Calstar: Portishead to Cardiff

The plan was to meet at Dad's for 0930 Saturday morning and drive down to Portishead. A 1015 arrival on the boat would make for a leisurely prep and plenty of time to stop by the fuel pontoon before out 1200 lock-out. However, Friday night's gig in Bristol made for a late night, and the 0930 meet up turned into 1015, which meant that we didn't get to the boat until just before 1100.

Time and tide, etc.

Saturday 17th September: Portishead to Cardiff
(19.8 miles, 4 hours 47 minutes underway)

Despite the delays in getting to the boat, we were still ready to cast off by 1130, which gave us just enough time to refuel. The fuel pontoon is just outside the lock gate. They were pumping water in from the estuary as we approached to maintain the water level in the harbour, putting about 3 knots of turbulent flow along the pontoon. It made for an easy landing, but once refuelled, Dad accidentally let slip the stern line too early, and Calstar was swept away from the dock leaving me stood there on the pontoon holding onto her bow line.

It was like holding a big dog on a lead. The flow was too strong for me to pull the boat back in by hand, but once Dad had untangled himself from the stern line and got his hands on the tiller and throttle, it was a simple enough matter to nudge the boat back in to pick me up.

The lock felt crowded with powerboats; there was in fact only three other boats for company but one of them was rather large so the lock out was a cosy affair. Saturday's high water for Portishead was at 1215, a relatively small tide of 10.8m, approaching neaps on Monday, so the lock didn't have far to fall, and by 1206 we were disgorged into the awaiting estuary.

The blue sky had a scattering of cloud across it, and the cocoa coloured sea was ruffled but flat. Out past the breakwater there was a slight breeze from the north west, so at 1216 we optimistically turned Calstar into it, hauled up the sails and stilled the engine.

The first twenty minutes were tricky. As if to complement the chaotic eddying of the tide as it churned beneath the headland and through the narrows off Battery Point the inconsistent breeze backed and veered like a dervish. Too shifty to accommodate the autohelm I hand steered the boat, tacking a number of times as I sought to pick a way out from the shadow of Portishead and into clearer air and water. Eventually, out past Woodhill Bay and the sailing club, things calmed down, and Calstar settled on an easy beat down the King Road under full sail with about 15° of heel.

A number of tacks took us down the channel, past Welsh Hook and onto Clevedon, until a final tack onto port put us onto a long fetch that cleared the English and Welsh Grounds and let us lay distant Penarth. Very early on the tide, we still had 6m of water once we reached the far shore, so cut a corner off our rout by cutting over the spoil grounds rather than clearing them to the north as we'd normally do.

North of the still submerged sandbanks Cardiff Grounds, the wind finally failed us, so we rolled the genoa away and started the engine to motor-sail the final mile or so. Locking in to the Barrage was straight forward, and Penarth Marina was welcoming as ever, but originally directed us down a narrow dead end in the dock to a berth that was already occupied. Turning Calstar back around to make our way back out in a channel that was little wider than her own length was a tricky affair.

Redirected to an alternative berth that was indeed vacant but somewhat tight, we overshot a little and grazed our starboard side along the corner of the finger pontoon before I could step onto it to put enough weight onto the boat to fend her off. But no other damage was done; a scuff mark on the gel coat, but nothing that won't rub out.

Sunday 18th September: Cardiff to Portishead
(17.9 miles, 3 hours 53 minutes underway)

Sunday morning's return was an earlier start to catch the tide. We cast off from Penarth a little after 0630, and locked into the Barrage for 0700 in the company of three powerboats full of hopeful anglers looking to bother the autumn's cod. A long drop down to the outer harbour, and then we were on our way, picking our path down the Wrack Channel to open water as the cod botherers accelerated away past us, leaving us bobbing around in their wake.

We found a light breeze blowing off the Welsh shore, so clear of the channel we turned into it to pull the sails out and cut the engine. Settling onto a gentle broad reach as deep as we could go without covering the headsail with the main didn't give us a course that would clear the sandbanks of the English & Welsh Grounds so we poled out the genoa to goose wing the sails and settled on to a training run that let us lay Clevedon some 10 miles distant on the far shore.

It was nice easy sailing, with minimal work from the crew, save to occasionally tweak the course to ensure the main didn't run by the lee and risk a gybe, or to occasionally ease the genoa a little to keep it flying by the lee when the wind backed and took us off the run onto a broad reach. The sea was very slight, the wind with the tide and serried waves of no more than a foot running with us, although as the morning wore on they started to break lightly, suggesting the westerly wind was building as it carried us across the Bristol Channel.

A big car carried heading up to Portbury passed well ahead of us. Sailing into the climbing sun, we passed close by the clear water buoy of EW Grounds to starboard at around 0830, and then the port lateral of E Mid Grounds half an hour later. Approaching the King Road off Clevedon, we hardened up onto a broad reach, releasing the pole to gybe the headsail over to join the main on a port fetch.

The sea was still flat, but the sky by now had clouded over and the breeze was lively. Across the VHF we heard Bristol VTS inform an inbound vessel passing Welsh Hook that they recorded it at 15 knots westerly. As we passed Black Nore Point it caught us up, a large barge being pushed along by a tug, passing us to seaward as, off Woodhill Bay, we rounded up into the wind to drop the sails.

Putting out the lines and fenders as we passed close into Battery Point, we called up the Marina on the VHF early, taking a few attempts to get through as their aerial was at first still obscured behind the headland. But contact made, they held the 1015 lock a few minutes longer for us, and we slipped in to come alongside, the gates sliding shut astern at 1020.

Early on the tide, there was still a five meter climb for the lock to bring us back up to the dock level, but eight minutes later the inner gates yawned open to let us in and we entered the marina, returning a friendly wave to a small boy watching from the side of the lock.

We landed back at our berth without mishap, the fresh wind blowing us directly onto the pontoon made for a relatively hot landing, but Dad judged it perfectly, and no further scuffs were put along Calstar's gel coat.

I feel like this year, for the first time in the eight years we've owned her, we've seriously underused Calstar. Lots of things have got in the way; not least my daughter's wedding, a stupidly busy band diary and two weeks "seeing another boat", as Calstar would put it had she voice, in the Adriatic. We sailed just short of 38 nautical miles this weekend, over just shy of 9 hours out on the water, we some lovely sailing each way, beating into wind on the outbound leg, and running back.

So that's a small way towards remedying our neglect. Of course, I'm about to compound it again, because early Wednesday morning I board a flight out to Tivat, Montenegro, where I'm going to meet up with Mark and Amore again and help sail that "other boat" back to Corfu.