Monday 14 May
Tuesday 15 May
Wednesday 16 May
Thursday 17 May
Friday 18 May
Saturday 19 May
Sunday 20 May
Chatham to Harwich
Harwich
Harwich
Harwich to Lowestoft Haven Marina
Lowestoft Haven Marina to Beccles Yacht Station
Beccles Yacht Station
Beccles Yacht Station to Berney Arms
returns to top of this page
The morning marine-call forecast for Southend and Clacton indicated sea state smooth or slight, apart from a short period of moderate at Clacton which should be over before our scheduled arrival. Inshore forecast looked OK too. So we decided to set off. The trip up the Medway was so much smoother than the journey in on Saturday.
At the Medway entrance we turned North and headed across the Thames estuary to the other side before turning East along by Shoeburyness. And then out of the blue the engine spluttered and stopped. My first reaction was bad fuel stirred up by the previous day's buffeting and therefore a blocked filter. As a precaution, I called Thames Coastguard to inform them of our predicament and what I was going to do. They asked me to keep them informed. We deployed the anchor to avoid drifting into Shoeburyness beacon and I set to work changing the two fuel filters and bleeding the air out of the system. Interestingly the filters did not look dirty.
Perhaps I should have suspected something else. But anyway, the engine started fine so I figured that I had got to the root cause. Just as I got the engine started a police launch pulled alongside and asked if we needed any more assistance which I declined. They were very friendly and helpful. We were updated on the weather and decided to alter our next port of call to Brightlingsea.
We set off again and headed on through the Swin Spitway and the Wallet. A phone call to Brightlingsea established that at our planned arrival time there would be hardly enough water for us to get into the harbour - it was all a bit marginal and would involve over an hour with a following sea which was becoming more choppy. Maureen wasn't feeling at all well either, as we had been inside almost all the way because of rain. So the skipper decided to press on to Harwich which would be straight into the wind and avoid the horrible corkscrewing motion.
Everything was fine until we were just off Walton on the Naze pier when the engine stopped again. Now I was fairly sure that it was something more fundamental but as it was getting late I dropped the anchor, and called Thames Coastguard and asked for assistance. They were so reassuring. And it was helped by the fact that we were stopped right outside their "office window" - they could see us a mile off shore bobbing around.
They called us to tell us that Walton Lifeboat had been paged and within 15 minutes we could see the lifeboat heading towards us at great speed - what a sight! Radio contact was quickly established and I eagerly accepted the offer to put a crew man onto Starry Night, which was accomplished with admirable expertise. It was so reassuring to have Kevin on board, who knew exactly what to do. I can't imagine refusing the offer!
A tow line was quickly attached, anchor raised and we were off, at 9.85 knots through the water - the fastest Starry Night has ever been!! It was over an hour to Harwich, where they wanted to take us anyway. On arrival at Shotley Point Marina, the long tow line was shortened and we were expertly pulled into the lock.
There were numerous Coast Guard people on hand, who had come over from the local college where they are trained. Lines were put on board from all directions to slow us down and manoeuvre us into position. As soon as we were tied up in the Marina, the Lifeboat was sent on its way with our grateful thanks (donation to follow) and the CG folk took over. Once it was established that we were already registered on the CG66 scheme, there was very little that they wanted to know, other than details of what had actually happened for the record.
So now we are an RNLI statistic for all the wrong reasons. Tomorrow we will get an engineer to look at the engine and try to establish what is going on and to put it right.
A grueling day.
Isle of Grain
Walton on the Naze Lifeboat (WotN in background)
Putting an RNLI crewman onto Starry Night
The tow to Harwich - Felixtowe container port in background
The short tow line for the last leg into the Marina
I am sitting here writing this with Starry Night tethered to the pontoon with her engine running and in gear to make the engine do some work. It has been running for about 3.5 hours. The engineer agreed that the filters were fine, and he found a couple of loose fuel pipe connections on the suction line that had been disturbed about 18 months ago when I had a new quick change fuel filter fitted to improve safety at sea! They had clearly vibrated loose and were probably letting a small amount of air into the fuel line, which is bad bad news for an engine like ours which does not self bleed.
But after the fixes were done the engineer had a hard job to get her to start again, and there is a small element of doubt as to whether the problem is fixed. Hence sitting here with the engine running.
The weather is not looking good for the passage up to Lowestoft, and in any case we want to do our next run somewhere much safer, like up the Orwell to Ipswich, to do "sea trials". So we will probably miss the current tidal window to run the ebb from Harwich to Lowestoft, and have to wait till later next week now. So this means a major reshuffle in plans.
We ran the engine yesterday for almost eight hours without any hitches. At 1000rpm the fuel used was only a fraction of what we would normally consume cruising at 2000rpm for the same time; the validity of the test was therefore somewhat limited. So today we did some sea trials in sheltered waters. First we headed up the river Orewell to the Ipswich Docks. As we passed the various marinas we could see the hive of activity caused by the arrival of the participants in the North Sea race from Blankenburg. Apparently there were 80 sailing boats taking part, mostly Dutch and Belgian but we saw a few British boats too.
As we passed by Harwich on the return leg prior to a sortie up the Stour, we saw the Harwich lifeboat towing a Dutch sailing boat in from the sea. We had seen the lifeboat racing out as we had set off on our test run. We had a lot of sympathy for their situation.
By the time we got back into the Marina at Shotley Point we had added over four hours of running at cruising rpm and felt much happier about the idea of going back out to sea.
Where the Orewell meets the Stour
The forecast yesterday suggested that Friday would be the best day for the trip to Lowestoft and we had planned to go into Ipswich today. But changeable weather means what it says. This morning's forecast for the day was now ideal with a sea state of smooth to slight, winds force 2 or 3 and reasonable visibility. So we decided to go there and then. A passage plan was quickly prepared which would see us in Lowestoft around 17:00 and low water which would enable us to pass under the road bridge without having to wait for a lift.
The passage itself was thankfully uneventful. We had the odd rain shower that drove us inside for about an hour all told, but the forecast held true and the decks hardly got wet. We encountered the normal forest of lobster pot markers near the entrance to the Deben, complete with fishing boat administering unto the pots. After that we didn't see another boat until in the vicinity of Lowestoft. The tidal streams were running very strongly and we made better time than expected, getting a boost of three knots for quite a time. So we arrived at Lowestoft about 45mins early and were tied up in our berth before 17:00.
Lifting out lifeboats at Lowestoft Haven marina
Our transit through Mutford bridges and lock was booked for 13:30 and we were moored alongside at the Oulton Broad Yacht Station by 14:00 having coughed up the £8:00 locking fee (which seems so excessive after Holland). Then we had to part with more dosh at the harbour master's office for a two week license for the Broads - £73:00. After that we nipped round to the local store for milk and basics.
Back to the boat and then a very pleasant cruise of a couple of hours to Beccles in sunshine.
Waiting our turn at Mutford lock squeezed between the road bridge and the lock gates.
In the afternoon we decided to follow a walk strongly recommended in the Broadcaster (the Broads official tourist newspaper). It was a 4.5 mile walk along the river and back across the marshes to near where we were moored. We took the map from the newspaper with us so we wouldn't get lost.
Everything went fine until we got to the point two thirds of the way round where the path was supposed to diverge from the river. If it was there at all it was completely blocked by fallen trees, undergrowth and stinging nettles. We had no choice but to retrace our steps and ended up doing a six mile out and back which was not what we had intended.
But it was a lovely afternoon with blue sky and fluffy white clouds so it didn't matter too much. I also managed to use up the roll of black and white film that had been sitting in the camera, to make way for a fresh B/W film and some serious photographic activity.
Haven't yet decided if I should practice my Victor M imitation tomorrow at the tourist information office, the source of the newspaper and map!
Our mooring at Beccles Yacht Station
View from Starry Night - Beccles
We made a leisurely departure from Beccles Yacht Station and negotiated the Somerleyton railway swing bridge without any fuss (unlike our last visit), perhaps because we were in a convoy with a much bigger boat visible for miles and with a very tall mast! After lunch we had a tipple in the Berney Arms pub only accessible by boat or train. Being off season and the wrong tides (as the landlord put it) there were hardly any boaters, and we never saw a train stop at the station. We then went for a walk out into the Berney Marshes nature reserve which was very pretty. By the time we got back to the boat there was a strong ebb tidal flow running and a lot of dirty, foaming, floating debris had piled up against Starry Night's transom which took some shifting. Every so often there is a resonant thud as pieces of flotsam (or jetsam?) washed down the river strike the hull.
Overall today we have seen lots of different birds - marsh harriers, egrets, oyster catchers, lapwings, red shanks, reed warblers, avocets, and numerous unidentifiable species.
The railway swing bridge at Somerleyton
Copyright © 2006-2009 Mike Hawkridge