The forecast for the last bank holiday in May (and we’ve had a few this month) was looking good. A spell of warm dry weather with lots of sunshine and with a week off, we arrived at the boat on Friday night got everything unloaded and were ready to set sail Saturday morning. 

We’ve been sailing to or in the direction of Chichester for the last few times, so we thought it was time to sail to Studland or at least head west. We set off around 12, with a little tide against, in very light wind (5 knots) and motored most of the way down the Solent in glorious sunshine towards Hurst castle. As we rounded the point, we were able to head towards Old Harry, set the sails and continued the rest of the way under wind power. We arrived around 7pm, picked up a morning for the night, some of them now have pickup strops, which is an absolute godsend from the bow of a sailing boat, your only other option is to hang over the side or pickup from the stern and walk it forward, all of which are a pain. The wind is turning Northeast shortly, it’s already this direction up in Dover and set to be that way for over a week. Some swell is making its way into Studland this evening, but it’s nothing like Alderney was so we should be ok. It settled later that evening, and we had a good night, watching the sunset and eating our dinner in the cockpit.

We had a lazy start to the day, Catherine played some games and spoke to friends, Christine read and I swapped the wooden bracket I made to fix the Raymarine Axiom in for its mounting plate. Later that evening and with this strong NE wind due that night, we decided to make the 10nm run, round to Chapmans Pool. We’ve not stayed here before but heard good things and it should provide good protection. As we left, the sun was still shining and there wasn’t a breath of wind… why are we moving I was thinking??

Hiding from the wind

We arrived at Chapmans Pool at about 7pm, anchored in a lovely bay, with excellent views across the Dorset coastline towards Portland and again had dinner in the cockpit, listened to some music and had a good relaxing time. A few boats started to leave, but the remaining yachts were here for the night. The wind started to pick up about 9pm and I noticed a larger yacht getting a little closer to us, still to one side but closer, he was now a boat length from the yacht that had anchored behind him. Shortly after, we heard him shout to that yacht, 

‘How much chain do you have out?’

 the other yacht replied ‘30m’, the first yacht ‘I don’t think that’s enough, there are 40knots due, we will be swinging all over the place.’ He then shouted across to us the same question, to which I replied ‘35m’ which in 5m of water I thought was reasonable. He said ‘I’ve got 60m out’ at which point I knew he would be swinging way too close to us, he had already got close enough, so we moved to the other side of the bay and now in 7m of water laid down almost 50m of chain. The charter boat behind him decided to leave and we sorted the boat ready for the wind. At anchor, we do tend to tidy the boat more than when we are in the marina, and we always have lifejackets, a head torch, and the anchor windless powered up plus the control by the hatch. The helm cover is also off so we could get to things quickly if we needed.

We recorded gusts of 31.9 knots that night, the sea state was slight, but the wind gusts were prolonged and shifted the boat around a bit. We got an ‘ok’ night’s sleep but got up a couple of times to check things, we didn’t drag and the anchor alarm showed a nice back-and-forth track. Christine heard another boat re-anchor in the night (2am) and sure enough, in the morning, it was in front of us. In these conditions, I like to be on the outside of the field, either at the back with loads of space or in front of them all. I really don’t like to be in the middle. Although it was a safe place, with calm sea for these conditions, the shape of the cliff must have accelerated the winds, so this is something to think about for the future.

Heading to Weymouth

Next morning, we set off about 9am heading towards Portland. The NE wind is going to be with us for some time and it seems like the higher winds are all at night or early hours of the morning, so we planned to head over to Portland and either anchor behind the breakwater or head into the marina for a couple of nights. We sailed this coast 2yrs ago now and at that time we had no wind and had to motor out 5 miles to avoid the firing range. I set the VHF to channel 8 to listen for the ranger boats, as I really didn’t want to go all that way out if I could just stay in tight to the coast. As it happened, we got some phone signal and checked, no firing this week! Great news! Sea state was moderate, the off-shore wind was kicking up some waves and the swell was over 1.5m but far enough apart to be comfortable. It was a steady F5, bottom of F6 and then gusts at 28knots took things into a F7. With only a reefed front sail, we had a comfortable ride for these conditions at around 6knots right into the bay. There are a lot of pots along this coastline, and they are far out, so do keep an eye if you a sailing or power boating. When you get to the bay near Portland and Weymouth, they are in lines! As we got close in, we called Weymouth Harbour which is a Boatfolk marina and asked for a berth for 2 nights. They had one, but said unless you are at the entrance, you will miss the 12noon bridge, next one will be at 2pm. The bridge opens every 2 hours from 8am-6pm and also has a later opening in the summer (one at 9pm but please check for changes!) Next to the bridge on the port side as you enter is a pontoon which you can use to wait. It fits a couple of yachts. On the way up there is also visitor berths and then the marina is on the other side of the bridge. It’s a really nice place to sail into and on a Bank Holiday Monday, it was full of people enjoying the sun. Take your time here, and don’t be too concerned about everyone watching you as they will do, benches are all along the edge of the harbour walls filled with people eating fish and chips and ice cream. We managed to pull off a master class, Captain Ron style docking procedure and then made our way to that fish & chip shop to join the party! 2pm came, the bridge lifted, the three yachts entering made a plan of who was going where and again all of us left the dock well and went straight into the marina. 

We went for a walk that evening around the town, found a great ice cream shop ‘Boho Gelato’ just past the bridge and decided that we like the right-hand side of Weymouth (facing out to sea) more than the left. A couple of places that are well worth a visit here, Weymouth Stone Pier, Nothe Fort, Nothe beach and the Nothe Gardens are really nice to walk through.

Its all about timing

Wednesday at 10am the bridge lifted, we left our berth 5mins before and waited behind another yacht to leave, at the entrance we got 1 reef in the main and a small front sail setup, ready to bash our way back, in a F5, with slightly lighter seas but still NE!!. We made good progress, but some of the tide was still against us for about 1h:30, this was intentional to give us enough time to get round Durlston Head with a favourable tide and a push towards Studland/Poole if the swell was still in the bay. We started to do long tacks, out to sea and the back in as we made our way back up the coast. It was clear that this was going to be an ‘all-day trip’, progress can be slower when it’s like this, it’s fun but it’s also hard work. The boat was setup for the gusts really but then the wind would go, and we would slow down and then get another 5 min blasting at almost double the wind speed. I checked Windy later and it’s still super strong up at Dover, it’s just constantly red at the moment! By 5pm we were past Durlston Head, Christine and Catherine were singing sea shanties as if something had gone wrong and we’d been at sea for days, ‘A Drop of Nelsons Blood’ won best song. As we got to Studland, the bay had just two yachts in, clearly tough souls so we went for Poole and anchored just to the left of Brownsea Island. Poole is a challenge for us with a 1.95m keel but we got in, anchored, had food, and slept. We got up the next morning at 10:30… didn’t even wake in the night! More high winds but very sheltered here, we do feel safe when Christine anchors the boat.

Later that day we moved across towards South Deep, which is basically the other side of the spit of land which is Studland beach. Christine and Catherine had a swim and we started to think about the next leg home, which again was going to be in similar conditions. That night we got more high winds and the anchor alarm decided to conduct a few emergency tests for no apparent reason. Why is it when you have an early start, you always get a disturbed night’s sleep??

Check the fuel!

At 6am we were off, started the engine, got the anchor up and made our way out. At Poole entrance with a 2nd reef and small head sail, a grey start to the day with another F5 gusting F6, same sea, same conditions met us as we pointed the boat towards the Isle of Wight. At this point we were getting a little low of fuel but with good wind and tide we should be good for Yarmouth where we can top up and be on our way. 

Mistake number 1, never leave anywhere with low fuel…

Two hours in, pointing as high as we could in the swell and the waves we were making good progress and everything was looking good. By 10am I wanted to be in the Needles channel or as close to Hurst Point as possible. By 9:30 we were having real trouble getting an angle that would allow this to happen, the port tack (wind over the left side of the boat) was working well, we were making good progress, but when we changed direction, I just couldn’t get the angle right and we were heading back from where we came. We changed again and went further past the Needles lighthouse, but still, the opposite tack was just not working in the swell, we were going forwards but slowly and now that 10am window was looking, well… closed.

I started the engine which coughed a bit and then ran, I noticed a little smoke, could this be the low fuel… and we motor sailed our way past the lighthouse and into Alum Bay. We started to think of what we could do if we ran out of fuel and what options we had. In the bay, the swell was gone but the tide was against us, we were sailing again with the engine off. We tried to make some progress upwards but even with large tacks out to the bank and back into the bay, we couldn’t get the angles to get in. It was going to take all day, admitting defeat we sailed back into the bay, I reached for the start button, but the engine just coughed and stopped. Ok, we’re going to need to sail into the anchorage and then think of a plan, Christine got the anchor ready, we furled the front sail and then I turned up into the wind, pushed the boom back to slow the boat and dropped the main and at the same time shouted, ‘drop the anchor’. Christine let 30m of chain out and the boat came to rest, I managed to start the engine and this time it ran while we made sure the anchor held. 

Now that everything had calmed, and we were safely anchored it was time to think about what we do next. Not comfortable with the fuel situation I called Sea Start to see if they could help and bring us some or maybe tow us in. I knew we could get out of the bay, but I didn’t fancy a harbour entrance and to put ourselves or someone else at risk. This situation was completely my fault, I shouldn’t have let the fuel get this low, but I genuinely thought I had more than I did… more on this later.

Sea Start were great, they asked a couple of questions and said someone will be with you in 1h30mins. We had a cup of tea and some food; we had only had a quick snack before we left and it was now 12 noon. The sun had come out and the wind had calmed, and it was very pleasant in Alum Bay. Sea Start said if we felt in danger to call the Coast Guard but we were safe. At 1pm, the engineer called and said,

 ‘On my way, keep a look out!’ 

20mins later he arrived with 20ltrs of diesel. We all instantly felt better as soon as the rib came around the corner, even though there were boats in the bay that I am sure would have helped if something else had gone wrong. When the 20lts went in the tank, it put us ¼ full on the gauge, I know you shouldn’t rely on a fuel gauge, so I’m going to fill the tank now in measured amounts and work this out for future reference. I might even carry a spare can, but I will need to cycle that fuel otherwise it’s likely to cause other issues. We started the engine, and it sounded like it’s normal happy self. Sea Start blasted off like something off ‘Bay Watch’ to help the next person and we waited until 3pm for the tide to turn. 

This was enough excitement for all of us for one day, so we decided to head back to the marina, we had a lovely sail back in light(er) winds and a flat sea. We got in at 18:45, got the dinner on, watched a film, had a couple of drinks! and had a good night’s sleep securely tied up in our marina berth.

We sailed over 135 miles in the last few days, we’ve had a great time in some challenging conditions, no seasickness and I’ve learnt not to run the boat this low on fuel again. The boat did a great job looking after us and we had a great time exploring new places.