To Grimsby

Moondog
Brian Whitefoot
Tue 3 Jul 2012 13:58

Today was to be the day we moved ‘to the North’, with a 50 mile trip up to Grimsby ( 53:37.9N, 000:11.5W). This was a trip across some of the shallows of the Wash, but we could plot a more or less straight line, given the fairly light winds, which meant that we should have no problem with rough water over some of the shallower sections. When you go such a direct route it is perhaps surprising that Grimsby is only 50 miles from the gentrified world of Wells Next the Sea.

Tides were , as always in this part of the world critical. We needed to be near high tide to get out of Wells at all, reversing our winding track of yesterday, and allowing for the strong ebb current. Once out, we wanted to maximise the good north flowing tide to push us along, and since we were on ‘spring tides’ we had as much as 2.5 knots help from the good tides. Since our speed through the water is around 5.5 kts, if you get it right that is boosted to almost 8 kts over ground, but get it wrong and you are down to 3 kts....a big delta in consultant speak. Looked at another way, a trip could be 6 hours if judged correctly, and 12 hours if you got it completely wrong.

There was a further helpful twist on this leg, since by the time the tide turned to a south flowing stream we should be near the Humber and this stream curves into the Humber, thus continuing to push us down the river to Grimsby. All in all, it was worthwhile getting up at 6am and slipping lines from the good old Albatross at 0715, in very grey and damp conditions, which did not improve much at all during the day. We had a steady F3 from the south for most of the trip and used the engine for the first few hours to keep our boat speed through the water to 5.5kts. By 1100 it was clear that the tide was working out as planned, and we were at risk of getting to Grimsby too early to access its sea lock, so we had a good few hours under sail, cruising gently with the wind astern. By this time we were out of sight of all land, since the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts are so flat they disappear from view very quickly.

The trip was uneventful and we were soon following the small boat track into the Humber, avoiding the shipping lanes and big ships. We passed a tanker offloading into a pipeline buoy, and then just aimed for the famous Grimsby Harbour tower through the murk. Having been cleared to enter the fish dock ( in which the  Humber Cruising Association marina is situated ) the inevitable happened, with several big ships deciding to leave the adjacent dock and cross our path. I was glad of those hours learning the sound signals for changing course , as a large car carrier exited the dock and turned to starboard in front of us, having given a single blast on its horn, so we were not caught too much by surprise.  This was repeated three times, as a little convoy came out, but we finally got in and were soon moored up by the HCA clubhouse, in the grey and rain.

The HCA members were very welcoming and their bar was soon open...perfect. However, all that can be said of Grimsby from our perspective at one end of the fish dock, on a grey wet day, was that it was not overflowing with architectural merit ( and Jon is an architect , so he should know). The only exception was the aforementioned tower, and that kept disappearing in the mist.  We went to bed with some concern that we could be here for some time, in view of a bad forecast of fog and rain for tomorrow.



--
 

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image