I'm Off

[Booby Trapper]

Well the weather looks to be on the up and the good ship Shearwater will be heading west tomorrow. I hope to be in Port Ellen tomorrow night and from there the world is my oxter. If you see me around be sure to say hello.

Ian

[Old_Glow_In_The_Deep]

Nice-one Ian ...

Have a good one ... & take some spectacular photo's

See you soon-ish ...

[sahona]

Read this and looked up to see a couple of sails at the South end of Arran (11.20 ) , so it looks as if you've made the break.
Have a good scratch at the World. I am led to believe we are in the Clyde this year...

[Telo]

Enjoy it, Ian. Hopefully, we'll be out at the end of the week. Might see you if we drift down south.

Best

D

[Aja]

Hope you get it warmer than we did last week when with friends we sat in Gareloch listening to the hailstones bouncing off the deck. Seriously cold but excellent sailing when we could.

Enjoy

Donald

[Clyde_Wanderer]

Well he is somewhere near the elbow by now
Ian is doing well and getting around.
He should have just arrived in Craighouse Jura within the last 1-2 hrs having shot across from Gigha today and overnighting in Port Ellen last night.
I will let himself update you with the finner details when he can.
Good on you man.
Have a great time.
C_W

[Booby Trapper]

I'm now sittting the marina office in Ballycastle. i had what you might call an exciting sail here. Left Jura at 0900 in beautiful sunshine with the wind on the beam and wearing shorts and teeshirt. By the time I was 2 miles south of Islay I was down to 2 reefs in the main and a lot of jib furled away. The swell kept building and I would say it was a bit hairy at times. The forecast was for west 4-5 occ 6 . At no point for the next 3 hours was it a 4-5!!! 6 at leats all the way. I could make enough headway to go west of Rathling so bore off a bit and went east. The macdonald race was certainly racing today. Time now for my first shower since leaving, well it's only been 2 nights.

Bill. Yes that could have been me south of Arran Tues morn but I doubt it as I didn't have any sails up as the forecast SE 10 knts turned out to be a flat calm 1 mile after leaving Ardrossan. I motored all the way to the mull before the wind picked up enough for sailing.
The Mull rounding was a bit lump. Video to follow.
Time now for my first shower since leaving, well it's only been 2 nights.

Booby Trapper OUT.

[cpedw]

... Time now for my first shower since leaving, well it's only been 2 nights.

...
...
Time now for my first shower since leaving, well it's only been 2 nights.

He doth protest too much, methinks.

[claymore]

I wonder if he's one of those who always puts on clean trollies when he's had a shower?

[Silkie]

Pray, what are trollies in this context and how does the term derive? The Urban Dictionary (so often my saviour in our fast-changing world) has not been helpful on this occasion.

[Booby Trapper]

First attempt at a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AazSn8FuZI8

[ash]

First attempt at a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AazSn8FuZI8

Thanks for the video. I've never been round the Mull so I'm treating it as a training vt. It has prompted lots of questions.

You had no sail up, which isn't like you, so was there no wind at all?

Why was it rough? Residue from previous wind? Wind over tide? It's always like that.

You showed SOG and your boat speed when the big wave stopped you, but what was the average tide speed, or your average speed through the water.

What was the extent of the rough water? in nmiles and / or time?

Where were you in relation to HW Dover?

How far past the lighthouse are you before it smooths out?

How much longer would the outside, south of Sanda route take you? and when would you take that route?

Cheers

Ash

PS hope that you had a good week. I take it that you're home now.

[Booby Trapper]

Wow loads of questions.

I'll try to answer best I can on my experiences but I'm no expert

I left Ardrossan at 0900 with a good blow from the SE as forecast, about a mile out the wind died completely and I motored. I took it down just passing Sanda as the boat was starting to roll and the sail flap. There was absolutly no wind at this point.

Why was it rough? Most of that was just caused by the tide. Although it looks really windy later in the video there was virtually no wind. It did pick up and blow offshore just after passing the lighthouse and I did roll out a bit of foresail.

Just as I entered Sanda sound the tide had started to ebb and I picked up SOG I usually motor about 5.5 knots so when it showed SOG at over 10knts there was quite a bit of tide running but thet was just for about 15 mins or so. Most of the time up to about a mile before the light house I was getting 8 or 9 SOG.

The roughest bit is about a mile before the light and a mile after so really it's only 15-20 mins. If you get the tides right and don't have to fight your way round it's really all over pretty quickly. You do have to be quite brave and stay close in to avoid the worst of the waves I'm not sure I'd want to do that if there was much of an onshore breeze say from the west or southwest I might consider going well offshore if that was the case. What I have found is that the wind is so unpredictable close in as the cliffs seem to have a big effect on the conditions. You still can go through Sanda sound and then head well offshore if it looks at all dodgy close in. On the way back I was comming from Ballycastle so didn't really need to bother with the "inside route".

Not sure about highwater dover. I went by tides at Cambelltown and just worked it out from there. High water at Cambelltown is about the same as at the mull. Tidal Atlas NP222 ( I think) has very good detail of the tides around the mull. It refers to hw at Greenock If you haven't got it I would definitly get one.

Its also available here but it doesn't have the inset detail
http://www.visitmyharbour.com/articles/ ... h-of-clyde

It smooths out about a mile past the lighthouse

Going south of Sanda I dont think I would do unless going to Ireland.

Hope this all helps.

If you are at all worried about it just aim to be approaching sanda sound at high water slack if going west and the mull at low water slack if going east,

[ash]

Thanks for the info.

I hadn't expected the tidal rate to be so high that soon after HW.

As I see it HW Campbeltown is 8 minutes before HW Greenock and 53 minutes after HW Dover.

I have a tidal stream Atlas from Reeds - It seems to show a West flowing inshore eddie as early as HW Dover -1 ( HW Greenock -0220 ) with a full West going flow at HW Dover +1 ( HW Greenock - 0020 )

The leaflet from Campbeltown Berthing Company talks of leaving the pontoon 2 hours before HW Campbeltown so I suppose that would mean passing Sanda at about HW.

Cheers

Ash

[Booby Trapper]

Yes that's right about the back eddy. If you arrive early you can use it to your advantage, there is also one just before the lighthouse coming from north.