Wet Weekend

We spent Saturday capsizing dinghies at Frampton and helping coach trainee Safety Boat crews through their recovery procedures. Given the amount of time I spend capsizing dinghies on Frampton Lake I have a vested interest in making sure the Safety Boat knows what it's doing when it's supposed to be looking after me. It was an enjoyable day, even if I did inadvertently go in a couple of times. First time I've really put the new drysuit to work since I bought it for the aborted (postponed) bid on Lundy with Green Bean, back in May.

The water was much colder than I remember it being previously for this time of year. Or maybe I'm just getting older, and not so practised to being fully immersed in it these days? At least the sun was shining.

After the fun and games at the lake, Dad and I headed down to the boat, dropping his car in the marina car-park in Portishead and getting a taxi over to Underfall Yard in Bristol. The hoped for work had only been partway completed: the deck floodlights hung beneath the spreaders had been replaced with new LED lamps, and the masthead tricolour and the bow nav lights had likewise been replaced with LED's. The steaming light and anchor light remain as traditional tungsten bulbs however; Jay couldn't find suitable LED replacements. And the forward reefing pennants in the single-line reefing still hadn't been replaced, nor the two halyards.

The latter was a "just because you're there anyway" as they're not exactly beyond even my own ability to replace, however I would really liked to have seen the anchor light swapped for an LED.

Jay had kept Dad well informed of progress through the week so none of the above was a surprise. He's going to come down to Portishead to replace the reefing pennants in situ as soon as it's mutually convenient. I couldn't help feeling it was a lot of fuss to have been through to have brought the boat all the way up to Bristol to essentially get a few bulbs replaced. Dad, on the other hand, was absolutely delighted with his new deck floodlights. I'm not sure I rate them as anything more than night-vision killers, but I guess they'll be handy if we ever decide to throw a party on deck. Or something like that.

Supper was a very nice mixed grill from a small cafe-grill in town, down a side street a short walk from the Bristol Hippodrome. To my shame, I can't remember the name of the place, but the food was very good. Then it was a relatively early night ahead of the promised early start the next day. As we turned in for the night, the sky was clear and the water of the docks illuminated by the bright ivory light of a full moon overhead, dulling the stars.

0500 I woke shortly ahead of the alarm and rolled out of my bunk, optimistically noting there was no patter of rain on the cabin roof overhead, at least not as yet. It's perhaps a little unsavoury, but when it's just Dad and me on the boat and we're faced with an early tide, I've taken to going to bed in the clothes I plan to get up in, it makes the oh so painful act of crawling out of my bunk and into the cold and dark just a little bit easier.

The rains began just as I installed the auto-helm onto the tiller and then lowered the sprayhood in preparation for casting off.

By the time we were underway, departing the dock at 0550, it was bucketing down. Shortly before we slipped our lines, the Dad's deck floodlights blew out. Their fuse had gone.

Other than that fuse and the early rain, which had been forecast to hold off until later in the morning, everything else went exactly to plan. We entered the junction in front of the first bridge at 0610 and threw a warp around one of the bollards to hang on the quay wall whilst we sat and waited for the bridge. The man turned up at 0615 as promised, and swung the bridge for us. We entered Cumberland Basin with another yacht following astern, the 60' Hummingbird, an expedition yacht and training vessel, veteran of three circumnavigations. I believe she'd spent the summer up in Scandinavian waters and was now bound for the warmer southerly climes of Spain and Portugal, but for now her numerous crew crowding her deck as she entered the lock behind us were as cold and wet as we were.

We gave them a cheery wave, and had the same returned. Cheery, you'll understand, is a relative term.

We left the lock and entered the Avon at 0645, punching the still very lively, flooding tide, leaving Hummingbird behind to wait for more water and less flow in the river. Our speed over the ground was, at first, little more than a knot as we inched our way through the darkness beneath the brightly illuminated Clevedon Bridge and then out past Black Rock. With only a meter draught and almost ten meters of water in the river, we hugged the insides of the various bends with unabashed impunity, making the most of the slacker water there. Gradually the flood began to ease, our ground-speed picked up and light began to weep into the sky.

Even the rain had begun to east by the time we passed the village of Pill and the clubhouse of Portishead Cruising Club and slipped down river under the motorway bridge.

Calling up VTS as we passed Nelson Point a shade before high water at 0800, a friendly voice advised us he had three tugs in the King Road and a car carrier inbound to Portbury and currently abeam of Portishead Point. We simplified matters by offering to loiter in the mouth of the river until everybody was done playing around. There was arguably plenty of time for us to slip down past the Royal Portbury gates and home to Portishead before the ship reached us, but the rain had now stopped and I really quite enjoy watching and listening on the VHF to them handling the big vessels in and out of the docks.

By the time they were done the tide had fully turned, so it was less than a ten minute hop from the mouth of the river, past the stern of the car carrier and her attendants now inching into the mouth of the dock and then home to Portishead. The wind was still light, no more than 10 knots southerly, coming off the shore, so the sea smooth for the duration of the transit, even with the tide turned and now picking up to a hard ebb. The marina office had the lock gates swinging open as we crabbed in on a ferry glide across the current to the shelter of the Hole, and by 0845 we were safe along side our berth in the marina once again, the morning's work done.

As we made fast the dock lines, the sun came out, the scudding clouds being blown clear by the now building breeze.

The River Run

Dad won't abide the thought of me climbing our mast.

I've climbed taller trees, much taller. And rock faces. And buildings. I was playing with ropes and carabiners and improvising climbing harnesses long before I really got interested in sailing. Even now, some thirty years on from heyday of most of my simian antics, a 10m mast doesn't present too much of an obstacle. It already has safety lines rigged, in effect. And I'd love to get a photo from the top of it.

But nope, he's not happy with the idea at all. I could push the issue, but I can see how uncomfortable it makes him.

"If you managed to climb all the way up, you'd never work out how to change the bulb" was the last reason for putting me off. For the record, I can change a bulb.

Anyway. Dad wants to change the deck-lights that shine down from our spreaders for LED's. Whilst we're up there ("we" as in a general collective, as opposed to "we" including "me" for reasons just explained) we might as well also change the steaming light and anchor light for LED's. The nav lights are on the pulpit and pushpit, so within easy reach. Dad has already changed the stern light.

In addition to that, we had the main running lines replaced on the single-line reefing whilst the boat was in Swansea, but the man that did the job didn't renewal the forward running pennants, and they really need doing.

The upshot is that Dad made arrangements with Jamie of Traditional Rigging to take care of all of the above. He's based at Underfall Yard in Bristol's Floating Harbour, so we had to deliver the boat to him last Saturday. Which led me to suspect that this work, all of it nice to have but for the moment, none of it essential, was in large part just an excuse for Dad to take the boat up the Avon, through the sea lock and into Bristol.

It was a nice run. The river usually is.

We had the first lock of Saturday morning's tide booked out of Portishead for 0800. High water was about noon in Bristol, and they were expecting us for a 1000 lock in. It rained for the duration of the drive down to Portishead, but it eased and then stopped completely as we made ready to cast off. The rest of the morning remained grey and overcast but otherwise dry.

We shared the lock out with five other vessels; cod season in all but upon us now, and they were all bristling with rods and hooks and enthusiastically eager anglers keen for the morning's chase. There was a slight chop pushing as the lock gates opened to let us out, 10 knots of north-easterly made Portishead a lee shore and dampened any notion I might have had of hauling up the sails for the mile's run up to the mouth of the Avon.

Depends what you read and who you talk to, but boats are nominally supposed to report in on the VHF to Bristol VTS if they're entering the river. I did so as we were passing the gates of Royal Portbury, and was somewhat testily informed by the operator that if I was now approaching the mouth of the river, I was obviously clear of the shipping in King Road, the obvious subtext being what was I therefore bothering him for? It's a fair point. His only interest in folk like me is that we stay clear of his shipping, and it's very clear to me, barring darkness or fog, what's going on in the King Road without bothering VTS to find out.

The fifty minute run up the river was picturesque as always. The engine was quiet, barely more than ticking over just enough to give us steerage whilst the flooding tide did the bulk of the work. High, muddy banks gave way to rocky cliff faces, wreathed with overhanging, arboreal woodland, the atmosphere at times primeval, disturbed only by the calling of birds and the occasional rolling of fish on the surface of the heavily silted water.

We called up City Docks Radio on the VHF to announce our arrival as we turned into the final straight running under the iconic Clifton Suspension Bridge at about 0938, having made very good time on the tide. We were greeted warmly by the harbour master, and invited to make our way up and stem the tide off the knuckle of the harbour wall whilst they cleared the outbound traffic currently locking down to the river.

Locking in was hassle free, having the spacious sea lock entirely to ourselves. They took our lines up and passed them back to us so we could adjust them through our ascent.

The two not insignificant road bridges guarding the entrance and exit from Cumberland Basin beyond were swung in quick succession once we were up, the Bristol traffic waiting patiently whilst we traversed the basin into the floating harbour beyond with minimal waiting around on our part. And then it was a quick trot around the corner to come alongside a pontoon in Underfall Yard where we made the boat tidy and secure for Jamie to do the promised work in the week to come.

We're hoping, with the work done, to take her back down the river and home to Portishead next weekend.