(or — ‘The rally I’m not going to.’)

I had been wanting to go to the rally at Iken Cliff since it first was mentioned in the spring Bulletin and the date was firmly in my diary. However as I started to plan how to sail there I realised that the tides were all wrong. Ted Jones and I discussed meeting up and possibly sailing together and he suggested that you needed a rising tide to get over the bar into the Ore. The only possible way to do this appeared to be to set sail in the middle of the night and I was not keen to do this. The five day forecast gave westerly winds for the weekend increasing to fresh, force 5 on Monday. As I did not fancy a 50 nm beat against force 5 wind I rang Ted and reluctantly said that I would not be going to the Alde that weekend, but intended to explore the Medway and Swale instead.

On Thursday, 4th September I left my mooring at Heybridge Basin, Maldon in Rebell at high water and sailed down the Blackwater and into the Colne, to spent the night anchored in Pyefleet. The forecast wind for Friday was an ideal force 3 from the west and, as the forecast for the next two days was similar and the weather was perfect, I began to have second thoughts about going to the Alde. The problem was when to start. In the end I decided that a 0400 start would enable me to catch the northerly ebb tide and then to take the flood up the Ore. However I did not sleep well and got up at 0230 which enabled me to leave Pyefleet at 0330. (Local HW 0240). Sailing out of the Colne in pitch blackness proved to be more difficult than I had expected as, although I had no problem in staying in the channel, I was unable to work out the lights on the buoys, except to see that some were red and some were green. I could not determine when I should turn northeast to sail up the Wallet and as a consequence I went out to the Colne Bar Buoy — which was about a mile further out than I had intended. My pilotage isn’t as vague as all that and I had set a compass course to take me down the Colne and I do use an echo sounder. Eventually it dawned on me that the street lights I could see were Clacton sea front and that the white flashing lights — which I thought were on Colne Point and not on my chart — were cardinal buoys out to sea, which were marked on the chart.

It became light enough to see the compass without the compass light at 0500 and a glorious sunrise was an hour later. The tide turned against me around Harwich at about 0800, but the wind continued as a westerly 3/4, so I had no problem in continuing my steady progress. I entered Orford Haven on the rising tide about mid-day without having to follow all the pilotage notes to which yachts have to adhere. I find that by sailing up the coast about 150 yards out one can sail straight into the river. There was a minimum of 3 metres on this occasion. I had covered 33 nms that day and I was glad to anchor in the Butley River about 3 nms from the mouth of the River Ore. After a lazy afternoon I felt that I had to telephone my wife to tell her that I was not in the Medway. Getting ashore without a dinghy was not too easy, but I reckoned that I could go aground on a hard up the Butley River before low water, walk the 2 miles to Orford and refloat before it got too late. The plan did not quite work as expected as I had intended to ground alongside the very narrow hard; but the current was too strong and before I knew it I was jammed across the hard. This was at 1900, 2½ hours before LW. Having made the telephone call, I was tired on returning to Rebell and went to sleep — only to have to get up at 2400 to motor out into deep water for the rest of the night.

On Saturday I did not know who was intending to go on the rally so I left the Butley River at 0900 and sailed up to Orford, with the intention of anchoring and watching the slipway and river. However, I was hailed from a yacht on a mooring and invited for a coffee by a fellow Blackwater Sailing Club member. I stayed there until 1330, listening to Diana’s funeral and having lunch, before sailing on to Iken Cliff. I have been up to the top end of the River Alde on three occasions and I find it a most unpleasant experience. Once again the winds from Aldeburgh on were too strong, gusty and from the west. The channel is well marked but very twisty at the top end and I ended up in the all too familiar situation of trying to hold on to a tack too long, starting to go about, being hit by a gust and ending up on to mud with the boat trying to sail even further on to the mud. I motored the rest of the way! I went all the way to Snape Maltings for the first time and marvelled at the way the bargemen must have got their craft up the very twisty channel without an engine. I met a barge motoring from Snape and I had to leave the marked channel as there was not room for us both. Although I was at Iken Cliff at HW I did not see any DCA boats and as I had not seen any all day I decided that it made more sense to spend the night back at the Butley River in order to get a good start on the return journey.

The pilot books advise leaving the Ore on the flood tide using your engine but I have left before on the ebb and on this occasion I decided that I would aim to clear Orford Haven at 0930 which was ½ hour after LW but ½ hour before the tide finished running out of the river. This gave me a maximum of tide behind me to the Walton Backwaters which was my destination for the night. Crossing the deep water channel at Harwich usually causes me some anxious times, but on this occasion there were no big boats in sight. However looking back a few minutes later there was a High Speed ‘Cat’ ferry, a cross-channel ferry and a container ship all in the harbour entrance. I was in the Twizzle by 1230 and intended to anchor for lunch having passed though the many moorings only to discover that there are oyster layings and no anchoring. I continued and ran aground in Horsey Mere for lunch. I managed to cross the Wade using the motor in the shallow water position and anchored for the afternoon and night in Kirby Creek. Again the anchorage is restricted by oyster layings. It was another beautiful evening and night.

On the way into the Backwaters I had explored an inshore passage around Stone Point that I had used a couple of times before when the water was higher and which saved going out to the Pye End Buoy. I found that there was 4-5 metres of water for a considerable distance away from the marked channel, so I decided to try to use this short cut on Monday morning. This inshore channel is NE from the green buoy situated just off Stone Point and is marked in East Coast Rivers by Jack Coote — the east coast cruiser’s Bible. LW on Monday was 1000 and I left Kirby Creek at 0730 ready to round Stone Point at 0800. Initially all went well and there was plenty of water. The wind was force 3 from the west. Shallow water was visible towards Stone Point but the way ahead was clear. Then the echo sounder started registering very shallow water and the centre board was grating on the bottom. I did get through but there was only about 18” of water. Certainly a route to use at half tide but I would not recommend it after that on a falling tide.

The sail back to the Blackwater was against the wind all the way from Walton-on-the-Naze. I was just able to reach Clacton hard on the wind on the starboard tack, but after that it was tacking all the way. I started with working sails, but the wind gradually increased to force 4 and one reef in the main, then to 5/6 and I had to set the storm jib. As I entered the Blackwater/Colne estuary the wind dropped and I was able to set the working sails again. The waves in the Wallet were interesting as they did not come from the direction of the wind but straight down the coast. That meant that I was heading straight into them rather than on the weather bow. It did make sailing a little drier but even so spray was flying. For the first time I realised the reason for the Bench Head buoy when I saw breaking water over the shallow patch it marked. Previously I had ignored the shallow water as irrelevant to a small boat.

I arrived back at my mooring at 1630 after covering 30 nms that day and a total of 120 nms over the five days. It was one of the most enjoyable cruises I have ever made, with the weather and winds being kind to me!