passage report 71 Grimsby to Elbe

Passage Report No. 70

Grimsby to Elbe

Fish Pen Dock was in free flow (open locks), Sahula departing Grimsby, steamed into the ebbing Humber, past Spurn Point and into the North Sea.

Cruising freedom is “cutting the cloth.” The journey had changed. Crew has a time limit, Skipper needs a crew. Unsettled weather, persistent Northerlies and expensive harbours, determine that Sahula must make for the Elbe River, Kiel Canal and the Baltic. The reverse of the original plan via Scotland and the Shetland Islands.

A light northerly prevails. Tanya and sails drove Sahula east, amongst countless oil and gas rigs and shipping. Wind turns south. An orange sunset augured well. Another day to the destination.

A ship conducting seismic operations requested Sahula change course.>p>

A lone seal watched progress.

Clouds swept in, rain and rising wind. Winlink (HF radio online) provided emails and weather. The forecast included possible Gale 8 (40 knots) in nearby “Dogger” sector. BBC radio provided confirmation. Sahula changed course towards possible refuge ports in the Dutch Frisian Islands.

Winds rise (25-30 knots), seas steepen and break, green water, sprays, rolls, cold across the deck (cockpit plastic covers keep crew dry), oil rigs, shipping, winds ever changing - north east to south east. Sahula lays south east for Dan Helder port. Wind backs to south east. Sahula changes to Vlieland Island.

Brandaris (Teschelling Island) radio provided advice through the narrow, shallow entry channel. After a dark, draining, night on the notorious North Sea; dawn and the marina (27 Euros) provided welcome calm.

Vlieland is an upmarket summer resort providing sand dunes and beaches

.

Inland the Dutch “mast up” canal route beckoned weather free. Crew’s time limit determined returning to the offshore coastal route north. Dawn welcomed a light southerly. The Elbe is a day and night away. Tanya with sails set on a calm sea and favourable tide, fog lifting to a clear sky, had Sahula swiftly moving north.

Dutch Customs ship looms astern “We wish to board your vessel.”

Black “RIB” races alongside. Two pleasant officers check documents, ask if guns are aboard; a cursory inspection and depart.

“Something to tell my friends” crew.

Sahula sails into German waters. Barometer is dropping, dark clouds astern and ahead. Wind changes to North.

Yet nothing changes!

Crew is having many firsts: nights at sea, storm conditions, port entry in dark, mooring.

Skipper calls Coast Guard for a weather report. All prior reports don’t note a change. Ems Traffic (Emden Port Control, Ems River) report storm conditions for the German Bight (location of Elbe River): “You should seek shelter.”

Sahula returns to Borkum Island at the Ems River entrance, gateway to Emden city. In pitch black, reliance on lights, digital and paper charts and intuition, take over. Across the Riffgat bank (Ems Traffic confirms sufficient depth 6-7 m), into the main shipping channel, past the sparkling town, to the marina entrance – an invisible, one kilometre, black “slot” into the river tidal flat.

Radar on, entry between close Red and Green, Sahula lined up the unseen narrow channel. In an act of faith, Skipper conning, crew steering; two unlit metal buoys slide by. Sahula passes the final flashing green and edges in to the ex-naval base, marina basin. At 0200 hours, Sahula berthed, crew rested, sleep.

Morning dawned, the rigging howled to the forecast

southerly.

“You can’t leave, the River is very rough.” Frisian entrapment. Less than a day away, the Elbe seemed an eon.

Crew relaxed in Borkum marina (20 Euros per night). No Wi-Fi, no shops. Three huge wind (electrical generators) propellers, moaning remorselessly, strangely, stand sentinel over Sahula.

Borkum (5 km walk) is a German North Sea, summer, tourist town. Impeccable, aged, middle class tourists mill before the hotels that wall the wide, windswept, esplanade and sand beach. Almost none speak English (cf. to Holland). Massed, colourful, striped, beach “cuddies” (covered, wind protected, beach seats) stand forlorn. Crowds promenade the pedestrian shopping mall filling the restaurants, bars, clothes shops.

Wind turns south. “Can Sahula depart?” Ems Traffic weather report includes “…force 5-7 possible 8…” From Borkum esplanade, the North Sea rages white.

Forecasts suggested a Sunday departure.

The Elbe, entry to the Kiel Canal and the Baltic, remains a tantalising, day’s sailing.

“Will the weather improve?” “In May; May will be good!” – date: eleventh May! - the eternal optimism of European life.

Crew finds a German yacht is leaving tomorrow (Saturday) – “winds dropping.” In morning, Dutch Coast Guard, Ems Traffic forecast dropping winds at sea but on the coast, gale warnings persist (6-7 WNW). Nordeney Island, the last “bolthole” before the Elbe reports a “dangerous” entrance “…in onshore wind above Force 4, seas break heavily on either side of the winding channel…” Sahula remains in Borkum marina.

“you can go to Nordeney, the inland route, through the estuary mudflats.” German yacht, lifting keel (1.4m max), plans to leave. “1.7m – too deep, if ground may have to await higher tide.” Sahula, tempted, remains in Borkum.

Tomorrow, forecast is wind dropping. Frustration, anticipation – to be or not to be?

Sahula awaken to silent “propellers.” Ebb tide rushes to Riffgat entrance – 4 m steep almost breaking seas – Sahula lunges for open ocean, “bites the bit, strains the reins,” grasps a tide and speeds (6-7.5 knots) to the Elbe.

Estimated at 12 hours; in 9 hours Sahula, pass the rivers Jade, the Weser, to off Elbe entrance buoy, mingling with mass shipping. Under full sails and Tanya, she drives through, just outside the channel, against an ebb tide. Astern, dusk, darkening clouds, wind increasing, she urges on.

Shipping parades continually by. Huge container vessels; three square riggers, lights ablaze, pass. It is dark, under a star blessed sky. Deeper inland , in a narrowing channel, Sahula confronts a 5 knot ebb “rapid.” She halts. Full power by Tanya and slowly, infinitesimally, Sahula is off the Cuxhaven Yacht Haven entrance. The moon rises, a deep orange crescent. It is 0300, dawn. Safely alongside, crew sleeps. Long overdue, Sahula has arrived.

Crew’s time aboard is short. Sahula tomorrow enters the Kiel Canal and into the Baltic.

NOTES: Cruising is enjoining the unknown. Sahula left Ipswich with naive expectations. An unpredictable North Sea spring, hatched gales and head winds. It is a truism that lessons learnt, in one place, invariably are noted but little used. A cruiser moves on. Sahula changed the cruise plan. Nevertheless, the doing gives increasing intuition about a region. Skipper is in steep learning mode. Sahula has weathered some of the North Sea’s worst. Once in the Baltic the cruise changes to possible short days sails with many “boltholes” and ports. However, she moves north, into more weather learning. Such is the realm of sailboat cruising. Why do we do it? “Because it is there” – Edmund Hilary. To which may be added to embellish life with the sense of risk and visual beauty that only the doing can give.

Next Report: Elbe to the Baltic.

Best,

David.

14^th May, 2012.