Time and Distance on the Shakedown Cruise

 We have reached Burnham on Crouch after two short days of shakedown cruise with light winds and too much use of the engine. If we are to find our way along the English Channel against the prevailing winds, then we will need to quickly become crafty in our use of tidal flows to help us along. Relying on sailing but with our relatively small engine as a critical back-up we generally assume a three-knot speed, so that’s about walking pace. To escape the Blackwater Estuary, get out to sea beyond the sand banks and then turn back up the River Crouch to reach Burnham we have covered many nautical miles. However, if we had left something behind at our starting point of the Blackwater Sailing Club, then it is in only a half hour drive to get there. It seems we have only made a tiny first step on our adventure, it is 13th May 2021.

  

As expected, we now need a day for sorting out some of the outstanding jobs around the boat. Getting the newly fitted all electric toilet to function fully has been a key priority, as you can imagine, but it still seems to have a slight leak. As a bonus we have also discovered a rather worrying diesel fuel leak and that definitely needs some investigation and fixing. It seems to be something insufficiently tightened after replacing the fuel filter as part of servicing the engine last week. Some Loctite PTFE strong might do the trick.

 


Assuming we, that basically means Mark, has managed to resolve all of the most critical issues, then we plan to cross the Thames Estuary with Ramsgate as our tomorrow’s destination. This is one of the longer passages required when circumnavigating the UK and the route is not straightforward. The Thames has fingers of barely covered sand banks spreading out from its mouth and it is only possible to cross these shallows at particular points and with some attention to the tides. To reach Ramsgate towards the end of the day we need to sail past the ‘Northern Foreland’ which is basically the headland forming the southern tip of the Thames Estuary. This requires careful timing because a northerly tidal flow occurs around the headland for part of day that would slow us down considerably. Although we have Navionics, a GPS based software package that tracks our progress and even suggests a route, we still like to plot everything manually using a pencil, giant compass and dividers on real paper charts. It helps to familiarise ourselves with the route, make better informed decisions, have a better idea of where we are at all times on the journey and with to be honest, with no TV, it gives us something to do in the evenings.






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