On Friday at 1730 Jan, my father Phil and I left Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington bound for Plymouth on our non stop delivery trip.
The first part of our trip, down the east coast from Harwich to Dungeness was dictated by wind direction. Basically with the wind on the nose we did a fair bit of tacking. Our route took us out to Long Sand Head, around the outside of the Thames Estuary and around the outside of the Goodwin sands. At one point during the night we were contacted by a patrol who redirected further east around some unlit structures that are destined to become another wind farm.
Tacking between the shipping lanes and a few miles offshore in fairly light winds ( 10-12 knots ) we made slow progress. When the tide turned against us our over the ground speeds dropped to between 3.5 and 4 knots. Things became very depressing during those moments.
Still we soldiered on past Beachy Head, Selsey and St Katherines point. At one point while offshore between Swanage and Weymouth we actually found ourselves going backwards on one tack.. Grrrr the tide was strong !!
When we got into Lyme Bay the wind freed a little. We were still heading upwind but the wind angle finally allowed us to make our course without tacking. Boat speeds rose into the 8/9 knots region. The wind speed rose and at one point in 25 knots true we briefly considered a putting a reef in the mainsail.
Finally, 2 days and 15 hours later we arrived. The direct route between our home berth and Plymouth is 300 nautical miles long however I guess with all the tacking we must have covered at least 350 nautical miles.