Calstar: Denny Island

The forecast for Sunday 14th of May looked promising. The anticipated temperature was an almost summerish 18°C, cloud expected but no rain, wind in the west, gusting to 18 knots but averaging in the low teens. Predicted high water was 1546 at 10.4m, the tide just leaving neaps.

It had been a two gig weekend, Bristol on the Friday night followed by Gloucester on the Saturday. It felt like an age since we'd last taken Calstar out, and even longer since we'd last had a decent sail with her. So after a relatively luxurious slow start Sunday morning, Dad and I got to the boat just before 1300, and easily had her set to go in time to make a 1400 lock.

Out of practice and caught by an awkward crosswind conspiring with her usual prop-walk when first put astern, we had some fun and games manoeuvring out of her berth, but although it took us a few attempts to get her pointing the right way, we finally managed it without hitting anything. By comparison, our lock out, shared with two other boats, was flawless.

Beyond the cover of the breakwater, we found the sea ruffled by a slight chop, blown over by a fresh breeze pushing up the channel. We hauled up the main with the first reef set, switched the engine off as the little boat leaned to the wind, and pulled out the genoa, leaving a couple of conservative rolls in the headsail.

Two miles off shore from Portishead, in the midst of the wide stretches of sandy shallows that uncover on the low tide, is a small islet, little more than an odd outcropping of rock, called Denny Island. Around these parts, your either sailing down channel with the ebb or up channel with the flood, so in all the years we've been here, despite trying a couple of times and always being beaten by wind or tide, we've never managed to sail around it.

So we set Calstar close hauled on a port beat, and punched across the tide towards it.

Even with the mainsail reefed and the genoa carrying a couple of rolls, the gusts were enough to heel Calstar close to 30°, making the Raymarine autohelm work for its money trying to keep the course straight and true and prevent the little boat from rounding up to the wind. Over the next twenty minutes as we closed on the island and it became more and more apparent that we were going to make it, I eased off on the course to a close reach and the going became easier.

Far from complete cloud above, there were regular patches of bright, warm sun. It had turned into a lovely day, and the sailing was glorious.

Gybing around the back of Denny Island, we set course on a broad reach back towards Avonmouth. The flooding tide slowly eased as we approached high water, but the wind, as expected, increased as the day wore on. Gybing under the Avonmouth shore and reaching out towards the Bridge, I measured 18 knots across the deck on my hand held anemometer, but overheard Bristol VTS advising a vessel inbound for Portbury that they were measuring 20 knots from the west.

The tide turned, and now running back against the wind on the ebb, we pulled the second reef into the main before hardening up for the beat back to Portishead.

By complete accident, we timed our arrival back outside the marina perfectly, to find the lock already open and waiting for us to enter.

12.3 nautical miles covered in just over three hours, almost all of it under sail and most of it in the warmth of some lovely spring sunshine; perfect sailing.