We were offered a long term visitors berth at Humber Cruising Association last November, but there followed a series of named storms so we didn't venture out. Its all very well insisting there is no off-season for sailing but the reality is we only got moderate northerly winds with a ridge of high pressure and that means it is cold.
By March we had high pressure and winds W or NW 3 or 4 forecast and reasonable temperatures (up to 10 deg C). We had clear skies, no swell except a horrible one the first day. We saw porpoises, seals and no other yachts.
It was sad to leave Hartlepool. One of the friendliest and most economical commercial marinas we have encountered. While the town is not so interesting near the marina are big supermarkets, a cinema and a fun maritime museum. The cruising ground is superb with plenty of short hop ports to visit and lots of marine life to see. It also has the advantage that you can often get out the lock 3 or 4 hours either side of HW.
We spent two nights at Whitby and one at Scarborough. Whitby is our favourite NE port to visit with a picturesque and vibrant town, shops (including a chandlers) excellent showers. The down side is the swing bridge opens every 30 mins only two hours either side of HW. Like most harbours along the NE coast the port authority staff will often "talk you in" over VHF as they watch you on cameras. Whitby and Scarborough both said they did not really have visitors berths as they had moved residents on to them for maintenance, but they seem to have a tradition of finding a place for you somewhere. We filled up with diesel from the fuelling point at the fish dock. Commercial quantities means minimum 250L or 55 g. That was what we needed to fill up so fine with advance notice.
It was a shame that we had to motor, as the wind was no more than F3 and we had a schedule driven by tides. But is was sunny, clear and calm, so we couldn't have everything. We saw porpoises on every leg or the trip. They don't seem to stay with us when we are under engine, which was a shame. The seals however pop up to take a good look at us (and maybe to see if we have any fish).
Videos from MarineTraffic
Thursday, 24 March 2016
Wednesday, 30 December 2015
Sarah at the helm
A following wind, Radio 3 on the cockpit speakers and Sarah at the helm. NE coast of England last summer
Tuesday, 13 October 2015
Sneaky autumn sail
It is warm and calm even though it is October. We motored up to the Tyne. No wind. Poor viz. But strangle also bright sun. A clear shadow on the compass let me do some calibration.
Checking the compass deviation using the Sun
Our Plastimo steering compas has a pointer to cast a shadow to check for compass deviation.
It is 11:35 UTC on 10/10/2015 and we are at around 54 deg 10 N 1 deg 10 W so the LHA of the sun is 178 deg. Variation is 3 deg W, so the compass bearing of the sun should be 181 deg and the shadow 001 deg. We can't read the compass to that accuracy but it looks about bang on. It is a pity Plastimo did not make a longer pointer. Repeating the exercise turning the boat around we can swing the compass and make a deviation card. Not however while the First Mate is passing a cup of soup up the companionway.
It is 11:35 UTC on 10/10/2015 and we are at around 54 deg 10 N 1 deg 10 W so the LHA of the sun is 178 deg. Variation is 3 deg W, so the compass bearing of the sun should be 181 deg and the shadow 001 deg. We can't read the compass to that accuracy but it looks about bang on. It is a pity Plastimo did not make a longer pointer. Repeating the exercise turning the boat around we can swing the compass and make a deviation card. Not however while the First Mate is passing a cup of soup up the companionway.
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Yaddnet helps me with MF DSC configuration
I fitted an active watch antenna for my M801e SSB radio (thanks to Bob at sailcom for supplying this. As Bob suggested I wired the power supply for the active antenna off the power supply to the ATU.
So now to test it! From NE England Lyngby radio in Denmark is accessible and automatically replies to DSC test message on MF (2187.5kHz). HM coastguard does not reply automatically, they have to notice the message and have not be too busy to click on it. It is not clear if the different MMSI numbers for CG stations are really any different, or if they are really all centralised. At first I was getting no reply so I checked on YadNet. This first showed up I had got a digit wrong in the MMSI. When I got it right I was being heard by Yadd monitoring stations (amateur radio monitoring experts) from Shetland to
The next morning I got an ACK from Humber CG.
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Do you need an SSB?
A fellow member on the Oyster Owners forum asked this. Here is part of my reply
I just upgraded the Icom M710 to an M801e before they become
unavailable (I got mine Radio Exchange in Australia).
However in many ways this is unnecessary. I mainly use HF
radio for email (including position reports) and getting grib files
and other weather info using sail docs. Of course this also needs a PACTOR modem if
you want to do it at reasonable speed.
Form a cost point of view a ham radio costing a fraction of the price,
or at least a rugged non-marine Icom radio like a IC-7200 would do the
job.
That said a modern DSC equipped HF/MF radio has an important
advantage. If you are out of VHF range of shore or other ships and you
are in trouble sending a DSC urgency or distress message on MF will
find another ship. All ships have their SSB radios. They do the
compulsory test of them once a month and they have them switched on.
If you send a DSC distress message it will make them "ring" loadly on
the bridge! They will not however monitor 2182kHz (the MF equivalent
of ch 16). Pretty much no one does. Not even Lyngby Radio or HMCG. So
a non DSC SSB radio does not do that job.
I agonized over that for a while. I even wrote a small program that
made a DSC message over my old non DSC M710 radio (that bit was easy,
it is the decoding that is hard). But in the end I decided to get the
proper kit. In any case the M801e is waterproof and fits in much more
neatly.
You can still make link calls to phones. It is expensive - I am not
sure if it is more expensive than a sat phone. Here is a nice YoutUbe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
to call a phone. You dont need DSC for this i just makes it a bit
easier. It certainly makes it easier for a phone to call you as it
"rings" rather than having to wait for traffic lists. Compared to a Sat phone though one down side is
that long distance it will only work at certain times of day depending as it has to skip off the ionosphere.
If you want to get an SSB radio and a UK license Bob Smith is the
person to help . I did the Long Range
Certificate course with him. On the
other hand if the yacht is registered in the US it seems you don't need
to do a course, you just apply for a ships radio license!
By the way I have an Icom 710 for sale.
See also my post on various ways for position reporting/tracking
I just upgraded the Icom M710 to an M801e before they become
unavailable (I got mine Radio Exchange in Australia).
However in many ways this is unnecessary. I mainly use HF
radio for email (including position reports) and getting grib files
and other weather info using sail docs. Of course this also needs a PACTOR modem if
you want to do it at reasonable speed.
Form a cost point of view a ham radio costing a fraction of the price,
or at least a rugged non-marine Icom radio like a IC-7200 would do the
job.
That said a modern DSC equipped HF/MF radio has an important
advantage. If you are out of VHF range of shore or other ships and you
are in trouble sending a DSC urgency or distress message on MF will
find another ship. All ships have their SSB radios. They do the
compulsory test of them once a month and they have them switched on.
If you send a DSC distress message it will make them "ring" loadly on
the bridge! They will not however monitor 2182kHz (the MF equivalent
of ch 16). Pretty much no one does. Not even Lyngby Radio or HMCG. So
a non DSC SSB radio does not do that job.
I agonized over that for a while. I even wrote a small program that
made a DSC message over my old non DSC M710 radio (that bit was easy,
it is the decoding that is hard). But in the end I decided to get the
proper kit. In any case the M801e is waterproof and fits in much more
neatly.
You can still make link calls to phones. It is expensive - I am not
sure if it is more expensive than a sat phone. Here is a nice YoutUbe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
to call a phone. You dont need DSC for this i just makes it a bit
easier. It certainly makes it easier for a phone to call you as it
"rings" rather than having to wait for traffic lists. Compared to a Sat phone though one down side is
that long distance it will only work at certain times of day depending as it has to skip off the ionosphere.
If you want to get an SSB radio and a UK license Bob Smith is the
person to help . I did the Long Range
Certificate course with him. On the
other hand if the yacht is registered in the US it seems you don't need
to do a course, you just apply for a ships radio license!
By the way I have an Icom 710 for sale.
See also my post on various ways for position reporting/tracking
How to make a phone call on your SSB
A nice instructional video on using the US commercial coast station WLO to make a phone call through your ICOM 802 radio. It is about the same on an 801
As for costs as far as i can tell from this post it is about a US dollar per minute
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