For once, all the different forecast sources are singing the same tune - it's going to be flippin' windy Thursday and Friday
At the moment, Saturday and Sunday look to be the only two days during our time in Essex when moving Brigantia to her new home is feasible. And unless we want to embark upon an early test of the sea-keeping abilities of Erbas, the weekend is the best bet for the move from the Blackwater to the Crouch
At the moment, it looks like a buggers muddle whichever way I try and organise it in my head
Whether we go for the Brigantia move on Saturday or Sunday, it looks like we've have a Westerly or Sou-Westerly F4 so it's a run down to the Spitway and a beat all the way back to Tollesbury. Yeah right, top up the tanks and hit the throttle once we're heading West methinks! A "slight" sea state is a misnomer really as we're talking about 0.5m to 1.0m waves and being in the estuary they'll be short and steep.
OK, so that's do-able if not ideal, no problem. But the trouble is how to get the right boats in the right place with the right people at the right time! It is giving me brain ache!!
Starting on the assumption that Plan A (moving Brigantia first) has gone out of the window, we have the whole crew and two cars at Tollesbury aboard Erbas by Thursday afternoon with Brigantia home alone at Fambridge.
Friday brings us Sou-Westerly F4 gusting F6 with a slight sea state, by Saturday that's settled down to F3/F4 and veering into the West although the sea state remains pretty much unchanged. Sunday it backs a bit to WSW and cranks up the gusts a notch and then apart from swinging around between WNW and WSW it stays pretty much with the F4 gusting F5 or occasionally F6 throughout the early part of next week.
On the basis of that, we really need to be getting the two boats on the right rivers over the weekend. Saturday looks by far and away the best day weather wise for the Brigantia move which means Erbas either moves out of Tollesbury on Friday or Sunday
If we get the hell out of Dodge on Friday, we should be able to thrash our way out of Tollesbury a good hour before HW (two would be even better) and provided we keep the hammer down we can make it to Fambridge sometime between sunset and dusk - and I wouldn't be too worried if it was after dark anyway
That puts Erbas where she needs to be and the whole crew at Fambridge - we'll have to do a car shuffle on Thursday anyway.
We'll then have to make a pre-dawn start on Saturday morning leaving Fambridge on Brigantia no later than 05:00. That should see us at Tollesbury an hour before HW, in other words with an hour in hand. Due to the quirks of the tides, leaving Fambridge an hour later costs us dearly flogging the proverbial dead donkey and we'd be nigh on three hours longer on the trip. Actually, an 04:00 or 04:30 start would be even better.
Sunday would be a slightly better day from the timings point of view as we could leave three quarters of an hour later but then Monday onwards starts to look iffy again. Given the massive inconvenience, not to mention potential costs, of ending up with one or both of the boats in the wrong place at the end of the exercise, I'd prefer to keep Sunday in my back pocket as a fall back if things go awry.
One thing I will not do, under any circumstances, is push the envelope and take risks. We established some considerable time ago that a Strong Wind Warning from either the Met Office or whichever flavour of GFS based forecasting service is flavour of the month is a no go for Brigantia.
That's F6 - F7, a Gale Warning kicks in at F8. This position might change with Erbas as she's bigger, faster, heavier and kitted up for severe weather although whether the crew would weather the storm is another matter!
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