I know you just read the title of this post, and probably think I’ve gone and broken down, sunk, or otherwise put poor little Constellation in trouble – But you’d be wrong! Constellation was in fact the rescuer, not the one in need of help!

Last night, after spending too much time at the Ketch Rigger at Hamble Point, waiting for laundry to dry, I came back to boatyard ready to go read, or go to sleep. Friends drove me to and from the yard, and as I was heading back to my boat, another friend had decided the world was too much, and was ‘just going’ on his yacht. He was in a bad state, all electrics out, and throttle with only two settings (fast, or stall). He managed his way out of the marina at low water, and we watched his mast curl up the river, turn around and crash into a pontoon. Not sure what to do, we ran up towards Constellation, started up and chased him up the river, only to find him another 500metres up, run aground on and ebbing tide.

Our boats were of a similar size, and coming in too close would have set us in mud, so we turned around, borrowed an outboard and dinghy, and motored back with the small boat in tow. I ran in circles for 15minutes, while Karin and Rob boarded the stranded boat from the dinghy, and attached ropes as high up on the mast as possible, with a second rope tied down onto a cleat. Karin motored back to Constellation, and cleated on. As the stranded yacht went into full reverse throttle, I motored at full forward throttle, heeling the the other yacht, trying to free the keel. I was somewhat concerned about throwing the prop, or fouling it with a slack line, but I reduced throttle, went backwards several metres for a ‘run up’. Powering forward again under full power, we succesfully freed her.

Constellation is no tug boat, with only 9hp, but she was brilliant, and more than likely performed her first rescue tow!

In other equally exciting news, Hamburg is all on. Johannes has a bus booked for London, arriving in early August with liferaft, tiller pilot and other assorted pieces, ready for the trip back to Germany. Constellation is getting closer to being ready, with stanchions and lifelines almost installed, however I still need to climb the mast (again) to replace the VHF aerial, and while I’m up there, I’ve got an LED mast light to install. There are other small jobs everywhere, but I’m confident she’ll be ready.

As to what happens once I’m in Hamburg, I have absolutely no idea.

nick.

I left yesterday in perfect conditions for Newtown, the Isle of Wight. As the conditions were so favourable, I spent most of my time ‘noodling’ about on my own, trying to get the gist of how best to handle things singlehanded.

Sailing alone is hard. It’s also harder when the boat is not really setup for it. My main track is on the cabin roof, the winches don’t self tail, needing to jammed on what seems the wrong side (in terms of ease), and hanking on sails (as opposed to just rolling them out on roller reefing systems) when the wind is up, and you’re running backwards and forwards from the tiller trying to keep nose onto the wind is a pain in the ass. Even things like the fact I don’t have a lazy-jack mainsail bag, mean dropping the sail is every bit that: Dropping it on the deck and having it howl around with a life of its own.

But back to my Newtown trip. I sailed over and into the river succesfully, and tried to lay anchor for the first time. I came in at dead on low-water, meaning I needed to figure out how much chain to lay, keeping in mind the now rising tide. It’s the little things that get you, like forgetting to work out how much chain you actually have. Well, I know now, and I’ll also endeavour to make metre-marks on the chain so I know how much I’m paying out. I’ve always been nervous about the theory of anchoring – To me, it just seems impossible that the anchor will actually dig into the seabed properly. As such, I woke up reguarly during the night to check the boats nearest me for movement: My nightmare was the anchor letting go, me hitting a boat downwind, and having the opportunity to test my 3rd party insurance.

I work up this morning to a howling wind. I don’t have a wind speed indicator, but I would guestimate 25-30knots, maybe gusting more. I thought my smallest headsail and a reef would do, but I came out of Newtown and nearly (ok, it felt like it) inverted the boat. Struggling to keep the nose into the wind, I put another reef in, and tried again: Not as bad, but still way too much heel. The contents of my ‘house’ found its way onto the lee side of the cabin… In the end, I dropped the damned mainsail altogether, and of course spent way too long trying to tie it down. Everything takes so long to do by yourself. I kept creeping towards the Newtown gravel bank, which I naturally wanted to avoid. I didn’t fancy grounding at the minute, and motored well away to keep flailing about with my sail.

In the end I was getting 8kts of speed over the ground, around 2kts of it was tide, yet I only had my smallest foresail on. As I came closer into the ‘precautionary area’ of the Solent, I began to worry. I navigated into Newtown with the chart in my hand, but today it was just too difficult. The seas were choppy, and the tiller needed constant attention. Yesterday I had been playing about by laying hove-to, and I wished I could do it again and just work out what I was doing. I couldn’t though, having only the headsail up and no main to counter it. I went into a mild panic, crossing the big ships channel, and getting closer to another hazard: A large sandbank in the middle of what seems like a very big piece of water. I decided to turn around under motor, and to drop the foresail and work things out. This is the bit where I wished I had roller reefing. Nose into the wind, the bow breaking into waves, I sat down and pulled the headsail down, while getting almost entirely submerged into oncoming waves.

Eventually it was all down, and I motored back on course, and continued on. The lifeboat RIB on its way to Cowes came past and asked if I was ok – I must have looked like drowned rat, the mainsail tacked on and flapping about enough to catch their attention!

The moral of this particular story is, sailing a boat that is not setup to be sailed by one person is hard.

But fun!

nick.

The trip to France seemed somewhat ill-fated from the beginning… The departure date kept needing to be moved, meaning there was less time sailing, and less time for error. The circumstances for the delay were unavoidable, and certainly not a sore point, but when you’re as eager as I am to get sailing, every wasted day seems like the end of time.

Our initial plan was to sail into Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight, and then head off at around 3am the following day (dependent on tides) and head past the Needles on route to Cherbourg, France. Once we set off from the River and into the Solent, the wind would have been right on our nose over to Yarmouth, so we skipped the prospect of beating for the next several hours, and sailed into Cowes for the night. It was at this point that Rob realised his passport was still sitting in the top draw; at home. Determined for France, we sailed back early the next morning, retrieved the passport, and I climbed the mast to try and figure out what was wrong with my new VHF radio.

I couldn’t see any corrosion or broken connections, and I still couldn’t hear Solent Coastguard from the river Hamble, which I’m sure I should be able to. Not convinced, I borrowed a 3watt handheld radio, and we departed with the tides around the East side of the Isle of Wight, readying for an all night sail across the Channel.

Progress was slow, and as night fell, I turned on the boat light, only to see the mast light was flickering badly. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time, as we approached the Nab Tower, a major navigation point for shipping into Portsmouth and the Solent. It is also a tanker anchorage, and traffic was heavy. A pilot boat motored past and enquired about our lighting situation, as I was down below with a head-torch trying to amend the situation in a crowded electrical box. The loose connection was not in the box, and I couldn’t locate it anywhere – Our only thought was it was a bad bulb connection, meaning there was no real chance of fixing it while at sea. At this point Rob was rightly concerned about crossing the Channel without proper lights, and a seemingly short-range VHF radio. We still had the handheld, but large ships usually only monitor DSC calls, as opposed to the Channel 16 ship-to-ship we could have achieved on the handheld.

As we sailed away from the Isle of Wight, on a near dead-on South course, the GPS was reading ‘29 hours to go’ at 2:30am. Rob made the exectutive decision that we should turn back, and I think he was squarely in the right. There was no need to take risks crossing the Channel with limited communications, and being nearly impossible to spot due to a lacking mast tri-light.

We turned and headed for Portsmouth as the sun came up. The night was cold, and the seas were quite choppy in the Channel, and I must admit, it was reassuring and calming to see light. Winds eased, and we slowly headed into the wind. Arriving at 9:30am at Haslar Marina, we slept till 2pm, walked around the fishing docks and sailed back to Hamble at 6pm, beating in moderate seas and entering the river at night – An experience I didn’t particularly relish. The tide was ebbing, nearing low water, as Rob navigated us through the lights – I helmed and tried to maintain contour depth, and as you can see, we’re alive, and the boat didn’t sink.

It was disappointing not making France, but the entire trip was highly educational, and sometimes things just don’t work out to plan. In this case, we made an unfortunate decision to turn around, however I think it was probably the right one – The trip in reality was not a failure, because we made decisions based on conditions at the time which proved safe & successful.

Moored up in Cowes.

Fishing docks, Portsmouth

Hamburg is still on the go, with a prospective departure date of the 2nd or 3rd of August. Delayed by a few days for a very good reason – More on that another time!

nick.

You may (or may not!) have been wondering why there was filming going at the launch of Constellation… Well, in case you were, the reason is, DNR Productions is making a documentary about my trip and other related concepts.

It’s a terrifying feeling being put on camera, and even more terrifying watching yourself, but here it is for the world to see! An enormous thank you to Jack Rath for coming over, lending a hand, filming, and compiling a web-version of the trailer – I (we) hope you like it.

Or download the Quicktime version [10mb].

nick.

(France trip delayed till Saturday due to weather)

I may be leaving a few days late, but I have my French courtesy flag all ready, and we’ll be touching the coast of France sometime on Friday. So far the plan is to sail across, drink a bottle of their cheapest wine, spend the night and sail right back to England. I then have two more weeks of work, and the trip to Hamburg begins. What happens once in Hamburg is still up for debate, however I have my fingers crossed that lady luck will appear, and I can start moving south, singlehanded as planned.

Thanks to you-know-who for the artwork

nick.

P.S Happy Independence Day to the American readers!