As the bell sounded to indicate the bridge swinging and the lock opening three other boats accompanied us to the lock, as we took up our place on the unfashionable port side Chris the yard owner came over for a chat with us, he wished us well and we thanked him for all his help.
As the lock gates opened we headed out into the river in a convoy of three, Sandbanks leading followed by Criss Cross, these two both turned of at the junction with the river Douglas as they were doing a very small trip to Hesketh Bank, the final boat remained in the lock obviously being craned out into the boatyard.
Three hours or so saw us out at Gut buoy,
and raising sail, we could just lay a course for Anglesey close hauled an port tack. We continued for a glorious few hours under full sail doing 4-5 knots in the light winds. Lynne made egg and bacon butties for lunch and a
L was well with the world we were on schedule for tea time in the Menai straights. However it was not to be.
Around three o'clock as we approached the traffic separation scheme near the Hamilton gas field a very dark cloud was gathering on the horizon, I said to Lynne that looks like a lot of wind, and within minutes the wind had increased considerably and was now coming from directly ahead, we rolled away the Genoa and this was quickly followed by the mainsail as it was just flogging uselessly.
We started the engine and almost immediately the sea began to get very rough, this is a characteristic of the Irish Sea and is very unpleasant!
Our speed was being reduced as the wind increased and we were reduced to barely three knots as a large container ship appeared on the horizon, our AIS was indicating a CPA ( closest point of approach) of a half mile so I asked Lyne to call him up on the VHF and advise, he said that he could see us under engine and to maintain our course and speed. This we did and not for the first time I was thankful for that marvellous box of tricks the AIS transceiver.
However this wasn't the end of our problems as we seemingly crawled past the Hamilton wind farms the tide had turned against us killing our speed geven more and I had to increase the engine revs to 2000 to get back to 3 knots over the ground, our indicated water speed was nearer 6 knots. Time was now against us it was simply taking too long against the increasing wind and tide so I began to consider alternatives, that didn't take long we didn't have any, Liverpool was a possibility or even a ten hour run to the Isle of Man but there were no other ports of refuge on the North Wales coast. The nearest was Conway which at our present speed would take us 5 or 6 hours to reach. So I decided to stick to our course and head for Conway at the first opportunity.
The wind now increased to force 7 and was refusing to veer to the north west which would have allowed us to raise a small amount of sail and make better progress. Sailing yachts carry engines as auxiliary propulsion and they are not really supposed to push the yacht to windward in a gale let alone against the tide as well however Dark Tarn was making very slow progress I raised the revs to the maximum And hoped the engine wouldn't overheat or sieze. It slogged on for hour after hour, the autopilot couldn't cope with the conditions so I took over the helm, at least I could try and anticipate the by now huge waves which were crashing the length of the boats deck and back to the cockpit soaking me through, I had put on my oilskin jacket but not the trousers. The wind increased again as we approached Great Orme it was now gusting force 8 and our speed was dropping below 1 knot at times as the waves slammed into us and killed all our forward progress, we still had a couple of knots of tide against us and the general situation was grim. Lynne also reported that the forehatch was leaking and everything in the force in was getting wet. That problem was going to have to wIt but Lynne did her best to sort things out and salvage stuff from the cascade of drips from the leaky seal. Amazingly she also managed to keep me supplied with hot coffee. As it got dark after nine o'clock we managed to crawl past the Orme and had about 5 miles to go to the Fairway buoy marking the entrance to the narrow channel to Conway. I couldn't see it anywhere, Lynne thought she could see it as we got closer but I think she was mistaking headlights in the coast road tunnels for the blinking white light.
We have a plotter that I can swing out and lock in the companionway so with Lynne below looking out of the windows of the doghouse I could manoeuvre the boat so as to close on the buoy marked on the chart. As the icon marking the boat and the buoy closed together I turned sharply to port and the Bouy flew past on our port side, it was not lit however I could spot the port and starboard channel markers of the channel and with the wind now behind us we flew at great speed towards the flickering lights. I reduced the revs on the engine to attempt to slow our speed, no point running full tilt into a hard sandbank at this stage! The channel wasn't particularly well marked and as I have never gone into Conway let alone on a pitch black night in a rising gale. There seemed to be a few markers missing but Lynne was talking to the Marina on the VHF and the end seemed to be in sight. I now realised just how cold and tired I was, I had been constantly on the helm for 9 hours. As the marina came into sight, ( the entrance is very difficult to make out ) we carefully crept in and discovered fairly quickly the berth we had been allocated wouldn't fit our dinghy let alone us and as we reversed back out towards the entrance there is a current that was forcing us onto the breakwater, this night had become the stuff of nightmares!
We were allocated a new berth by VHF and had now to find " Foxtrot 17" this proved again quite difficult Conway Marina was very tight and obviously the wind wasn't helping. I found the F row and manoeuvred Dark Tarn into the first free berth I could find which turned out to be " Foxtrot 10"
Sorry Marina guy, sue me!
Lynne and I tidied up and I quickly got out of my wet clothes and into my berth, I wiped my eyes and jumped up in pain as I had just rubbed salt in my eyes, Lynne very sensibly made me rinse my face and we both slept like dead people.
The following morning it was still a bit windy but clear.
Allandale our little dinghy had also survived the horrendous conditions and was tucked in under our stern. That evening we met up with old friend Len Hartley and new friend Sandra, we had a chat on board then had a lovely walk along the river to the Liverpool Arms. We were supposed to meet in Caernafon but it didn't seem to make any difference where we were, it was a lovely evening.
Looking along the quay at the harbour wall also gave me an idea, and the forecast for continuing wind meant that Lynne was not keen to leave just yet so maybe we should try our legs out?
No comments:
Post a Comment