for the sea, but we don’t, opting to stay the night in this very pretty place. After all, the worst that can happen to us is that we sink gently into the mud for a few centimetres (or inches if you are of the Imperial persuasion). So we thought.
Low water was 0200, so I stayed awake, periodically looking at the depth meter, shining a torch on the ever-approaching bank (we woke the snoozing ducklings) and now and again slept nervously until that critical time was past. Or so I thought. We settled, as predicted. I checked the mooring buoy - all fine.
I go back to sleep, soundly now, until Al woke me around 0400 to tell me the boat was tilting, and did I want to have a look. I did. I put my sailing jacket on and went out to see a roiling, boiling whirlpool on the upstream side of the boat, away from the current. The poor Snork Maiden was trapped between her mooring buoy, on the upstream side, and the pushing current on the downstream side - the force of the incoming tide shoving her sideways. It was not nice. The water streamed past at what looked like a good 5 knots, and the whirlpool effect was probably caused by the yacht’s underwater profile. The noise was quite disturbing, and the power of the water undeniable. It was quite different from any of the river experiences we’ve had before. I added the lifejacket and harness to the sailing jacket and checked the buoy once more. It looked robust, with a strong welded metal loop and a steel bolt fastening it to what lay beneath (hopefully a big lump of concrete). I put a second mooring line on, slacker than the first so it wouldn’t rub, and so that the second would hold if the first gave way. Al, having dome his bit as watchdog, went back to bed while I read my book, listened to the water, monitored the rise of the tide, and hoped that nothing bad had happened. By 0800 a few more boats had arrived full of sensible people who had anchored somewhere quiet, or spent the evening eating seafood in La Rochelle. Their boats obediently turned their bows to the stream, but Snork Maiden remained obstinately and ungracefully stuck crossways in the river. We hoped that she would break free from her entrapment, and swing to the tide, but it was not to be! And now the wind was in the game, blowing from the East and opposing the tide.
At around 10.00 the bridge began to lift to let the upstream boats out. There were several of these, since there had been some sort of vintage boat rally the day before in Marans. This complicated things, since some vessels were under sail, and therefore all over the place. We decided to start the engine, and wait until everyone else had got clear before casting off. By now we were expecting the unexpected! Actually, nothing bad did happen - we just slipped away from the buoy, and made full-speed ahead for the bridge. By now we were well in the rear of the small flotilla, and I was terrified that the bridge was going to close before we could get through. Fortunately a human bridge keeper grinned at us, and waited. (Speculate, dear reader, on what it must be like to have a job that only demands that you be at your post twice a day for about half-an-hour!)
The lock went smoothly. We were rafted on the lock pontoon with three other boats, including a couple of people we had met before, including Jaques, from Marans, and another bloke with a very loud voice who we had locked through with last year.
Given all the things that can go wrong, none of them did, and there was a lot of companionable chatting about future sailing plans and destinations
Soon we were out and into the canal. We were met by M.Coindeau, looking less impassive than usual as he skidded around in an aluminium skiff. He told us the harbour was pretty full, but if he could, he would find us a place on an empty finger pontoon. He skidded off, leaving us to the herons, the ducks and jumping fish as we ambled up to what we now think of as our homeport. Twenty minutes later he was back to shepherd us in. Snork Maiden is back home, at least for a while.
The river adventure was scary, but in hindsight, there was no danger apart from the obvious one of being swept away. But the boat is uneasy, and stressed in those conditions - not something I’d like to repeat. I had faith that the waiting buoys would have depth, but hadn’t checked this - it would have been easy enough to have put the question to the lock-keeper the previous day. When I re-checked our pilot book and almanacs, there was only one piece of information, and that said that the moorings were good for 1.2 m. Now that is a generality, and if we had re-read this we might have taken a view that we could have let the keel settle the remaining 30 cms and not minded too much. It was a lesson in river tides that we’ll be bearing in mind for the future - and more generally, not to take rivers for granted - ever.
Now we’re home and talking about future sailing plans - more soon.
Now if you find you forget to check out the adventures of the Snork Maiden, you can use an RSS feed to deliver them to you. (I know some of you do.)
About RSS - this is a way to get yourself automatic updates from sites that interest you, but that update intermittently - like my blog, heh heh!
I use Google:
http://www.google.com/reader
but there are many more.
You can also add Picasa albums in the same way.
http://picasaweb.google.com/wikidrat/SNORKMAIDEN2009#
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Boyardville Again
Saturday, June 27, 2009
BOYARDVILLE
Well, however hard we tried - and that might not have been very hard - we just couldn’t get away from the charms of Oleron this year. The day before yesterday (or was it the day before that? Time passes as easily as water past the keel) we left St Denis and motored out to test the engine (it passed, so far so good). Decided it was such a great day that we would spend the night on one the visitor’s buoys outside Boyardville. We slept that night with the companionway wide open so could feel the breeze and see the stars - almost as good as being on passage, maybe better. It was a quiet night with the smell of pines wafting over from the beach and the sound of distant surf from the Saumonard point.
THERE WAS MURDER IN THE AIR.
We decided to go into Boyardville the following day for a last hit of pine woods, beach and oysters. We rented bikes and cycled to Le Douet - a tiny port with some very swish villas outside it. It seems as though Oleron was quite undiscovered until the late 80s when it expended its 3 small fishing ports into yacht marinas, with the fishing boats all migrating to La Cotiniere on the wild East side of the island. They only allow yachts in at times of genuine maritime distress.
At the beginning of this year’s blog I think I rashly promised to say something about facing 60. Well nothing very profound has happened but there is a sense of time ahead being rationed, and the necessity of using those years well bangs on the door quite often, especially when it comes to the number of good sailing years left.
You might also wonder how we get on as a couple sailing. At home we spend more time together than most, and here we are together in a space not much larger than a wardrobe for much of the day. We are not always the most harmonious of sailing couples, but this year has been less eventful when entering and leaving port, when we are most of the time a well-oiled machine. Until recently Al has been responsible for lines and fenders, getting off the boat and tying us up so that we don’t immediately float away again. This season has seen a bit of role reversal so that I can start getting my lines mixed up all over again, and he can start frightening the neighbours. This morning I was rearranging our lines so we could move Snork Maiden into a better position for the off. This involved untying a line that belonged to a very nice big Benetaeu, with another one tied on to the side of it. Absent minded, I dealt with our line and next thing I know, 2 large white sterns are drifting harmoniously out into the marina. Ooops! I grab the line (fortunately not yet in the drink) and pull several thousand kilos of boat back to the pontoon, just as the owners of the outside boat came back. I have to say, I was embarrassed.
As Carol and Sally know, we have a magic tool for grabbing the ring on a mooring buoy and pulling a rope through. (I’ll see if I can put up a pic and YOU can see if you can work out how it does it.) That has also been Al’s job for ages, and the first time I tried to do it this year I gaped at the buoy with the tool in my hand, as if frozen. (Good practise for him to go around and line up the boat again - which he did very well.) You’ll be glad to know that I re-acquired the knack, and My point is, it doesn’t do to get too specialised!
Just now Al’s recording guitar sketches. I think I can feel a breath of wind coming, so maybe we’ll set sail on the last leg to Marans. Aha, we’ll catch the tide me hearties!
BOYARDVILLE
Well, however hard we tried - and that might not have been very hard - we just couldn’t get away from the charms of Oleron this year. The day before yesterday (or was it the day before that? Time passes as easily as water past the keel) we left St Denis and motored out to test the engine (it passed, so far so good). Decided it was such a great day that we would spend the night on one the visitor’s buoys outside Boyardville. We slept that night with the companionway wide open so could feel the breeze and see the stars - almost as good as being on passage, maybe better. It was a quiet night with the smell of pines wafting over from the beach and the sound of distant surf from the Saumonard point.
THERE WAS MURDER IN THE AIR.
We decided to go into Boyardville the following day for a last hit of pine woods, beach and oysters. We rented bikes and cycled to Le Douet - a tiny port with some very swish villas outside it. It seems as though Oleron was quite undiscovered until the late 80s when it expended its 3 small fishing ports into yacht marinas, with the fishing boats all migrating to La Cotiniere on the wild East side of the island. They only allow yachts in at times of genuine maritime distress.
At the beginning of this year’s blog I think I rashly promised to say something about facing 60. Well nothing very profound has happened but there is a sense of time ahead being rationed, and the necessity of using those years well bangs on the door quite often, especially when it comes to the number of good sailing years left.
You might also wonder how we get on as a couple sailing. At home we spend more time together than most, and here we are together in a space not much larger than a wardrobe for much of the day. We are not always the most harmonious of sailing couples, but this year has been less eventful when entering and leaving port, when we are most of the time a well-oiled machine. Until recently Al has been responsible for lines and fenders, getting off the boat and tying us up so that we don’t immediately float away again. This season has seen a bit of role reversal so that I can start getting my lines mixed up all over again, and he can start frightening the neighbours. This morning I was rearranging our lines so we could move Snork Maiden into a better position for the off. This involved untying a line that belonged to a very nice big Benetaeu, with another one tied on to the side of it. Absent minded, I dealt with our line and next thing I know, 2 large white sterns are drifting harmoniously out into the marina. Ooops! I grab the line (fortunately not yet in the drink) and pull several thousand kilos of boat back to the pontoon, just as the owners of the outside boat came back. I have to say, I was embarrassed.
As Carol and Sally know, we have a magic tool for grabbing the ring on a mooring buoy and pulling a rope through. (I’ll see if I can put up a pic and YOU can see if you can work out how it does it.) That has also been Al’s job for ages, and the first time I tried to do it this year I gaped at the buoy with the tool in my hand, as if frozen. (Good practise for him to go around and line up the boat again - which he did very well.) You’ll be glad to know that I re-acquired the knack, and My point is, it doesn’t do to get too specialised!
Just now Al’s recording guitar sketches. I think I can feel a breath of wind coming, so maybe we’ll set sail on the last leg to Marans. Aha, we’ll catch the tide me hearties!
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