Out of Lockdown 27

 

The Dragon fleet are away, on a reaching start. It is the only one possible, with today's southerly breeze. Their spinnakers are ablaze in the sunlight, cracking like gunfire, as they fill. Bow waves foam and sparkle.

They line up, on the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club line, in a black squall. Passing the site of the Petticrows yard, in which they were built . Now the Petticrows Court maisonette complex . With the historic boat builders relocated to Cascais, in the Portuguese sun.

Pencil slim, low freeboard and long graceful overhangs . A timeless hull form, on which today's Spirit yachts (which we saw under construction in Ipswich) are modelled

The Dragon fleet dice and jockey for position, as gusts roll off the river banks. One of the Blaze fleet is already out (bottom left). Every inch the modern racing skiff: monofilm sails, blunt ends and hiking racks. The lone helm sheets in, heads up a touch, leans back in the toe straps, climbs onto the plane and effortlessly overtakes the Dragons, to leeward . Ancient and modern . Compare and contrast.

Ashore, the main Blaze fleet prepare for their start . Rigging up. Checking the course . Pre race banter ricochets back and forth . Nervous laughter. The tension mounts, as the first warning gun sounds.

Some prefer to chill. Confident in their boat preparation . . . .and of reaching the start in time.

Some prowl the line . Searching for wind bias. Watching for race signals. Monitoring the countdown by wrist-worn stopwatch.

One by one, the fleet assembles for the Sunday race.

Back at the marina, a different type of Sunday atmosphere pervades. Folk are down for the weekend. The sunshine encourages lingering pontoon conversations : plans for the season, "I like your boat," the best local anchorages, tidal timing tricks, "I remember once when. . . . ." Boat talk, anywhere . Acquaintances made or renewed.

The forecast tells of a week of westerly winds, starting tomorrow.

Out of Lockdown 26

 

On a soft (in the Irish vernacular) Saturday morning, a gig crew gathers, on the Royal Burnham Yacht Club Jetty. Dressed for a day at the oars.

The flood tide is sluicing by. (See the rip, past the mooring buoy). They hang, for a precarious moment, suspended between success and ignominy, as they slip their lines. Whilst the crew seek to find a rowing rhythm, the tide seizes the bow of the gig and propels them, diagonally, stern on, down the jetty. "Pull together, on the count," calmly intones the cox. The gig gathers way, enough for the rudder to bite, and turns - travelling easily now, with the stream, parallel to the shore.

They shoot along, inside the rows of moored Royal Burnham One Designs. Seeking a gap. Then spin, cross current, bend to their sweeps and ferry glide out, into the river. Working the power of the tide.

Stargazer (marked by the fifty pence piece) too must work the tides, for the homebound leg of our shakedown cruise. Our plan is to ride the Crouch ebb, out to the Whitaker beacon (twenty pence piece). It marks the end of the sandbanks (green), which extend ten nautical miles beyond the visible shoreline (yellow), of the river channel. There to pick up the first of the southbound tide, the Sheerness flood. That will carry us southwest, between the Maplin and Barrow sands; across the Thames shipping channels; into the Medway and on home, up to Chatham (marked by the one pound coin).

Because we will be sailing first north east and then southwest, we would prefer the wind to be out of a direction other than the southwest, which it was on arrival, or the northeast, which it has been since. To enable our tidal strategy to work, we also need to average better than five, preferably closer to six, knots. A breeze of between twelve to eighteen knots, out of the east or west, would therefore suit our purpose to perfection. Such a breeze is forecast to fill in, either tomorrow or on Monday.

Out of Lockdown 25

 

A snowy white Egret, breeding season head plumes trailing, keeps pace with me, wading in the river, as I walk along the top of the dyke . A flash of brightness on a day of muted tones.

A perfect walking day. Cool and dry. Below me, to my right, a drainage channel winds off inland, across low-set fields . Bordered by luxuriantly thicketed banks.

To my left, runs the Crouch. On it a boat works her way upriver, riding the flood tide. Sniffing out the scant breeze, between serpentine banks.

I cut across the fields at Creeksea. Diverted inland, behind, what looks like, the preparations for a rural river front housing development.

The Saltmarsh Coast Trail winds on, along the top of the dyke, until it reaches the melting pot of Althorne Creek . This combines a branch line station for London; desirable modern houses, built in an Elizabethan, half timbered style; Off grid cabin homes, haloed with the scented smoke of their wood burning stoves; a DIY boat yard, for the more mature leisure craft; and the diminutive Bridgemarsh Marina, nestling amid the high mud banks of the creek.

The wheelhouse, of a long decommissioned coaster, serves as a characterful Harbour Office. Whilst the Welsh Dragon flies proudly from the forestay of a, formerly ocean going, yacht, now beached in a mud berth and serving duty as a houseboat.

Shallow draft boats line the pontoons, suggesting a restricted depth . I spot bilge keeled Hunters, of both the American and UK varieties. (The UK type were originally built very close to here, in Rochford, at the head of the River Roach, which feeds into the Crouch just below Burnham). There is a lift keel Southerly too and, of course, plenty of, inherently shallow draft, power craft. These are the border lands to the notorious Dengie marsh. The gats and swatchways, after which, the Essex inshore cruising pioneer, Charles Stock, named his home built, sixteen foot, gaff rigged cutter  Shoal Waters

Out of Lockdown 24

 

I am glad to have gone ashore for a recce, on arrival, yesterday afternoon. A stroll into Burnham, to see the lie of the land, in the evening sunshine.

Today drizzle intensifies to rain. Large drops splash softly down, around Stargazer, raising whorls and transient liquid craters. I count myself fortunate, to have timed my provisioning sortie for the drizzle phase. I am back aboard by the time the continual rain sets in.

Dream Catcher (sister ship pictured) text from Brixham. They are fellow Chatham berth holders and set out two weeks after Stargazer. I tell them that I have heard, from Tanya on the Orwell, that the Channel Islands are relaxing entry restrictions, to UK residents, at the end of May. Excitement builds for a St Peter Port rendezvous. 

We start checking websites for official verification, of a change in entry requirements. It turns out that I was half right . Jersey is opening up, subject only to a clear PCR test, for Brits . Guernsey, however, is not. Even Jersey dwellers, wishing to visit, must still serve out a quarantine. An evolving picture.

As is the weather for the next few days. Rain, we can take or leave, that is what foul weather gear is for. Wind, preferably in a favourable direction and of a suitable strength, Stargazer does need. We will be heading south west, once we leave the Crouch. One elusive day of westerly wind (which would give us a reach) shows in most forecasts. But the day, on which it falls, is the subject of disagreement.

Out of Lockdown 23

 

Dawn casts its golden glow over the Harwich skyline, as Stargazer puts to sea.

Despite the early hour (05.00), the skipper of the Trident Voyager 30 'Tanya' (pictured above - earlier), helps us on our way. Yesterday we had discussed techniques, for safely exiting our berths solo, given the beam wind, a lack of  midship cleats and the large powerboat astern. We could not identify one. Instead, this kind offer of help was generously made and gratefully accepted.

Incident free exit achieved, I drop two reefs into Stargazer's main and settle down to watch the sunrise. In the shelter of the river we make stately progress in fourteen knots of breeze. The low sun paints the water a rich deep blue, as we sight the cranes of Felixstowe.

Clear of Landguard Point, the breeze pipes up to twenty knots . Stargazer puts her shoulder down and goes, ploughing a straight white furrow across the cobalt waves.

It is low water springs, as we beat through the Medusa Channel, toward Walton on the Naze . Least depth under our keel, one point four metres. Speed over the ground, seven knots. The frisson, which that combination brings, is the price we pay for carrying a fair tide out of the Orwell and picking up six hours of southbound tide at the Naze.

Our fair tide propels us on our way, down the Wallet and through the Spitway. Raising our speed over the ground and the apparent wind with it. On Stargazer beats, through the morning. In twenty two knots of breeze now. Truly glorious sailing.

We ride the flood up the river Crouch. Still beating. The funneling effect, of the river, bending the breeze, allowing us to follow the twists in the channel without tacking. Up past the red brick frontage of Burnham on Crouch, Stargazer sails.

Into the shelter of the harbour. To rest awhile beneath its high grassy banks.

Out of Lockdown 22

 

 A Shrimper slips off her berth, her reflected doppelganger following obediently beneath. The water surface is mercury smooth.

 On a carefree, 'Wind in the Willows,' summer's day, they are heeding the Water Rat's advice to Mole: "There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." 

The wind has fallen silent, exhausted by the extremes of its exertions, over the past few days. What zephyrs there are, carry the heat of the southern latitudes, from whence they came.

A Great Crested Grebe suns itself, between cooling dives for food.

The shoreline is still. Silent, save for the scrunch of shingle beneath my sandals, and birdsong in the trees.

A passage making force four or five, from the southwest, is forecast for tomorrow. And the tides are fair for the Essex shore. . . .

Out of Lockdown 21

 

As Oystercatcher perches, motionless, on a weathered post, in Levington Creek . Watching the tide rise, with red gimlet eyes.

Black billed Brent Geese cruise the margins of the submerging sedge.

A pair of Shellduck are on patrol too. One by land. One by water.

Speckled, long limbed and lithe, a Redshank stands in the shallows . Staring into the sediment rich waters, in search of a snack.

A stout Greylag Goose wades ashore, after a swim.

Beyond the shelter of the creek, a spirited southerly wind blows. Twenty five to thirty knots. It sends white horses leaping over the sheltering spit, at the entrance.

Out in the river, windsurfers sport . Scything their boards through fully planing carve gybes, in a welter of spray. 'Shredding.'

I shelter in a leafy lane, shared with a songsmith Blackbird. (Bottom right)

It leads me up to Levington Village. . . .

. . . .and on to the Ship Inn. Its, neatly thatched, roof casting shadows on its, freshly painted, walls, in the lunchtime sun.