The blog records the voyages of PicoMicroYacht, a seaworthy small sailing dinghy converted for rowing long distances. This includes the 26th July 2012 crossing of the English Channel, as well as rowing along the south coast of England, down the river Thames, around London and across Ireland. PicoMicroYacht is a converted Laser Pico Sailing Dinghy, with a sliding seat, riggers and cleaver oars, fitted with a shortened main mast and a mizzen mast and can be set up as a reduced rig sailing boat.
In the summer I decided to voyage further along the Jurassic coast from Abbotsbury to Lyme Regis. Here the spectacular coastline is part of the older Jurassic landscape, the strata laid down between 200 and 164 million years ago in shallow seas, trapping a myriad of fossils, exposed as the cliffs crumble into the sea.
My first port of call was Bridport.
PicoMicroYacht's route from Abbotsbury to Bridport and then Lyme Regis
Abbotsbury is at the end of Chesil Beach that stretches east to Portland, this beach an extensive shingle bank.
My first task was to haul PicoMicroYacht up and over the shingle. Having done so I walked back down and inspected the track I had made.
Soon I was off. The sea was languid, but I knew how dangerous this coast could be in a gale, when the waves crash against this lee shore, in the past unwary ships broken up as they were smashed onto the shingle.
Soon the sun was dipping in the sky, silhouetting the West Dorset cliffs, creating a colour palette, a contrast of yellow sandstone, golden limestone and crumbling grey clay.
I looked up and saw holiday caravans perched on the cliffs.
As the light faded further I could just see Bridport in the distance.
Bridport is not ideal for yachts because of the exposed entrance, but has been improved substantially. In past times the narrow channel was notoriously dangerous to shipping in any sort of sea.
Maurice Budden's photograph of the old Bridport entrance
https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3180105
Now the wider angled entrance protects pootoon moorings, accessible for small yachts.
A welcome place to moor up for the night, my next port of call Lyme Regis.
The film clips in this post are provided if it is viewed in the Web version.
Just before our second lockdown I was able to row out of Salcombe Harbour to the bar. It was a fine day with the vivid blues of the sea and sky in early November.
It was over this bar that the Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster took place on 27th October 2016 when the Salcombe lifeboat, the William and Emma, capsized whilst heroically crossing the harbour bar on their return from attempting to rescue a stricken vessel.
The William and Emma
Although it turned out the crew of the vessel did not need rescuing, the lifeboat was now in serious difficulty and eventually overcome on the bar by a freak wave. Thirteen lifeboat men died and two survived to tell the tale.
A contemporaneous drawing of the William and Emma closing on the Salcombe Bar
A good account of this disaster can be found in Robert Barrett's 'The Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster: 27 October 2016, published by Salcombe Lifeboats.
My copy of the Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster
I was intrigued by what had happened and went out to the bar to have a look, then making a short video telling briefly the story of the the brave men who crossed the bar in a gale and returned in a storm.
The bar is also famous because it is the likely the inspiration for Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Crossing the Bar.
The poem uses the metaphor of crossing a harbour bar for the journey through life and then into death, with hope of meeting God, referred to in the poem as the pilot.
There is a particularly poignant second verse as follows:
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out of the boundless sleep.
Turns again home.
Although the lifeboat disaster took place after the poem was written, the last two lines of this verse echo the uncertainty of the lifeboat men as whether to cross the bar or voyage east to Dartmouth.
The William and Emma approached the bar twice before deciding finally to turn again home in a final attempt.
In 2018 ‘Crossing the Bar’ was sung at the inauguration of the new B Class Salcombe lifeboat, the Gladys Hilda Mustoe.
PicoMicroYacht went back into the harbour, and I disembarked and packed up PicoMicroYacht, putting on the cover. I had left my handheld VHF in the boat, switched on, and eventually it started beeping as the battery ran down.
A lifeboat man, I think Paul Bennet‘’, heard the beep and went to investigate, switching it off. The following day he told me he investigated incase it was an activated personal Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRP). We chatted as he readied his Beneteau Yacht for sailing.
The lifeboat men and women always look out for you - it’s in their nature.
I really like being out at sea and listening to music, preferably with the volume up. The sea is one place you can listen to music surrounded by nature without tending to bother other people. To keep my music systems safe, I have put them in a waterproof box. This video shows the system I use (the video appears only if viewing on the web version).
Earlier this year, I left Bradwell on Sea, at the mouth of the Blackwater Estuary, to go to the River Colne entrance. But it was getting cold and dark and I returned early. Yesterday, I had another go.
Outer Blackwater Estuary. The PicoMicroYacht route is shown in black and the return route in red
By starting 3.5 hours after Dover High Tide, I knew I would have about 2.5 hours of fair tide to row the 7.5 miles. I could then return with a reversed flooding tide.
The flatlands of Essex made the sky more prominent and very quickly I felt enveloped between the sea and the sky.
Powered by a light easterly wind, a superyacht ghosted past me.
PicoMicoYacht arrived at the River Colne entrance on time, at 5.00 pm.
I then paused, drifting very slowly, with a slack tide and very little wind. It took ten minutes to make a quick meal using my Jetboil.
It was time to return. The setting sun lit up the clouds in the distance as I closed in on Bradwell on Sea.
I arrived just after 7.30 pm, the sun appearing over the marshes.
PicoMicroYacht recently visited the Medway Queen at Gillingham in the
Medway Estuary.
The Medway Queen moored in Gillingham
This is of the of the most iconic British paddle steamers to
be built in the 20th Century. At the bottom of this post is a short
video of her involvement in the second world war and also the link with my
great Uncle Commander Kenneth Greig.
The Medway Queen launched in 1924 and used as passenger
ferry when in 1940 it was commandeered for minesweeping operation as part of a
flotilla working off Dover. That year it also helped out with the evacuation of
British and French troops from Dunkirk. After the war it returned to being a ferry until 1963, and ended up being used for a night club at the Island marina on the Isle of
wight, being then rescued from a dilapidated state and now returned to the Medway estuary.
I feel connected to this boat because my Great Uncle,
Commander Kenneth Greig was in charge of the Dover mine sweeping flotilla that
that included the Medway Queen. He directed operations from a large paddle steamer,
the Sandown, an Isle of White passenger ferry. The flotilla consisted of these
two boats, together with PS Brighton Belle and PS Gracie Fields.
The Sandown, commanded by Kenneth Greig
My uncle took considerable risk clearing the Dover straight
of mines at a time when German Luftwaffe flew the short distance across the
English Channel to dive bomb the British shipping as they passed through. He was comforted by Sandown’s
lucky mascot, a dachshund dog called ‘Bombproof Bella’.
The Luftwaffe dive bombing British ships off Dover in 1940
On the Tuesday 28th May 1940, the situation in
Dunkirk was desperate and the flotilla was diverted to sail there to evacuate
troop. The Sandown was the first to reach Dunkirk and too about 200 troops. The
Brighton Belle was sunk by a mine, the Medway Queen on hand to pick up the 800
or so men as she slowly sank. The next day, Gracie Fields was sunk by the Luftwaffe (not by a mine as indicated in my video below) with
differing accounts, either that she sank slowly, her rudder damaged or that
took a direct hit and went down quickly.
The Medway Queen at war
The two ships left kept going. On 31st May the
Sandown rescued a boat with 250 troops, stranded on the Goodwin Sands. It then
went off to Bray, east of Dunkirk and was under shelling from Nieuwpoort and
with air attacks, which caused it to move position to throw off the range. Two
parachuted magnetic mines were dropped
close to her. Eventually, by midnight she moved off with 900 British troops.
A trip was made by the Medway Queen on Sunday 2nd
June. This trip was in the late evening and with their commander and crew exhausted, such that Commander
Greig went aboard and offered to take over to relieve the officers for the
night.
Initially this was flatly refused but a compromise was
reached in which Commander Greig’s party would take the ship across the channel
and then return the command for her to be taken in. She arrived alongside a Mole at 1.30 am and
took 723 French soldiers off by ladder, being shelled continuously, but to no effect.
Troops loading from the Mole
After this on the following day the Medway Queen made her 7th
and final trip, receiving French soldiers. As the troops embarked a shell hit a ship
astern which then crashed into the Medway Queen damaging her starboard paddle
box. She limped home, the end of her finest hour.
Just after Dunkirk, the commander of the Medway Queen was awarded the DSC and
Commander Greig the DSO.
In a previous post PicoMicroYacht rounded Dungeness. This is
the account of the end of my voyage and arriving at Rye Harbour at low tide.
As the sun was setting, I could just see the tripod that marked
the entrance.
On arrival my impression was that I would have had to wait another two
hours for clear water. But I was impatient to get in and I found a channel with
depth of about 0.3 metre leading up the harbour entrance.
I was then confronted with a shingle bank blocking my way.
Water was slopping over this bank in places, coming from the main channel in
the harbour.
Rather gingerly I tested the firmness of the bank. I
realised I could haul PicoMicroYacht across using my ‘bridle’ method, the weight of my body levering PicoMicroYacht forwards.
Just inside the harbour beyond the shingle bank
I was then able to row 1000 metres up the channel to the Rye Harbour Village.
With a little distance to
the slipway, the channel depth reduced to a few inches, with fast running water,
making it impossible to row.
I looked up and saw a group of people on the harbour wall who were chatting amiably, having a good time. One of them asked if I needed help, but I was a bit
reluctant to say yes, because it would mean them descending into the channel.
I got out of PicoMicroYacht and towed it forwards, stepping carefully over
a mixture of mud and shingle until I reached the slipway. On arrival PicoMicroYacht was at a critical 0.6 metres below
the slipway and stuck in the mud.
The group of people approached me again and asked if I
needed help, saying ‘we are from the RNLI - We are here to help.’
I was now relieved to get help. Using a long rope to maintain
social distancing we pulled PicoMicroYacht out - one large heave was all that
was needed.
I was really thankful for the kindness of the RNLI group - had they been waiting for me, thinking I might be in trouble, or were they just enjoying an evening stroll?
Waiting to rescue - from the Rye RNLI website - KT Bruce
Dungeness is a huge shingle spit, deposited for 400 years,
and reaching four miles deep. The spit encompasses exotic landscapes, with abundances
of flora and fauna.
Perched at the end of the spit are two nuclear power stations,
at a glance in an impossibly precarious position, but in reality protected by
the continuous formation of the spit.
The challenge for PicoMicroYacht was to voyage round Dungeness,
from Littlestone-on-Sea to Rye.
I had to consider the somewhat strange tides in this area
due to the fact that the watershed for the North Sea and English Channel pivots
around this region.
I had also been warned that it can be quite rough off the Dungeness
headland, so I chose to go in light winds and with a neap tide.
It was necessary to launch at around high tide at
Littlestone-on-Sea which covers a large expanse of sand and mud, stretching out to sea for about half a mile.
Launching at this time meant stemming the tide for the first
three hours of the voyage, in which PicoMicroYacht was rowed leisurely down to
the Dungeness headland.
On launching I saw a very large black seal.
I passed a crowded beach.
Further down, people were riding horses and bathing them in
the sea.
Fishing boats were pulled up on the shore.
The most recent Dungeness lighthouse, built in 1960, looks rather thin.
Rounding the tip of Dungeness, I could now see clearly the power stations..
I then spotted a commotion in the sea, which turned out to
be the outfall from one of the power stations. My chart states as follow: 'Water from these outfalls causes turbulence which may be hazardous to small craft. Give the area a wide berth.' But it was very calm and I went
inside, hugging close to the beach.
I dug in for a nine-mile row to Rye, taking about three hours, the
houses at Camber Sands appearing just before.
When I arrived at Rye it was low tide and a further challenge
was to get in the harbour, the subject of my next post.
It was PicoMicroYacht's first voyage after lock-down.
The UK
Government had published guidelines about recreational water sports as follows:
‘All
forms of water sports practised on open waterways, including sailing,
windsurfing, canoeing, rowing, kayaking, surfing, paddle-boarding and the use
of privately-owned motorised craft (in line with the guidance issued by the
relevant navigation authority) are allowed.’ The Government also allowed for travel to get to the relevant places for such sports.
Although
some common sense and caution was required, I realised this meant that I could
finally launch PicoMicroYacht. I decided to go to my sailing club, which had
provided guidelines for visiting the club. In addition, my own rules were: (1) Not going in the club house at all (2) Using disposable gloves when I
unlocked the gate to enter the club and gain access to the slipway. (3) Not to touch anything other than PicoMicroYacht (I broke this rule when I rescued a good piece of wood from a bonfire). I brought with me all food and drink and left nothing. When I arrived, I chatted briefly with
two other sailors, keeping a good distance. They seemed happy to be able to visit the club and do some work on their boats.
The
plan for PicoMicroYacht was to circumnavigate Hayling Island, part of the coastal waterways between Portsmouth and Chichester, areas of outstanding beauty.
Hayling Island is the rotated T-shaped island in the middle
The sea state was smooth or slight, and to start with there was no wind. There was a gentle neap tide and warm weather.
PicoMicroYacht
left the Chichester Harbour at about three and a half hours after high
tide. Normally I would not leave on the ebb, but the sea was calm.
The glassy sea by the entrance inspired confidence
As I headed out, I realised the harbour entrance was being patrolled by the harbour master, presumably checking that people were following the regulations.
The harbour master crew swept by in their rib
I
also cut a corner and headed west almost immediately outside the entrance, going across the West Pole Sands. Normally this would only be done at
high tide, if at all, because of the danger of breaking seas and grounding. I proceeded very cautiously.
Chart showing the West Pole Sands by the Chichester Harbour entrance
I then rowed clockwise west, close to the Hayling Island shore, watching people relaxing on the beach.
The wind started filling in from
the west. However, I was now shielded by a large sandbank outside Langstone
Harbour called the East Winner.
The East Winner shown to the right of the Langstone entrance
Looking south across the East Winner towards the Isle of Wight
I was able find a way across the sandbank, the depth being slightly greater closer to the shore.
Just a few inches to spare
An aerial photograph shows the passage inside the East Winner
I then entered Langstone Harbour, with the ebb tide now slackening. I moored up and napped for a while, and then headed up the harbour, the wind strengthening all the time. It was not long before I reached the channel that runs north of Hayling island.
The chart shows the channel separating Hayling Island from the mainland, the remains of a railway bridge to the left and a road bridge to the right
The first main feature was the dilapidated railway bridge, originally built in 1864.
As I got closer, the waves started to pile up and I had to be quite careful to aim though the gap, passing the large structure that supported the rotating bridge.
The water quickly calmed and I next passed under the road bridge, with six inches to spare for my mast.
It was nearly high tide and as the sun started to set as I turned south towards the Chichester Harbour Entrance, back to my sailing club. Including some detours, the total distance had been 19 miles, a pleasant and memorable voyage.
