26th July 2014 - Wind Over Tide

Living in the UK at anchor with a dog and a toddler - what can possibly go wrong?!
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Jeff
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26th July 2014 - Wind Over Tide

Post by Jeff »

You're meant to avoid situations in which the tidal current is flowing in the opposite direction to the wind. It creates confused seas and big waves. You're especially meant to avoid such conditions during spring tides (the larger tides which occur every two weeks) and very especially around headlands which increase the rate of flow of the tide.

The official inshore waters forecast said "sea state: smooth or slight" so I ignored everything else - forgetting that the inshore waters forecast does not include local effects.

And so it was that we rounded Start Point on passage back to Dartmouth from Salcombe during a spring tide, into 20 knot winds.

Nina puked once and was a little quiet but mostly fine, watching a DVD down below - she fell asleep for much of it. Rose was fine but a little concerned for Nina's sleep patterns being disturbed. Towser was totally fine - seemed almost to enjoy the challenge. I was mostly annoyed at myself for not having predicted it, but after a bit I started to enjoy it. We had the main and mizzen up and managed to get a little wind assistance by pointing slightly off directly into the wind which helped our speed but more importantly stiffened our motion somewhat. We actually averaged about 6 knots for the whole journey, making the full trip in under 4 hours. Remarkable.

On a number of occasions we ploughed the bowsprit into the sea. And a lot of things fell from the bookshelves onto the floor due to Nina removing Paddington Bear who was strategically wedged, holding everything in place.

All the windows are now covered in salt spray so I'm hoping for some heavy rain to wash them off so we can see out again!

Upshot was, apart from a bit of a tidy-up afterwards, it went very very well. Towser took good care of us all and we felt safe, secure and out of the wind and spray inside throughout. A good test!

Here's a short video I took on passage...

http://youtu.be/duq0k0lja_c

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/duq0k0lja_c" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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Discus
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Post by Discus »

Hope this afternoon's rain cleared your windows. Unfortunately summer has gone again for a while!
Nice video - happy campers on board
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