Having jumped ahead a little to the catastrophic diesel bug fiasco around Longships near Land’s End I thought I would go back and cover little of the route from Portland to Portishead. Throughout the journey we were trying to minimise the expense so leaving Zeelandia at a marina and getting charged £70+ a night for the privilege was one of the main driving forces.

Once we thought we had a window of opportunity with Force 4 (ish) for a few days we hot footed it down to Portland and made a hasty getaway. With the prevailing wind from the North we were in a good position to anchor and not only save on the ridiculous mooring fees but be in a good position so that if the weather suddenly improved we were ideally placed to be on our way at very short notice.

From Falmouth we made our way just to the west of the mouth of the River Dart and anchored in Leonard’s Cove. We avoided Deadmans Cove for obvious reasons. From here we then headed a short distance to Starehole Bay. The weather was not favourable for a longer leg that day so we ended up making a short jump in the lee of the land and anchoring again. Again the weather proved inclement and we had to wait for our moment to make a quick dash (figuratively speaking) to Falmouth. At this point the weather turned against us and it looked like we would have to wait again. We tucked Zeelandia up in bed and left her with an eye on the weather…

About a week later we returned, fired up the beast and headed to Penzance where we anchored overnight. Penzance has a wet dock which has limited opening hours due to the tide so by anchoring we could avoid any faffing and just make our way when the tide was favourable. At this point you might want to have a look at the diesel bug blog post as this was the following day…

After leaving Zee at Penzance (post diesel faff) expecting to be able to return within a few days, the weather forecast which had given us a good 3 day window began to close. It was sketchy at best but the skipper agreed we should be in place to take advantage if the conditions we doable. As it was we ended up leaving Penzance but the swell and conditions precluded us making any further headway so we anchored about a mile away from Penzance and waited.

Having left Penzance at first light on Friday, we finally pulled anchor and headed off first thing on Sunday to round Land’s End. This was an unpleasant experience at best and somewhat frightening at worst. The swell was beam on to where we wanted to go and progress was slow. What I do know is that Zeelandia rolls like a pig in the swell. The ballast and lack of keel mean that the strong righting moment keeps the rolling motion going considerably longer than is comfortable. I did see about 22 degrees of tilt at one point. I think there were occasions that it went beyond this but my attention was on trying to keep Zeelandia into the swell and keeping my sphincter closed… Once we rounded Longships and were heading North East the rolling subsided slightly and we made our way to Clovelly where there was a suitable anchorage to protect us from the easterlies which the very strong high pressure over Scandinavia was forcing down the Bristol channel. We arrived at about 0230 and dropped the hook a safe distance from the shore and then started our 3 hour anchor watch rotation.

And this is what it was like for the next 4 days. Strong easterlies (up to F7 and sometimes F8) and heavy swell in the Bristol channel precluded any chance of moving. We did shift anchor position once to get closer to shore which afforded us more protection but one morning I popped down to the cargo hold and back up again to get a charger I noticed the trace on the iPad navigation programme had moved and we had about 1.2 kts indicated on the GPS as well. The anchor was dragging and we were about 0.3 NM from the shore.

The trace of our anchor drag. You can see where we were static below the 'L' of Clovelly Road and then the trace heading to the west. I was surprised at how quickly it happened and how little warning you got of the movement. Definitely a salutary lesson in keeping a good watch.

Race to the engine room and fire up the beast. Fortunately I left her ready to go for a cold start so it merely required the a couple of valves turning and she thumped into life… Next job was to raise 50 metres of chain and a 200kg anchor while the skipper kept her from drifting too far. Suffice to say if you do a lot of anchoring you don’t need a gym. We moved back out to a safer distance from shore and reset the anchor which would hold for the remainder of our time.

It finally came to depart Clovelly on Friday and we hoped to make the lock at Portishead at about 2330 based on the tides and flows we were likely to encounter. As it was, conditions were benign but we were out by about 2 hours late on our planned arrival time meaning a cheeky little cross current at the mouth of the lock. Without the joy of a bow thruster you have to line up the 130 tonnes of steel early and do everything reeeaaallllyyyyy sssssssllllllooooooooowwwwwwwwwww.

We locked, docked and shut down. And breathed a sigh of relief. We had arrived.

So, what had I learned from the previous month or so (yes it did take that long).

1) Do this in the summer. Pick a time when high pressure dominates. This would have saved us a lot of heartache and time.

2) Learn to anchor and use it if at all possible. I was fortunate in that the skipper we hired was a fan of anchoring. It saved us mooring fees and we were always ready to go at a moments notice. We could have done with a bit more chain (80 metres would have been better than the 50 we had) but finding the right size chain is a long winded process and incorrectly fitting chain is a massive no no. It will jump and jam and you will be very badly placed.

3) Minimum crew of 3. It makes life a lot less stressful. 2 hour watches while steaming was fine but as the man in charge of the engine this got whittled down as I was checking the engine, topping up oils etc. Spending the best part of 4 days with less than 2 hours sleep at any one time is hard work if you aren’t used to it and fatigue starts to play havoc with you eventually.

4) Before you start, or before you even hand over money for a (diesel powered) boat, insist that the tank is emptied and the inspection hatch opened so you can see the inside of the tank. No ifs, no buts. Just do it. If it has been on inland waters and has had diesel left in it, you can almost guarantee it will have diesel bug sludge in it. How Zeelandia got us back from Longships on the diesel she was sucking through I have no idea. Old engines may need more maintenance and leak, be a bit clunky and Heath Robinson, but they aren’t as temperamental when it comes to fuel.

5) Know your engine. Oil systems, fuel systems, where the bleeds are, where the lube oil goes, how much are you going to need, spare filters and how to replace them in a pitching and rolling sea, have you actually checked you can get the retaining collars/nuts/bolts off or even get access to them with the tools you have…

There were myriad other lessons I learned, mostly from our skipper whose words of experience were welcome and very useful.

We did go through a yacht delivery company to hire a skipper. Although it was not the cheapest, it was certainly cheaper than the option we had considered of a full crew delivering Zeelandia for us. Apparently many companies are 1 or 2 man bands whereas the company we went with had an office with staff who were on hand to provide information, research, weather etc when needed.

The whole process was very, very stressful. It would have been better if I had more time on the engine and knew the systems in more depth, but it was very much “in at the deep end”. I lost a lot of heartbeats on this journey and certainly do not want to repeat it any time soon…