Cowes to Ramsgate

Hi everyone,
On Wednesday evening we finally departed Cowes.  We were stuck there due to poor weather.  But there are many worse places to get stuck!  We enjoyed our 3 day stay which included several memorable pub lunches.  We also enjoyed watching the many sail training yachts come and go, plus the Clipper Venture yachts which are presumably training crews for their next round the world event.

We departed Cowes at 1800.  Here are the usual plots for the passage...

Zen Again Track

Zen Again Speed

And here are the usual statistics...

• Distances/Speeds
• Route Distance = 135nm
• GPS Distance = 130nm
• Duration = 21 hours
• Average ground speed = 6.2 kt
• Weather
• Minimum wind speed = 15 kt
• Average wind speed = 20 kt
• Maximum wind speed = 28 kt
• Apparent wind angle range = 120 to 180
• Seas up to 2m
• Mostly broken cloud with sunny intervals.  Occasional rain showers.
• Engine
• Total = 1 hour
• Driving = 1 hour (in & out of marinas)
• Charging = 0 hours

Our ground speed average is one of our best ever.  That's due to our catching two tides - one flowing up the channel and the other flowing from the channel into the North Sea.  We had the tide with us from Selsey Bill all the way to Dover.  The speed plot shows just how constantly the tide was in our favour.

The sail was good with little traffic to contend with.  We were under double-reefed (trisail side) main and well-furled yankee all Wednesday night, then under well-furled yankee alone on Thursday.  The regular Gale Warnings on the VHF made us a little nervous!  Storm force 10 winds were forecast for Thursday night further north, and gale force 9 for our area.  We thought about stopping at Dover at one stage when rain showers were dampening our spirits but the sun came out and we pressed on.

We arrived at Ramsgate at 1445 on Thursday afternoon.  The weather was partly cloudy and blowing 20-25 knots.  As the photo below shows, the finger jetty at our berth is very short so we spent some time preparing for the oncoming gale.  We then staggered into town for a pub meal, having met the main objective of our holiday - reaching Ramsgate.

The overnight gale kept us up minding our lines during the small hours of the morning.  Some pretty good bullets came through.

Zen Again in sparsely populated Ramsgate Marina

Today (Friday) we had another walk around town and lunch at the Royal Temple Yacht Club.  A great lunch in very nice surroundings.

Royal Temple Yacht Club overlooks the harbour

Excellent Ploughman's at the RTYC

Tomorrow we plan to sail towards the Medway.  The winds are forecast to be light westerlies so we may stop overnight at Queensborough before heading up the Medway River to Chatham on Sunday morning.  That will be a homecoming since I was born in Chatham and sailed there while back in the UK in the 1980s.