Kindred Spirit II sailing around the UK farewell tour

  This is a blog about our little adventure. By 'adventure' I mean it has an uncertain outcome. Our aim is to sail round the United Kingdom. Perhaps you might join us virtually? NOTE ON BLOG DATES:  Spoiler alert, we made it round (most of) the UK and back to our starting point.  We launched the boat on 13th May 2021 and set sail that day. We arrived back at our starting point on July 11th 2021. trip  Unfortunately Blogspot does not let me reverse the blog entries now that our trip is completed. So I have manually amended the publication dates of each blog post so that the story can now be read in the logical order, from start to finish. I have added the correct dates within the text of each blog, so just ignore the blogspot posted dates as they are meaningless. Otherwise I have not amended the original blog entries made during the journey. I did not manage to post every day due to exhaustion or lack of wifi. Our boat, actually it is Mark’s boat, is a 30 foot long ya...

  A rolling stone gathers no moss. Sailing round the UK is undoubtedly a frivolous way to spend two months but we figure we have worked hard for 40 years and deserve some time out. However, with access to the boat restricted until very recently there is a fair bit of maintenance and preparation to do. One problem for boats, even when rolling along, is that they gather barnacles. The usual widely used solution is to paint anti-fouling paint on the bottom of your boat. This stuff is a biocide and work is ongoing to reduce its impact and find alternatives. Meanwhile, probably breaking a few health and safety regulations along the way, the bottom of the boat gets prepared and painted with this year's anti-fouling. Meanwhile, Mark is on board doing the technical stuff with new radio and navigation set up and most importantly a new toilet, glamorous stuff. With all the changes to the boat we will need to do a 'shake down' short cruise locally, just up the Blackwater estuary for a...

Lucky Launch Day? It is the morning of the 13 th of May and it might just possibly be the day we finally put our boat Kindred Spirit II back on the water after the winter season. The question in my mind is will the launch actually happen and will the boat float? Will it be a successful first step in our attempt to sail around the UK or do we have another few days of preparation still to do? For many people in the UK, the number 13 is considered to be a somewhat unlucky number. This is generally not the case in the Boyd family because our mum was born on the 13 th and married on the 13 th and has for many years worn a silver chain round her neck with a number 13 hanging off it. Now I must admit this may seem a pretty fragile way to persuade myself that the 13 th of May is a good day to put the boat back on the water. However, as an additional family connection to the 13 th my son George was born on the 13 th  and he is as fine a young man as walks the planet, even if he has spe...

  Kindred Spirit II sits sleekly as the rising tide gently laps her newly painted bottom, gradually lifting her from the confines of the launching trailer and back into the watery habitat she was designed for. She shrugs impatiently, keen to be off, bobbing on the grey sea water. Three kind friends brave the cold breeze to take photos and wave us off from the sailing club jetty. It is 13th May 2021.   After puffing and panting a little and coughing out some oily water the engine rumbled into life, much to Mark’s relief. After a nervous double check below decks, to make sure nothing was leaking, we tentatively set sail on the first leg of our long journey around the UK. Heading east down the Blackwater estuary under engine, after half an hour we raised the sails and turn off the engine to make best use of a modest 12 knot south easterly breeze. There is a steady drizzle and eventually Mark, getting cold, arguably may have expressed the first slight ‘whinge’ of the trip, althoug...

  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 funct...

  Sailing across the Thames Estuary, we crossed from from Burnham-on-Crouch to Ramsgate, is tricky because it takes so long that you cannot avoid some problems with the direction of the tidal flow. We set off from Burnham at the ridiculously early time of 4.00am to try and make the best of it and were safe in Ramsgate marina by 5.30pm. The forecast was for light winds and sure enough we had some time pottering along so quietly that we each had a snooze in the sunshine, not at the same time. However, in the event it was the brilliant sudden periods of strong winds in the squalls that helped to boost our speed from 3 to 6 knots for key periods of the day. As well as enjoying some rain, one squall pelted us with hard-hitting hailstones. It is 15th May 2021. This crossing was a first for both of us and we celebrated in style sitting outside an Italian restaurant overlooking the harbour with food and ice cold beers. With so many issues of weather, tides, boat and crew to juggle, a cro...

  If we only do sensible days of sailing, ambitious enough to be adventurous but short enough to only involve one tide or one tide and a bit, then it is likely to take us three months to get round the UK and we only really want to take two months. However, we are not really up for a sequence of epic long days so this relatively short hop from Ramsgate to a port just around the corner was intended to be a kind of rest day. The great thing was to leave Ramsgate with the tide in our favour and have some great sailing with the wind on our beam and then be moored in the marina and shopping by lunchtime in Dover for some essentials, in the knowledge that there is a great chandlery that is bound to have the required pop rivets, split pins, inshore flare pack and rope. We were soon approaching Dover but learned to our dismay that there was ‘no space available’ in the tidal harbour and it all sounded a bit too permanent so on a whim we pushed on to Folkstone. It is 17th May 2021. First glim...

  We will never really know if our sail plan could have worked, or would have worked a bit better, but clearly these long days do need some thinking through. It is 18th May 2021. We left on a falling tide at 6am and then enjoyed the assistance of the ebb to round Dungeness Head in strengthening winds. We soon passed Rye, an ancient tiny river port and available as a Plan B berth in case of problems. So far on schedule in line with our sail plan, but at 11.30 we came to a halt. The tide was turning but should not have been insurmountable. However, the forecast winds of 10mph gusting 16 turned into 20mph gusting 26 and right on the nose from WSW and churning up some sizeable waves and in collusion with the tidal flow. We had some very exciting sailing, right on the edge of the wind and tricky sea conditions and flying along at 6 knots but unfortunately not in the direction of our intended destination of Eastbourne. We spent four hours sailing our socks off and gained a psychologicall...

  May 19 th 20 th 21 st  ... Not much to report because we are stuck in Eastbourne due to incredible westerly winds with forecast gusts up to 50mph. We are consoling ourselves with the old sailor’s adage ‘Better to be in the marina wishing you were out at sea, than out at sea wishing you were in the marina’. It is probably an old adage, but in this case, I do mean an old sailor. We have both been doing some online ‘working from the boat’. For at least part of the day Kindred Spirit II is a floating office and hive of industry. Mark is chasing outstanding invoices, so if you owe him money then expect a reminder. We initially explored the marina side restaurants but have switched to cooking real food on board because our diet seemed to be getting too dependent on chips and cheese. I am annoyed with myself today because we had noted a very slim weather window today, but it became more extended. We could have at least sailed round the corner for a change of scene to reach Br...

  Yesterday we nearly left this place, our posh marina of which we have become rather too well acquainted. But the Windy App said gusting to 30mph plus so we went back to bed. But today we decided to go for it. It was probably more to do with frustration than a considered nautical decision. We went through the marina lock and out of the shelter of the sea walls and found good sailing with no sign of the app predicted gusts but in nervous anticipation we took in a reef anyway. It is May 26th 2021. Our passage plan was modest, we intended to struggle out to Beachy Head against the wind and tide but to arrive at the turn and benefit at least from some tidal assistance as we beat up against the wind past Newhaven, plan B, and Brighton marina, plan Z (we have become wary of posh marinas) to the delights of Shoreham. The sailing was rather bouncy and we were forced to tack out sea and then turn back, the forecast by Windy App of 17 gusting 26 turned out to be a steady 22 becoming steady ...