Oostende for a beer

This was the trip that he had been planning since becoming my owner. I couldn't wait. A trip from the river Crouch to Belgium. All of the planning and preparation seemed to stop about two months ago, apparently it had been busy at work. So all I got was a quick clean, bottom scrub and the addition of his latest ideas; a self steering system. For more details on this see the projects page.

So with hull clean, starter motor refitted (and working!!!), crew on board, we set off on Tuesday evening for the Roach for a night at anchor and an early start on the high tide. A brilliant sail down to the Roach and a peaceful evening. We were off at 4AM, back in the Crouch, sails up and a force 3 Northerly wind with the sun out. We started 3 on, 3 off watches and when off watch tried to get some sleep. We sailed up to the north end of the Whitaker Channel and then round East Barrow and across Sunk Sand bank. Unfortunately he'd misjudged the state of the tide and the depth reduced to a point where crossing the sand bank became impossible so we turned round and went up to the North end of Sunk and then round Black Deep against the tide. Now it was clear through to Belgium using waypoints off the C30 Imray chart. We sailed down the TSS until we reached the bottom of the N/S TSS from Felixstowe to Thames Estuary. The wind had come round to East North East so we started the engine and crossed the TSS without any need to avoid ships and then we crossed to the Main TSS into Belgium waters. As evening fell we approached the TSS  West Hinder TSS leading towards Zebrugge and Oostende. Crossing this TSS was tricky as there was a steady stream of ships going east and west along the TSS. At night it was quite easy to see what was going on but the chart showed an area of fish farms around the MOW7 buoy. These caused some concern but we never actually saw them.

Once across the TSS we sailed East towards Oostende. Keeping south of the North Cardinal marks so that we were outside the TSS seemed a bit weird but we felt safer than being in the shipping. Towards dawn the wind picked up from the North and we sailed towards Oostende. When we contacted Oostende Port control they advised us that a Ferry was due to so we turned round to wait for it. Within a couple of minutes of turning we were facing a fast moving ferry from Ramsgate. No problem but impressed by the Oostende Port Control. We followed the Ferry in and as we made our way up to Royal Yacht Club Oostende was reached the ferry as cars and lorries were already rolling off the ramp. By the time we had made it to the marina and tied up the ferry was on its way out again. Mooring was bit tricky, going astern resulted in an uncontrolled slew to port as the self steering gear contrived to put the helm hard over. We ended up on the adjacent finger!

After a shower and few hours sleep we took the tram into Oostende and had a look round, while the town was not our cup of tea we had a good look round the Sail Training Ship, Mercator.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_(ship) , fascinating look at how Cadets lived in the days of proper training. An evening meal on board then a few beers in the RYCO, this was what the excuse for the trip had been about. Belgium beer, like Belgium, is probably best sampled outside of Oostende. The RYCO was a strange mix of old surrounded by new. The club house is the best appointed club house I have ever been in but with the petrol station and tram line outside and the sand and gravel docks to one side it felt a bit out of place.

We got up and left on the morning tide at about 5AM. As soon as we untied the STOP light showing that the port had a large ship manoeuvring came on so we had a quiet 10 minutes to practice going astern and turning around. Going astern worked better with the self steering gear locked in position but was still very difficult.
When the STOP light cleared we were given a very quick permission to transit the port, they must have seen us going round in circles on their radar. We sailed back along a slightly different route keeping further south which worked well except for getting stuck against the tide going across the TSS North of Foxtrot 3 roundabout. Three hours battling the tide, heading North and making West when we wanted North West was frustrating. I know what the col regs say! With a knot and a half of tide and 20 knots of wind I probably have about 30 degrees of leeway. After making it across the TSS we were shadowed by a family of dolphins, if we'd known they were going to follow us for 15 minutes we'd of looked for the cameras. As it was we only expected it to be for a couple of minutes so we spent all of the time watching them. There seemed to be four of them, two larger dark coloured and two mottled lighter coloured dolphins. I am not that much into wildlife but this was very special. Surrounded by wind farms and just out of sight of the Kent coast and we have beautiful dark turquoise seas and a group of Dolphins to keep us company.

To pass Thanet wind farm seemed to take ages, about 5 hours, then Kent Knock and then on to Fisherman's Gat. The weather was great.

By the time we were entering Fisherman's Gat the bouys were all lit up, we made it through to Black Deep in three hours with tide and wind against us. Heavy rain and lightening made the run through Black Deep and across Sunk Sand Bank a bit more nerve wracking than. Once across the Sunk Bank it was west into the Whitaker channel and back down the Crouch. The new buoyage caused a couple of problems, while the lights were great when close up, they proved a bit difficult to spot in the gloom and differentiate from each other. We had the tide with us all the way to Bridgemarsh.

A great trip, 250 miles, 54 hours, 32 hours engine time with 18 hours at night and back safe. Not bad for a  39 year old.