Seaweed, fog and a tour of the docks

Liz and Steve came down on Friday afternoon.  We ate aboard.  On Saturday we woke to the sound of foghorns.  We decided to do some sightseeing in Southampton: walked round the city walls, visited the Andy Warhol exhibition at the City Gallery and then strolled back through the parks.  By late afternoon the fog had cleared so we decided to take a trip on Toucando so that Steve and Liz could practise handling her under power.  We went down the Itchen and then went round the docks.  The engine seemed to be beginning to overheat... there is a lot of floating seaweed about at the moment, and the cooling water inlet may have been blocked for a while.  We checked and cleared the strainer and decided to give the engine a rest.  So we enjoyed a gentle sail back, getting right up the river.  We could probably have sailed onto the mooring, but decided to use the engine, and made a safe arrival.
On Sunday we were joined by Fiona, Jon, Lucia and Pandie... two racers, a day skipper and a novice (but not in that order).  We set off down the river again raising the sails at the earliest opportunity.  Toucando does not  usually tow her tender, but on this occasion she did... I suppose skipper was thinking about strategies for dealing with engine failure.  However he did not make a very good job of tying the painter, and it was Jon who spotted that the tender had come adrift neat Weston Shelf.  Anyhow, that was a good opportunity to practise man overboard procedures, as we turned round for the recovery.  Once tied on again with a good knot, we tacked down Southampton Water in bright, hot sunshine.  It was Pandie who pointed out the grey fog bank sitting on the Solent which was beginning to roll towards us.  The temperature dropped and there was the beginning of a cold clammy wetness in the air.  We kept on practising our manouevres, before we decided it was time for a gybe and a return to Southampton rather than relentlessly sailing into the fog.  We did a "training run" all the way up the docks, past Marchwood, to Millbrook and the container port, executing each gybe perfectly.  Another boat was so impressed they threw us a bottle of beer.  And we managed to stay in the sun the whole way.  There were some monsters of container ships, liners and car carriers moving around, and we enjoyed safely navigating around them, before turning and going back up the Itchen.  It was six hours of sailing in one of the most crowded waterways in the world... which we all enjoyed.  Thanks again to a fantastic crew.

Steve, Lucia, Jon and Andrew heading down the Itchen

 Lucia and Pandie

 Pandie keeping a weather eye for fog banks

 Most of the crew

 An artistic shot of the sails

(All pictures courtesy of Fiona)

More detail

Here is a more detailed update… Steve (Gravells) and Andy (Peter) joined Toucando on Saturday afternoon (16/04/11).  We benefitted from some further briefing and discussion with David and familiarised ourselves with the boat.

David Hopkins and Barry O'Loughlin - the builders of Toucando

On Sunday we set off at 0945, with David and Barry escorting us out by motor boat.  As soon as we rounded Howth Head we ran into fog, which rather limited the opportunity for Barry to take pictures.  We crossed Dublin bay and worked towards Arklow inside the banks which lie a few miles off the east coast of Ireland.  The whole day alternated between fog and haze.  We got some good views of the coast when the fog cleared.

The genius of electronic navigation brought us to Arklow, where we moored in the dock alongside Windcat… a big motor catamaran whose job is to service the wind farm on the Arklow bank. We had travelled 33 miles through the water… with about another seven thanks to the tide.  Arklow is very much a working port.  In the dock we were surrounded by fishing boats and other commercial vessels.

In the morning the Windcat people arrived at about eight, shared a weather forecast and chatted.  We set off at 0945 towards Cornwall.  We knew it would be a passage of about 36 hours. We wanted to take advantage of the good weather for our crossing of the Irish Sea.  Apart from a small coaster just after leaving Arklow we saw no shipping, large or small for many hours.  Night fell and we saw The Smalls lighthouse on Skokholm off the SW tip of Wales some 25 miles on our port side.  We continued through the night across the Bristol Channel, with very little to report, only passing a couple of ships.

On the morning of Tuesday 19^th we were able to get the sails up, turn off the engine and sail down to Land’s End.  Visibility at sea was good, but the land itself was obscured by haze until we were a few miles off.  We had a good view of Cape Cornwall, Longships lighthouse and Land’s End itself.  The sea was pretty flat, as it had been for our whole crossing of the Irish Sea and Bristol Channel.  Winds were light easterlies.

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Longships Lighthouse, with Land's End behind

From Land’s End were were using the engine again as we piloted our way to Newlyn Harbour.  The passage from Arklow had been 184 miles. 

Newlyn is a fishing port, and a pretty busy one.  Fishing boats large and small dominate, arriving and departing at all hours.  We were able to find a berth with access to electricity and water.  A helpful harbour master took £18 off us and gave us all the information we needed.

In the morning (20/04/11) we re-provisioned, and secured some fuel for the next leg.  We had decided to do a shorter passage to Falmouth.  Light easterlies meant there was no alternative to motor again, on a flat sea in sunny weather.  The highlight of the morning was when a pod of about 30 dolphins joined us for half an hour west of the Lizard.  They swam at the bows of the boat, leaping out of the water apparently having a very good time. We enjoyed a lunch of mackerel (bought from Trelawney’s Fish shop in Newlyn).  We rounded Lizard Point, crossed a patch of turbulent water and headed up to Falmouth.  We found a berth, but there didn’t seem to be anybody around to collect mooring fees J.  We had a couple of pints ashore at the outside tables at the Chain Locker before eating on board.  The passage from Newlyn had clocked up another 42.2 miles.