Bosuns Weekend - Conclusions

The weather was gloriously hot for the beginning of October but once again there just wasn't the wind for any decent sailing. Everybody is saying this has been a poor year wind wise so at least its not just us.

The main purpose of the weekend, apart from finally giving Glen a trip out on Brigantia, was to explore the possibilities of the River Roach which we had yet to explore beyond the anchorage in the Branksfleet.

Pagelsham is the only place we could realistically look at going ashore - that wasn't part of our plans for this weekend anyway - but I'm not convinced it would be worth the hassle. Pagelsham Pool looks to be too shallow for comfort and anchoring in the main channel of the river thereabouts isn't my idea of perfection. There are mixed opinions on picking up a mooring or laying alongside the drying pontoon with some sources suggesting it's OK to do so, for a charge, whilst others have had issues with the operator of the moorings.

There was a small yacht alongside the pontoon as we came back downriver and this is a possibility I'd wantr to look into. It would be a good option for us. Otherwise, the anchorage in the Yokesfleet looks like a nice spot to spend the night aboard provided there's space in the deeper parts - where we were anchored for the afternoon would be all but dried out at low water. There's also some flat areas of mud we might be able to take the ground on out of harms way but I'd like to explore the creeks in the dinghy before doing so.

On balance, I think I much prefer getting out to sea and making a coastal passage to faffing about up shoaling creeks! A twin keeler isn't perhaps the ideal vehicle for creek crawling, a centre boarder would be a better bet.

Overall, a pleasant and enjoyable weekend and well worth the effort.

Trip Log.

We covered 22.3NM on Saturday in 7hrs 40mins at an average speed over the ground of 2.9Kts. Our max SOG was 6Kts. We were motoring for 5hrs 41mins with just a couple of hours sailing. We used approx. 10 litres of petroil - the roughly 2 litres an hour being the result of motoring at a gentle pace in flat water (compared to the 4+ litres an hour we burnt last trip out when bashing our way through a steep chop at nearly full throttle).

On Sunday, we covered 10.53NM in 2:52 with an average SOG of 3.7Kts and a max SOG of 5.8Kts (set during a brief period motor-sailing with the genoa up).