Small Boat to Chichester - Day 1

Well the passage plan proved to be pretty good and we arrived in Ramsgate barely an hour later than anticipated despite flakey winds which always seemed to be doing the exact opposite of what we needed

The new genoa sets beautifully but I think I need put my thinking head on to get the main properly set up (I suspect the problem may be the loose aft lower shrouds which are too long and can't be tensioned up properly)

We had to motor out of the Crouch as what little wind there was was from the West and right up our chuff. Once clear of the land, we got enough off it to make it worth setting sail and we gybed and fiddled and faffed our way to the Inner Whitaker where we turned into a reach

Except we didn't. We ended up close hauled and having to pinch up to hold the course tweaking to get the best VMG. After some head scratching we realised there'd been a shift in the wind (it being variable being the only thing the forecast got right). Hey ho.

Now the wind died to nothing and there was no option but to start the engine.

We then had a nerve racking crossing of the Sunk Sand with less than half the depth expected and scraping the barnacles off the keels on the sand! They don't talk about the shifting sands of the Thames estuary for nothing!

As we entered the Fisherman's Gat Precautionary Zone, where the BIG ships come out to play, something inspired me to check the cooling telltale on the outboard. Eek! Virtually dry. Not good.

So there we were, drifting about in the middle of a bloody navigation precautionary area with the outboard in the cockpit checking the intake etc! Nothing to be seen, everything fine. Engine showing no signs of overheating so I took the decision to restart it and get off to the side of Fisherman's Gat where we'd be out of the way and in water shoal enough to anchor if needs be

That entailed about 30 minutes of motoring constantly checking the engine by the end of which we concluded there wasn't actually a problem at all, other than with the telltale. If you can keep your hand on the engine cowling for as long as you like and merely experience a pleasant and rather welcome warming of the extremities, the engine isn't overheating!

Once out of the wind shadow created by the London Array wind farm, we got some breeze again, albeit virtually dead on the nose. A couple of experimental tacks and close study of heading, course and VMG suggested that starboard was the tack to be on. We gained by the push of the cross tide setting us back towards our direct heading (it's called lee bowing the tide in nautical circles!)

As we approached the anchorage off Margate, the wind died again and we fired up the engine for the last couple of hours into Ramsgate. All in all, a good if long and slightly challenging day.

A beer in the Royal Temple Yacht Club was followed by dinner on board and an early night