Wind from the north

6 nautical miles

The wind was predicted to be from the south and gentle in the morning (6-8 knots) and stronger in the afternoon (12-15 knots). The intention had been for a gentle sail with two friends of Tim's - Paul and Panny.  However... when we got to King Malu we saw the wind was from the north, which is very unusual for this area and was 15 knots gusting 20 knots. We decided if it settled a little lower, maybe 10-12 knots gusting 15 we would sail, otherwise cancel for the day. Panny is not a sailor so unsettling her on her first sail would not be a great idea!

After about half and hour or maybe 45 minutes it did reduce so we decided to try a sail. Just as we were about to leave the motor boat next to us arrives to moor. They have quite a difficultly mooring so we are concerned. The new place we have for mooring is not good. It's really for smaller boats than ours, for instance the chain to which the mooring ropes is only about 1-2 metres away from the boat, to the angle is way to steep for us and we have to use centre mooring rather than end mooring. Actually there are no lines even attached to the chain - a couple of weeks ago Tim dived and attached one line, but is is temporary and we have made two new lines, but need to get someone to dive to attache them to the chain.

Anyway, back to the northerly and getting out of the marina... Our first attempt failed as the guide line for the centre mooring line had not been let go and we were therefore still secured to the pontoon. When we returned we changed the way this is secured so that we will see this line and not miss it. But... that was not all the problems... we don't yet have an inboard so manoeuvring is difficult. In reverse King Malu will always turn to port whatever you do with the wheel since the prop-walk on an outboard makes steering in reverse pretty difficult. We also have no bow thruster.

First problem was that the northerly was blowing the bow round as we reversed out. She just clipped the pole - fortunately just the anchor. Then trying to do a three point turn we had to fend off the sea wall, which broke one of our boat hooks. Still, we got out OK.

Out of the marina on the sea the wind was stronger as you would expect, it was 18 knots, gusting 25 knots. At least that's what the wind instrument told us. So I decided to hand steer as I could spill wind when the gusts came through rather than letting the autopilot hold course and giving our guests a rougher ride!

After tacking to come back the wind dropped a little, but was still gusting quite a lot. Coming back into the marina at just after mid-day it was 'like Piccadilly Circus'. Piccadilly Circus is a square in London where there is always loads of traffic coming from every direction. In our case there 4 or 5 boats coming out, one just ahead of us going in and a whole fleet of them behind us trying to get in.

With the new mooring position you have multiple turns the final one with very restricted space and a boat either side, that gives very little space, it's the fenders that hold us apart, there is no actual space! Too slow and you lose steerage, too fast and you have problems with the pontoon or another boat. Now remember we still have an outboard which has a long throttle cable so fine adjustments to speed are difficult. 

Let's just say I didn't do the manoeuvre very well. But thankfully didn't do any serious damage to us or any other boats or to the pontoon! Just after we secured the wind changed 180 degrees and so we were trying this just before a wind shift where the wind is unstable anyway.