Round Britain for the RNLI Blog

Being at home and not having to be concerned about when I am next moving has given me time to reflect a little on what has been achieved so far and all things considered it is looking good.

The engines have performed superbly and in quite difficult sea conditions at times. Both engines have started first pull or turn (I always start and run the auxilliary prior to the start of each leg and top up the internal tank) and the Suzuki DF115 is turning out to be a super performer all round. I must say that the 19" pitch propeller performs much better in the rougher sea conditions that the 21" but should I get a spell of very settled and flat conditions I may well switch back to the 21" until conditions worsen again as it does make for lower RPM and hence slightly quieter cruising. Having said that I have found the DF115 to have a very acceptable noise level at cruise speeds and is incredibly quiet at tickover. Fuel consumption has been great too at a very consistent 0.8 ltr/nm but in smooth conditions that increases slightly to 0.95 ltr/nm… in either case exceptionally good for the size and weight of boat in my opinion.

The boat has performed equally well handling sea conditions that you would expect to be beyond a boat of this type and size and although I still wouldn’t be happy going to sea voluntarily in much more than a slight to moderate it is great to know that should conditions turn out worse than expected or forecast I have a boat that handles well under those conditions. The living facilities are basic but that is to be expected as it is designed as a day/weekender but although I am finding some aspects of that side a little difficult it is still excellent when you consider what I am doing with it. I would certainly still recommend Jeanneau Merry Fishers and this little 625 is superb.

I think I am about 1/3 round and I still have some of the most difficult legs to go but I am very optomistic that I will get round if the weather allows. I don’t actually have a deadline for my return but if it gets towards the end of August and I am nowhere near finishing I will have to reassess as come september the daylight is reduced and the weather will start to be even more doubtful. I will give myself until about mid-August before I will give it any serious thought.

So, the weather has not been kind so far but it is easy to keep complaining about the weather and so from here on I will not! I will still do the weather assessment blog entries but no more "whinging"… it is going to be great weather from here on regardless of what it is! See how long I keep that one going for…

Still 5 days away but currently Friday is looking good although it is rather tentative. It relies on two or three low pressure systems filling and a weak ridge pushing up from the south. All a bit hit or miss at this distance but it is a hope.

I tried to relax a bit today. We went to the Saltash Regatta and watched some rowing races and eat some european food. Great fun! This evening I caught up with Heroes on TV… I am not really missing the TV on the boat but I didn’t say I didn’t want it!

More on the weather tomorrow.

Isn’t it typical… I look at the forecasts, not one but all of the ones I use, decide that the forecast looks unpromising for the forseeable future and decide to take a break at home for a while. What happens then? I check the forecasts this evening from my office at home and the forecast has changed to look very promising from mid-week next week! That is Sod’s Law at its best!

Still, I needed the break anyway so here I am at home and taking a well earned rest. Hopefully, I will think of other things for the next couple of days and start to think seriously again about the trip on Tuesday or Wednesday and if the weather looks like being an excellent bet then I will return the next day.

I will continue to post though while I am at home so you can see how I am thinking. In the meantime I want to thank everyone for following me and for emailing or commenting on the blog. The feedback to me is very encouraging and even if I don’t get to answer everyone personally I thank you none the less and be assured I have read every one.

Now I am here in Glenarm it is clear that there could be another extended wait for the weather to improve. OK, I could do as I have done at each stop until now… stay with the boat and be ready if there is a small weather window I can make use of. It has been a successful strategy until now because almost all of my legs so far have been in short weather windows between longer spells of bad weather. In a way, I was expecting some of that but I had hoped, no, expected, a few longer spells of settled weather being in June but not so.

So I am tired of waiting out the weather while living on the boat with limited space and resources and now that I am in Glenarm, nice though it is, it does not have any facilities in the village and so it would be even more difficult waiting out the weather here than at any other stop so far.

Surfing the web I see that Flybe are doing flights from Belfast to Exeter at very reasonable prices and I am afraid that I have succumbed to the need for a bit of a rest and a break from the boat for a short while. So tomorrow I will leave the boat safely in Glenarm and return home to recharge my batteries and sleep in a real bed for a few nights. Of course, I will be keeping a beady eye on the weather and should a better spell show up then I can be on the flight the next day (flights are seldom full apparently) and be on the next leg the day after that so I won’t miss out on any good weather.

I would ask you not to look on this as a break in the principles of the trip. Yes, I want to see if it is a sensible expectation to take my little boat Round Britain but I do not believe that I should have to live on the boat continuously for weeks on end when weather bound. I will stick to my principle of only sleeping on the boat when on route but after such a long spell of continuously bad weather I need a break if I am to continue on.

I will post from home on my thoughts on the weather and also report on what I am up to whilst there so please continue to look in… it won’t be long before I am on my way again and you wouldn’t want to miss it now would you?

Today has been a bit of an unscheduled trip just 25 miles up the Northern Ireland coast to Glenarm… the first of the Glens of Antrim!

The original plan was to leave Bangor at 4am to get the tide north up to Port Askaig but as it seems to have been for ages now, I woke to a F4-5 and a forecast of F6-7! Clearly a no go so I went back to bed!!!

On waking the second time it was clearly OK for a jaunt up the coast and so I decided to get myself a little nearer my goal by going for Glenarm… it is not in the almanacs yet but one of the Bangor lifeboat crew mentioned it as a good stopping point while waiting to cross the North Channel. So I refuelled and paid my berthing bill… Although Bangor Marina did give me 3 free days berthing it was always possible that I would need to stay longer because of weather but in spite of the weather making my departure impossible they could not see themselves to extending the free berthing offer and I had to pay for the additional days… which is strange as there was plenty of vacant spaces!

MOB Guardian on, SeaMe on, route loaded and set to navigate… OH! No route in the chartplotter! I did the route on the PC and converted it to Lowrance and … ah! I must have forgotten to put it on the memory card. I am now on my way out of the marina so shall I turn back or load it from the PC outside the marina? The sea was almost flat and there was no one else around so I put the boat in a safe place, put it into neutral and fired up the PC. It only took a moment to copy the file to the SD card but it seemed like an age. This is most unlike me. Being a pilot I am well used to preparation tasks like this and I completely forgot it! Still, no harm done and the correct route was loaded and I was on my way.

It wasn’t a pretty sight outside the marina though. Ok, the sea was quite flat and planeing was easy but the vis was probably about 2 miles and it was raining hard. I was going north and the wind was southwesterly so running with the wind made it an easy and quick passage at 18kts but soon the sea got up and I was back down to 14kts and it was obvious that the sea would not have been good for a passage to Port Askaig. As I headed for Glenarm it appeared out of the mist and I made my way into the harbour.

The super harbourmaster here in Glenarm has made me very welcome and tucked Stargate in a corner of the marina where she will be safe.

So I am here. It is a small and very pretty harbour in the older style (walled) but the Larne Council have put pontoons in and it is now a great stopping place when making journeys to and from Northern Ireland from the mainland. Mind you, I don’t think the harbour people would mind when I say that there isn’t much here except a beautiful little village and shelter for the boat. There is no fuel, shops or restaurants but there are the essentials… several pubs!

I am looking at the weather for the coming week. That does not make for a pretty sight either. The low pressure systems out to the west seem to be destined to hang around for several days and are not forecast to move until the end of the week.

Paul is tucked up in Glenarm Marina near Ballymena. Looking at the pressure charts and forecasts he thinks it unlikely that he will be able to go any further until at least next weekend.

You may remember me talking about going to visit a local theatre group with a view to joining it and getting into my acting again. Well, I actually made it there last night. The Tamaritans have their own premises just off Plymouth’s Union Street, and they are in their 3rd week of rehearsals for "The Price" by Arthur Miller. I was made to feel immensely welcome by everyone there and I have no doubt of some happy times acting with them in the future.

Meanwhile the decorations are now complete and Ed returns on Monday to finish off the various jobs he is doing for us. The new carpet fitting is now booked for 7th July, which hopefully will signal the end of house improvements - at least for now!

I have woken to a F3-4 in the marina which is certainly stronger outside and so I am not very hopeful to make it to Port Askaig today. However, I am leaving Bangor today and if it does not look good then I will nip into Glenarm Marina… a little known marina in an old harbour some 20nm north of Belfast Loch. I will be safe there until a crossing of the North Channel is possible.

I don’t like going to sea when there are F5s in the forecast and the sea forecast is Moderate on the inshore forecast but slight and F3-4 almost everywhere else. Basically they don’t know and the computer models suggest it could go either way. Happy Days!

Once at Glenarm I will have a better shot at crossing in the next few days if there is a window.

There is a big conflict of forecasts for tomorrow which indicates a high degree of uncertainty as to what might happen but I have decided that even if it isn’t good enough to make it to Port Askaig it is certainly good enough for me to go out and take a look bearing in mind that I need to return if things don’t look good.

So I will depart Bangor tomorrow at 0530hrs to take the northbound tide and if it looks good to continue then that tide should carry me all the way to Port Askaig.

As usual, the final decision to go or not will be made tomorrow morning and I will post my thoughts before I depart. I have a visit to the fuel pontoon first at about 5am and so I expect my final post at about 4.30am.

I will probably be well underway by the time you look in tomorrow so don’t forget to look at Google Earth rather than the web site tracking page if you want my very latest position.

Fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow.

Right now in Bangor it is a F2-4 and the sea looks flat from the shoreline but that is always deceptive as you can only see a couple of miles from the shore and the sea nearly always looks almost flat at a distance even when quite rough!!!

It looks like the high pressure to the south wants to stay there and we are still subjected to a contant stream of low pressure systems heading northeast. Looking at the the jetstream it gives a hint why there is this southwest to northeast line, south of it is high pressure and north of it is lows.

I am still hopeful that tomorrow (Friday) will allow me to get away so more later.