Round Britain for the RNLI Blog

What a day! In a couple of ways it has been the most challenging day of the trip so far and in others it has been the most wonderful.

That kind of sums it up… everything came in twos.

As promised by the forecasters the day started out calm. So calm in fact that the sea was glassy flat and rather spooky… just the way I like it! I paid the harbour dues and set out radioing Peterhead harbour control for permission to leave the port. There was a rig supply ship coming in so it was a good job I did. Going through the harbour entrance at 7.15am I just couldn’t wait to get up and on to the plane for this 100nm leg to Eyemouth. Iopened the throttles and all sounded well until the rpm got to about 3200 where it stayed. A rather sad whipering of an engine instead of a healthy roar. I throttled back… humph! What to do? I was safe enough where I was so I had a look around… prop foul? Nope. Fuel? Well I had refuelled so I checked for air by pumping the bulb in the fuel line. It didn’t help. I tried again… it had improved but still wasn’t right. I then remembered that I had this once before when there was an airlock in the fuel line. Basically the fuel just wasn’t getting through and as the engine sounded and seemed healthy in all other respects I suspected that was the problem. The only option was to run the engine and see if it clears so that is what I did. After about 15 mins it did clear back to its healthy self so I am assuming that was the problem but I will check it out a bit more thoroughly in Hartlepool.

So, that drama out of the way I settled down for what was going to be a smooth and very fast trip. Not so! No sooner I was away from Peterhead than a nasty swell started to roll in from the south and I was heading directly into it. It wasn’t big waves. In fact the sea surface was spookily smooth but the ground swell rolled in underneath making fast travel impossible. This was the last thing I wanted in this of all legs and at 100NM travelling at 6kts would mean a very late arrival in the evening at Eyemouth. There was nothing I could do except sit it out. There was no point in returning to Peterhead. It was perfectly safe just very uncomfortable and slow. I could do about 10kts at times but that was using fuel at such a rate that I wouldn’t make Eyemouth if I continued like that. If I tried to go at more than about 10kts it started slamming into the roller behind with an almighty crash and I needed to protect the boat. On the other hand, I also needed to do more than 8kts… it was a difficult one. I decided to go closer to the land in the hope that there was more shelter there and a reduced swell. It really didn’t help much. However, at the turn of the tide at 11.15 things improved greatly and I was out of the woods now able to do 17kts… saving time and fuel. It seemed to me that I had misjudged the effect of the tide and swell. I had seen that there would be no wind and that the sea would be flat, which it was, but the swell and tide made a fast passage impossible. I would have been much better delaying departure so that I had a fair tide from the start. I learned a valuable lesson today.

Once the tide had turn it became a completely different sea altogether. The sweel reduced and it became the smooth and fast sea I was expecting from the start.

The fuel situation was particulary interesting today. I had plenty of fuel for the trip, including reserve, if I managed to stick to my normal cruising speeds… greater than 15kts or about 7kts. Everything in between was using fuel at an unacceptable rate. I could easily have slowed down, which I did, but with the leg so long I had a part of me saying I should go faster even though I knew that would not be the right decision. In the end I slowed down but I had to battle a little with the side of me that wanted to push on.

Wildlife played an important part today. I had seals, dolphins, porpoises, jelly fish by the hundreds, puffins, shags, gannets and a load more that I couldn’t identify. I had never seen puffins before. They are really cute and remind me of guillemots with their short stubby wings, really designed for use under water rather than in the air and they are about the same size too… a bit like guillemots dressed up as clowns!

So there you are… two sides to the trip… first half slow and bumpy the second smooth and fast. The sea was quite unfriendly before 11am and very benign after and I should have left port after high water for a smoother ride.

What a fun day!

I was met this evening by Gayle, daughter of Sheila and Brian of Bon-Accord Training. Gayle works in Edinburgh and heard I needed help refueling at Eyemouth and drove the hour’s drive to help me… what a sweetie. Thanks Gayle for your generosity giving up sever hours of your time not to mention several gallons of petrol. I am not sure what I wouold have done without your help