On the other hand, buying the Admiralty Leisure Folios to cover all the way North as far as Sunderland would be an expensive excercise for charts that, at best, are probably only going to be of use on this one trip and, particularly as far as the more Northerly areas are concerned, probably won't get used anyway!
So today I wandered around Amazon.co.uk and purchased two Imary C series charts - C29 Harwich to Whitby and C24 Flamborough Head to Fife Ness.
OK, so C-series charts are too big for our little chart table and would have to be folded but given that the two charts together cover virtually the whole trip (apart from the first few hours out of the Crouch and up the Wallet) and cost a good deal less than one Admiralty Leisure Folio they'll do for me!
OK, so that's the navigational charts sorted out now for the weather ...
With 10 days still to go, the forecast model is still basically guesswork but it starts to firm up now as we get closer to departure time. And as things stand it's looking frustrating. Just 48 hours ago, the GFS weather model was forecasting South Westerly 15 to 20 knot breezers for the first few days with the wind backing into the North West mid-week. Just about perfect in fact (although a a few knots less wind would make it ideal.
Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, things have changed somewhat on the latest run of the computer model today ...
The charts for either side of midday Sunday are every bit as bad ... or worse!
If this forecast holds up, I doubt we'll make it very far up the coast at all. Wells-next-the-Sea would be doubtful in an F3/4 Northerly and we'd be betting on being able to cling on close hauled on the starboard tack on the long leg from Cromer to Flamborough Head. Having to tack would cost us an enormous amount of ground and time.
The problem is the Azores High is predicted to move North, which is a good thing (it pushes the jet stream back where it ought to be) but is hanging out well to the West ...
... and it's also potentially developing a bit of a local system over Scotland, not visible on this chart, all of which combines to produce a Northerly airflow down the East Coast just when we don't need it. Then we get a low that moves in mid-week producing 24 to 36 hours of F5 from the West or South West (we might be able to do something with that at least) before things settle down to F3/4 North Westerlys for the rest of the week ...
Well at least the gales seem to be in abeyance for once! And apart from some rain on the Thursday, the week is forecast to be fairly dry. If this is what we get, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised, we'll probably be looking at less ambitious plans in and around the Thames Estuary. Then again, it'll probably all look different tomorrow!
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