About 15 months ago, on a cold, calm day, we brought her up from there on a single spring tide with the help of Dave, a very able skipper from Swansea Yacht Club to assist us. That was the last time anybody but me has been in full command and control of my boat.
Because of a lack of wind and the need to cover 60nm within 10 hours, we used the engine all the way up.
We're taking two days to get back down. Not much wind forecast, so I suspect Sunday will be mostly under power, so we'll be going back the same way we came out.
Although it's another spring tide, it's a smaller one, and we'll be running against it's march. Coming up channel the tide chases you, being earlier in the west than it is in the east. In terms of our usual speed over the ground, this cuts about an hour of usable tide off heading down, and adds an hour heading back up.
So we're splitting the journey across two tides.
Getting down to Cardiff is fine. I can, of course, all but to that in my sleep by now. It's the Swansea leg on Sunday that I'm worried about.
My preference would be to make Barry on the first ebb instead of Cardiff, and drop the hook in the harbour there. That gets us beyond the race at Lavenock Spit and puts us in a good position to slide down the tidal escalator that runs along the north side of the Bristol Channel with the outing tide.
Dad has made it very clear his preference is for a pontoon and a pub for Saturday night, so we'll be stopping off at Penarth in Cardiff Bay instead.
I have some sympathy with his point of view, and think we should still manage the second leg, but it will involve punching the tide a couple of hours at one end or possibly both, which will mean doing so under power.
Then again, with a need to average 5kts over the ground to make the tidal gate, there's every chance we'll need to use the engine for most of the way if not all. And if I've got my sums wrong, or missed anything in my plans and estimates, we won't do it in one tide.
I do hope Saturday night's stop-over in Penarth doesn't come around to bite us come Sunday. If it does, it'll be my fault - I have the final say on where we stop Saturday night. Trouble is, you tempt me with the offer of a pontoon and a pub and, well, I guess I am indeed my Father's son. Well, a pub at least, I'm quite ambivalent towards the pontoon.
I do need to get to Swansea in time to make the boat secure and catch the last train home Sunday evening, as I have to work Monday morning.
To me, sailing is supposed to be all about the journey, not the destination. However, in this present time so much of my sailing seems to be racing the clock and the tide.
It won't always be so.
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