Moondog has been in Deganwy Marina all winter , with a few day sails over the last couple of months, and now we are ready to start the 2011 trip. For those of you who are interested, the winter/ spring maintenance was :

 

The plan this summer was to go up to the Clyde in Scotland, then over to Northern Ireland and down the Irish coast to Kinsale, and then back to Deganwy in N Wales. As will be seen, this was quickly subject to change....

 

Our initial plan was to leave for Peel in the early hours of Sunday 22 May, but as we watched the forecast get progressively more scarey we brought the trip forward to late on the evening of the 19th. Jody, an old sailing course friend, joined me for this leg and he joined the boat around 2000 on the 19th.

 

The passage planning was interesting , particularly since we were on the peak spring tide, with HW at 0100 on the Friday. For a night time departure from the Conwy River we elected to leave one hour before HW, when the current in the river would have dropped. As well as minimising the adverse tide as we went to sea this also made the trip down the river safer in view of the number of moored boats to miss, and everything is a bit more relaxed when the tidal stream is not running at full speed and pushing you in all directions. Leaving at this time then gave us a good 6 hours of favourable stream up the coast of Anglesey and for the first part of the crossing between Anglesey and the Isle of Man. However, in an ideal world we would have preferred to leave earlier and take the hit on the adverse tide for a few hours at the start in order to make the South end of the Isle of Man ( Chicken Rock) just as the tide turned. In the circumstances we had to accept that we were going to be off Chicken Rock in a fairly strong adverse tide, and therefore planned a good clearance off the headland when setting our course. Memories of the old sailing courses as we worked out a course to steer from the N Coast of Anglesey to take advantage of the west flowing ebb.

 

After a short rest we slipped lines at midnight and out into the river and an uneventful trip out to sea. Plenty of use of the torch to pick out moored boats, and more importantly unoccupied bouys, but we missed them all. We did cheat a bit here, since I had recorded my track into the marina from seaward some time ago, and we were able to follow that on the plotter and therefore be fairly sure we were in the channel. I will certainly save similar tracks into all the places I am likely to go back to, as an aid for any future night time or bad weather passages......may as well use the gizmos once they are installed ! Of course, we could have just pressed 'auto, follow track' and gone and read a book, but my level of confidence in this stuff is way below that level.

 

It was a F4 from the SW as we approached the fairway bouy and called in to Holyhead Coastgaurd to advise of our passage. We set full main and the self tacker. We could have used the genoa, but the forecast was for increasing wind later and we wanted to be conservative at night. In any event we were soon making 6 kts in the water and 8 kts SOG with the tide, so were covering ground well. Once off Pt Lynas on the NE tip of Anglesey we turned westward a little on our computed / guessed course to steer, and were fortunate that the wind came round a bit to the SSW so we were still on a good reach. The wind picked up a little to F5 and we flew along at 6kts+ through the water, with a good westwards lift from the tide of around 2 kts, which was taking us where we wanted to go.

 

A reasonable amount of traffic going to and from Liverpool as we crossed the shipping lane just before it went into the Skerries TSS. The AIS worked fine and took most of the stress out of working out what was going on. We only had one small tanker that looked like it was going to be too close for comfort ( a fairly steady 900 yds CPA), and we began to feel we were in a game of chicken. We were under sail and therefore the stand on vessel, but I feel this is of little comfort after a collision, so a quick call to Trans Alina set our minds at rest that they had seen us. This is another advantage of AIS...the ability to identify another vessel and talk to them directly. Not something you want to be doing all the time, but I think it is sensible in these circumstances.

 

As soon as we started to see some grey light at around 0430 we started a brief watch system, with us each taking a couple of hours sleep in turn. Despite the fairly lumpy sea it was fine down below in the berth beneath the saloon. I have now learnt that the best way to use this on passage is to take a pile of huge cushions and store them in this cabin. Then all we do is basically make a nest down there and you can sleep without any rolling about and in some considerable comfort. Jody, on his first trip in a Sirius, gave this cabin full marks for the place to sleep....much better than the superficially luxurious aft cabins of most boats.

 

As we approached Chicken Rock life became interesting . The wind picked up to a good F6 and we were in a bit of a confused sea, with some wind against / across tide. After some debate Jody and I decided that we could legitimately classify this as 'rough' for the log ! The wind was also coming around more to the WSW which meant we were having to beat close to wind to gain a good clearance off the southern tip of the Island and Chicken Rock. We put one reef in the main, which reduced heel with no noticeable loss of speed, and we started the engine. Although purists would I am sure be horrified that we used the engine in a F6, I felt we needed to clear the headland as quickly as possible and we were going to be making significant leeway beating close to wind in what was now a very lumpy sea....we took Moondog's first breaking wave top into the cockpit, which was one way of having a wash in the morning. With the strong adverse tide it took us an hour to round the headland.....watching the lighthouse crawl past was a bit like watching paint dry, but then we were round and everything was peaceful and smooth. The wind fell and came round again to the SSW and it was a broad reach to Peel, with the engine to help towards the end to make our tidal gate.

 

The approach to Peel was pleasant, with a good view of the castle, and then we were soon on the pontoon in the very pleasant marina at around 1300, with the smoke of the kipper smokery wafting over us. We had done approx 72 miles in 13 hours , pontoon to pontoon, in some fairly heavy weather at times. Moondog had looked after us well on this first big trip of 2011, with no problems. However, the forecasts were getting progressively more alarming, with Storm 10 forecast for Monday and what looked like several fronts passing over the coming week. We therefore have had to abandon plans to keep going north to Scotland, and are leaving Moondog safely tucked up in Peel for a couple of weeks, in the hope that by early June we surely must be due some fair weather....All being well we will restart the cruise on 8 June with a trip over to Northern Ireland and then working our way down the Irish Coast to Kinsale....fingers crossed !

 

 

 

 

Moondog has been in Deganwy Marina all winter , with a few day sails over the last couple of months, and now we are ready to start the 2011 trip. For those of you who are interested, the winter/ spring maintenance was :

 

The plan this summer was to go up to the Clyde in Scotland, then over to Northern Ireland and down the Irish coast to Kinsale, and then back to Deganwy in N Wales. As will be seen, this was quickly subject to change....

 

Our initial plan was to leave for Peel in the early hours of Sunday 22 May, but as we watched the forecast get progressively more scarey we brought the trip forward to late on the evening of the 19th. Jody, an old sailing course friend, joined me for this leg and he joined the boat around 2000 on the 19th.

 

The passage planning was interesting , particularly since we were on the peak spring tide, with HW at 0100 on the Friday. For a night time departure from the Conwy River we elected to leave one hour before HW, when the current in the river would have dropped. As well as minimising the adverse tide as we went to sea this also made the trip down the river safer in view of the number of moored boats to miss, and everything is a bit more relaxed when the tidal stream is not running at full speed and pushing you in all directions. Leaving at this time then gave us a good 6 hours of favourable stream up the coast of Anglesey and for the first part of the crossing between Anglesey and the Isle of Man. However, in an ideal world we would have preferred to leave earlier and take the hit on the adverse tide for a few hours at the start in order to make the South end of the Isle of Man ( Chicken Rock) just as the tide turned. In the circumstances we had to accept that we were going to be off Chicken Rock in a fairly strong adverse tide, and therefore planned a good clearance off the headland when setting our course. Memories of the old sailing courses as we worked out a course to steer from the N Coast of Anglesey to take advantage of the west flowing ebb.

 

After a short rest we slipped lines at midnight and out into the river and an uneventful trip out to sea. Plenty of use of the torch to pick out moored boats, and more importantly unoccupied bouys, but we missed them all. We did cheat a bit here, since I had recorded my track into the marina from seaward some time ago, and we were able to follow that on the plotter and therefore be fairly sure we were in the channel. I will certainly save similar tracks into all the places I am likely to go back to, as an aid for any future night time or bad weather passages......may as well use the gizmos once they are installed ! Of course, we could have just pressed 'auto, follow track' and gone and read a book, but my level of confidence in this stuff is way below that level.

 

It was a F4 from the SW as we approached the fairway bouy and called in to Holyhead Coastgaurd to advise of our passage. We set full main and the self tacker. We could have used the genoa, but the forecast was for increasing wind later and we wanted to be conservative at night. In any event we were soon making 6 kts in the water and 8 kts SOG with the tide, so were covering ground well. Once off Pt Lynas on the NE tip of Anglesey we turned westward a little on our computed / guessed course to steer, and were fortunate that the wind came round a bit to the SSW so we were still on a good reach. The wind picked up a little to F5 and we flew along at 6kts+ through the water, with a good westwards lift from the tide of around 2 kts, which was taking us where we wanted to go.

 

A reasonable amount of traffic going to and from Liverpool as we crossed the shipping lane just before it went into the Skerries TSS. The AIS worked fine and took most of the stress out of working out what was going on. We only had one small tanker that looked like it was going to be too close for comfort ( a fairly steady 900 yds CPA), and we began to feel we were in a game of chicken. We were under sail and therefore the stand on vessel, but I feel this is of little comfort after a collision, so a quick call to Trans Alina set our minds at rest that they had seen us. This is another advantage of AIS...the ability to identify another vessel and talk to them directly. Not something you want to be doing all the time, but I think it is sensible in these circumstances.

 

As soon as we started to see some grey light at around 0430 we started a brief watch system, with us each taking a couple of hours sleep in turn. Despite the fairly lumpy sea it was fine down below in the berth beneath the saloon. I have now learnt that the best way to use this on passage is to take a pile of huge cushions and store them in this cabin. Then all we do is basically make a nest down there and you can sleep without any rolling about and in some considerable comfort. Jody, on his first trip in a Sirius, gave this cabin full marks for the place to sleep....much better than the superficially luxurious aft cabins of most boats.

 

As we approached Chicken Rock life became interesting . The wind picked up to a good F6 and we were in a bit of a confused sea, with some wind against / across tide. After some debate Jody and I decided that we could legitimately classify this as 'rough' for the log ! The wind was also coming around more to the WSW which meant we were having to beat close to wind to gain a good clearance off the southern tip of the Island and Chicken Rock. We put one reef in the main, which reduced heel with no noticeable loss of speed, and we started the engine. Although purists would I am sure be horrified that we used the engine in a F6, I felt we needed to clear the headland as quickly as possible and we were going to be making significant leeway beating close to wind in what was now a very lumpy sea....we took Moondog's first breaking wave top into the cockpit, which was one way of having a wash in the morning. With the strong adverse tide it took us an hour to round the headland.....watching the lighthouse crawl past was a bit like watching paint dry, but then we were round and everything was peaceful and smooth. The wind fell and came round again to the SSW and it was a broad reach to Peel, with the engine to help towards the end to make our tidal gate.

 

The approach to Peel was pleasant, with a good view of the castle, and then we were soon on the pontoon in the very pleasant marina at around 1300, with the smoke of the kipper smokery wafting over us. We had done approx 72 miles in 13 hours , pontoon to pontoon, in some fairly heavy weather at times. Moondog had looked after us well on this first big trip of 2011, with no problems. However, the forecasts were getting progressively more alarming, with Storm 10 forecast for Monday and what looked like several fronts passing over the coming week. We therefore have had to abandon plans to keep going north to Scotland, and are leaving Moondog safely tucked up in Peel for a couple of weeks, in the hope that by early June we surely must be due some fair weather....All being well we will restart the cruise on 8 June with a trip over to Northern Ireland and then working our way down the Irish Coast to Kinsale....fingers crossed !

 

 

 

 

Brian Whitefoot

 

Mob (44) 07721 849213