Studland Bay
The Voyages of Richard and Amanda
Sat 17 Jul 2010 19:30
POS: 50:38.77N 001:56.30W
Despite some reservations about whether the wind
would die down overnight the forecast for Saturday was good to cross Lyme Bay,
so the alarm was set for 4.30am for a 5.00am start. The early start was to
enable us to hit the tidal gate at Portland Bill where we needed to
arrive at the latest by 1.00pm otherwise the tide would be against
us.
Neither of us got a very good night. I wake a few
times in the night believing the alarm is just about to go off and can't
get back to sleep, Amanda was a bit stressed about the thought of the long
crossing (about 65 miles altogether); so when the alarm finally went off we were
both a bit tired. Still a cup of tea for Amanda and strong coffee for me soon
got us going. For once the weather looked good with plenty of clear skies, even
if it was too early to say if they would be blue. We slipped the
mooring and motored out coiling up ropes and stowing all the fenders. Once out
in the bay we found the wind was coming from dead astern and not really very
strong, so, as we needed to keep an average of 5knots to get to Portland Bill by
1pm we needed to motor sail to start.
We eventually motored till about 11am when a
combination of a slight change in wind direction, increase in wind and tide with
us meant we could dispense with the engine and let the sails take over.
We eventually arrived at Portland Bill almost exactly at 1pm with about 3
knots of tide with us carrying us along at 8 knots past this major landmark on
our way home. We made sure we were 5 miles off shore at this point to keep out
of the 'infamous race', after my last lot of overfalls, going throught the
notorious one off Portland wouldn't have gone down well.
We carried this fair tide for the next 20 miles to
Anvil Point covering the distance in 3 hours. By this time we were just using
the genoa because the wind was coming from astern blowing at about 20-24 knots
(F5). Just using the genoa makes the steering easier and stops sails flapping
around as the mainsail is not blanketing the genoa. The autopilot was handling
these conditions very well which I was pleased about as usually downwind in a
strong wind is the hardest to cope with.
From Anvil Point to Old Harry's Rocks things took a
turn for the worse. The wind was still blowing at F5, but now the tide turned so
that it was flowing directly against the wind. This throws up steep choppy
seas that break at the top. This was keeping me on my toes making sure that the
stern of Justine Gabrielle was kept at right angles to the waves, and Amanda was
kept busy praying for it to end and holding on for grim death. It wasn't as
turbulent as the overfalls off Start Point but the waves were steeper. As each
wave went passed you were looking over the bows at what looked like a sheer
edge, with the certainty that the boat would just fall into the hole. It never
did of course, the wave just flowed passed and J G got ready for the next
one.
Eventually after three miles we were able to turn
to port to the relative security of Studland Bay, where although the wind
whistles through the anchorage the sea is relatively flat. On the second
attempt we managed to lay the anchor with a reasonable certainty that we
weren't dragging and so at last we're able to relax (a bit). Now we have
returned to Studland we are really beginning to think we are nearly home, we can
see the Isle of Wight for the first time in 2 months. Now we just have to come
to terms with the fact that the adventure is
nearly over.
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