The World Cruise of Veleda IV

Finally leaving England? 

Ramsgate, England April 18, 2000

We finally left Gravesend on April 16, but not until 1230. We were ready to leave at 1000, but when I tried to start the engine, the battery died. We had been having trouble with it, but were unsure whether it was just the cold weather or viscous oil. We changed the oil before we left from single grade 30 to 15W40 which should have been less viscous at cool temperatures. It started up well for us before we left London, but not today. We have started before by using the decompression levers to get the engine rolling over with a weak battery, then switching to full compression to start the engine. However, even this trick did not work. We have the start battery completely separated from the house bank, and with considerable difficulty could have hooked the house bank to the starting motor, but elected instead to dinghy ashore to the Gravesend Sailing Club where a very considerate member gave us a ride into town to Halford’s to buy a new battery. So we finally got off on a pleasant sunny Sunday motoring into a 10 knot wind.

The weather forecast was good, predicting force 3 to 4, which meant maximum winds of 16 knots, a moderate breeze. However, the wind continued to be on the nose, and increased throughout the afternoon. It should have shifted south, which would have been good for us as we were going east, but it didn’t, it stayed easterly. By 1800 it had increased to force 6 (22 to 27 knots), and by 1930 we were pounding directly into a force 7 (28 to 33 knots). It was a very rough sea, as far as we are concerned it was the second or third worst sea we had sailed in since leaving Toronto two years ago. When we got to the Outer Tongue buoy, we decided to forego crossing the traffic separation lane for Vlissingen in Holland, and instead altered course southerly for Ramsgate, 15 miles away. Our speed went from the 2.0 knots we were making against the 30 knot winds to 7.5 knots on a rip roaring broad reach under 50% reefed genoa and engine in increasing winds of 35 to 45 knots! We made the 15 nautical miles in 1 and 3/4 hours, to enter Ramsgate Royal Harbour for the first time, in a full gale, at night. We finally found our way into the pontoons of the outer harbour, and greatly appreciated being alongside on one of the inner finger docks. We were tempted to take the easier route and just go on the outer pontoon behind a nice looking ketch which turned out to be our friends Richard and Carolyn on Floating Point. They shared a Bon Voyage party with us and Den Njord at Limehouse Basin. We went inside the pontoons instead thinking they would be a bit more sheltered, and they were!

We rocked a bit during the rest of the night, but in the morning the winds were increasing even more to 45 to 55 knots at the pontoons, and Veleda was bouncing around quite fiercely. Most of the other boats at the pontoons went into the inner docks, including several fishing boats. Finally we decided to go inside too. We initially hesitated as we did not like the idea of backing out of our location into 45 knot winds, and risking collisions with other boats or pontoons. However the marina provided a duty boat to tow us out backwards into the channel leading into the lock to the inner harbour We were able to motor in once we were lined up, and followed the duty boat in to raft up against a Belgian 38 foot Westerly sailboat. It was lovely inside!

While in the outer harbour waiting for the duty boat to come to assist us, I noticed a German 29 foot Kelt sailboat had broken her two stern lines and was in danger of being blown onto an adjacent pontoon. There was no one aboard her, so I hopped on board and had Judy throw me one of our lines which I doubled up on the stern cleat and Judy secured it to a cleat on the finger dock. I retrieved the two broken lines and used them to double up so they wouldn’t break again. The owners weren’t around, and I didn’t get over to see them before they left the next day. They must have wondered where the extra line came from. It was only an old genoa sheet.

Ramsgate has a good port which is located right downtown. Immediately above the marina are several marine shops including a sail loft, chandlery, Volvo, Yanmar and Perkins dealers, and a motor scooter rental shop. The Royal Temple Yacht Club  is just a couple of hundred yards up the hill and they welcome visiting sailors in their bar and pub. The town pedestrian mall is only a four minute walk from the docks where there are a couple of large grocery stores (Tesco and Iceland), banks, pubs, photography shops, hardware stores, post office, Tourist bureau, and a glass cutter who cut a mirror to fit into a ship’s brass port hole that had been given to us. We got several major tasks completed and spare parts for the boat in the two days we spent here.

It calmed down the second day, and we plan to leave at 2230 which is the earliest we can get out the lock as it is restricted to plus or minus two hours around high tide. I hope it doesn’t blow up again before we leave. There are still several fronts converging in this area, but if we can get an eight hour window of good weather, which has been predicted, we can get across to Dunkirk, and if the weather still holds on the French and Belgian coasts, we will try to get straight to Vlissingen in Holland, our original destination when we left London on the 12th . It would be a 91 nautical mile run that we estimate will take about 19 hours, depending on the tides.

I want to get this off while we are still in mobile communications range in England, as when we are in Europe, we will have to find a telephone land line and the European local access number to use. Thus our next communications may be delayed until we sort it all out. So I will send this off now and let you know how our crossing was in the next log.

Links:

Ramsgate Marina

The Ramsgate Society

The Port of Ramsgate

Approach to Ramsgate Harbour (image)