Out of sight of land

 We began the day with a little boat tour of Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door but then set off for a carefully timed encounter with the infamous headland Portland Bill. It is May 30th 2021.

We were aiming to arrive when there would be slack water round the Bill. This meant, as an alternative to going 3 miles offshore, that we could take the ‘inside track’ staying just 300 metres off the rocky shore but inside the white-water overfalls that are caused by the tidal flows going round the Bill. We calculated the time required to cover the ten miles to get to Portland Bill, taking into account the wind and tidal flows. It all worked out nicely and although we like our solitude it was reassuring to join other yachts clearly working to the same schedule that we had worked out. It was great to get close-up views of the lighthouse and cliffs as we sailed round.

We took a bearing across Lyme Bay and set off on a 45 mile journey for Dartmouth. For a couple of hours we had good winds behind us but they gradually faded. Due perhaps to the haze we were out of sight of land at this point, which we decided was a first-time experience for both of us. The tide and gentle winds were shifting us at 4 knots per hour but that gave us an expected time of arrival of midnight, which seemed a bit late. So we considered ways to increase our speed. We had a Spinnaker sail in the locker which Mark had checked but never deployed. We had picked up some rope at the excellent Shoreham chandlery so the obvious thing to do, in the middle of Lyme bay and out of sight of land, was to rig the Spinnaker, a notoriously tricky sail to handle, and give it a try. This kind of activity is a good test of relationships on a boat and although we are brothers that does not mean there were not some lively exchanges and the odd bit of chuntering in the process. However, we eventually had a colourful Spinnaker flying and it seemed to give us another knot or so of speed but unfortunately not completely in the direction of Dartmouth.

After some plotting of our progress and the wind dropping to almost nothing we had a bright idea of using the dirty in board big diesel engine as a way to increase our speed. Now those readers who are eco-warriors will curse our pollution of the planet and we c an only hold up our hands and apologise. Those who are ‘real’ sailors will question our commitment to ‘sailing’ round the UK as opposed to ‘motoring’ round the UK. One book on sailing round the UK claims that on average use of the engine is 52% on successful round UK sailing attempts. That seems a sensible target to us – we will try our best to use the engine less than 52% of the time.

It was great to shift, after 5 hours of slow progress, from 'out of sight of land' to see the hill and monument that is the landmark for the hidden mouth of the river Dart. HOwever, the setting sun was a little bit too low in the sky for us to make it to a mooring in daylight.

We arrived at the approach to the River Dart at sunset and motored up the river using the leading lights. We went to the two pontoon and found a friendly boat to moor alongside. By the time we had tarted ourselves up a bit to hit the town Chelsea had won football match so there were lots of lads full of beer and testosterone pretending to look for an argument. Fortunately, we are old enough now to not count as fair game and they ignored us as we wandered around the town trying to find something to eat or drink. We returned unsuccessful to the boat and ate and drank well into the early hours. It had been a long day and we wondered if we had earned a ‘rest day’.