Along the coast of North Wales on a Hitia 17' catamaran

[Sat 16 Aug 2003: HW 1425 8.8m, LW 2125 2.1m; Sun 17: HW 0240 9.1m, LW 0930 1.7m, HW 1505 8.5m]

I’ve often wondered, looking out from my mooring on the north Wirral shore, how far down the Welsh coast I could sail in a weekend. The shady silhouettes of the various ranges of hills spread out in a receding arc towards the west, culminating in the Great Orme appearing like an island, its feet hidden below the horizon, always look so alluring.

The forecast for the 16th and 17th August seemed settled so I applied for permission and was granted leave on condition that I was back by Sunday afternoon in time to help with preparation of Sunday dinner, for which we’d invited guests. This seemed reasonable. I could slip my mooring as soon as the water rose early Saturday afternoon, sail down the coast with the ebb as far as it would carry me, anchor overnight and return on the Sunday morning flood. I would be putting my new catamaran, Star Catcher, through her paces. I knew she could perform a respectable sprint in the right conditions, but how fast I had really no idea, and what could I expect as a realistic cruising speed?

Saturday dawned hazy and calm, but by early afternoon, one hour before high water, a light air had sprung up from the north and I’d set sail and was moving gently over the last of the flood to head out around the East Hoyle Bank. The same air wafted me broad reaching across the mouth of the Dee estuary and down the Welsh coast for the next three hours; a leisurely afternoon during which I clocked myself between fixed positions at 5.3 knots.

Abergele Road

Somewhere near the mouth of the Clwyd however, the breeze died. I drifted for a while in the muggy warmth, but it did not pick up again so I decided it was time to set up tent. The whole coast here consists of shallow shelving sand and probably I could have spent the night comfortably almost anywhere along the shore in these settled conditions, but ‘Abergele Road’ was indicated nearby on the chart, presumably once a temporary anchorage for coastal shipping, and suggestive therefore of a most suitable spot.

In the nineteenth century Abergele was a small market town and staging post on the main coach route from Chester to Holyhead, lying half a mile inland. Pensarn is the adjacent shore-line development which appears to have grown up around the railway station. (‘Sarn’ in Welsh means ‘causeway’, and I guess that it refers to the shallow sand spit that shelters the roadstead.) The place is notable in being the object of unusual derision in one nineteenth century guide book: G A Cooke in his Topographical and Statistical Description of North Wales (c.1839) says, “A more dull and dispiriting place than Abergele can scarcely be found,” and that, “No ships ever approach, unless driven by tempests.” The latter would not seem to be consistent with the existence of the roadstead, but perhaps the roadstead was of a later date. However, that “no ships ever approach” seems still to be the case was confirmed by a couple strolling along the shore who approached me after I’d beached to ask, “What happened?” thinking I’d suffered some dire calamity (such as having been driven ashore by a tempest); they said they’d never seen a boat there before.

Certainly, it turned out to be a quiet and peaceful spot to spend the night. I’d grounded four hours after high water in a shallow gutter behind an undulation formed by a sand spit running parallel to the shore, which, had there been any, would have given me some shelter from waves. As the tide receded, more such undulations appeared, so the whole area seemed quite nicely sheltered. The only places I was glad not to have dried out on were a few rough stony patches in the middle of the beach, but these occupied quite small areas; these, and the four feet high encrusted iron remains of the old sewage pipes just to the east of where I lay, which were awash as I came in to shore; their seaward extent is marked by a green "Welsh Water" buoy just east of the town, level with a telecommunications mast on the shore. The top of the beach is shingle and also serves as a car park, accessible by a road over the railway bridge; a dinghy could be launched here.

A small number of amusements and stalls line the promenade. I availed myself of a kiosk for a bag of chips and watched a deep, rich red sun set the water ablaze under a layer of grey against the dark background-forms of the coast. Later, comfortably in my sleeping bag, I observed under the edge of my tent the strings of orange lights draped up the steep slopes above Llanddulas swing first one way and then the other as I floated on the incoming tide and then rode to the main stream flowing along the coast.

A noble pleasure dome

Dawn appeared with a vaguely overcast sky and a light offshore breeze. With eighteen nautical miles to go to get home by high water in mid-afternoon, a niggling thought urged me to forego breakfast and make the most of the breeze in case it proved fickle later. So I weighed anchor at six o’clock (HW+3) and set off in a calm sea on a close reach, heading east up the coast, with the pleasure domes of Rhyl within sight just off my starboard bow. The air was clearer this morning. I had the world to myself, not even the first early dog-walkers were out on the beach before seven o’clock.

The first forty minutes brought me to Rhyl, and the second to a weather tower just off Prestatyn, near where a new series of channel buoys comes in close to the shore marking the Welsh Channel entrance to the Dee estuary. A large wooden sloop rode to anchor just off the beach at Prestatyn. She was the first boat I’d seen on the Welsh coast since setting out yesterday and I passed close by for a look and waved to the skipper, feeling rather pleased at making good 5.4 knots over the tide.

But I shouldn’t have felt so smug because within half a mile the breeze, which had dropped in the shadow of the Clwydian hills, suddenly reappeared with renewed vigour right on my nose, while the West Hoyle Spit, now showing on my left, was funnelling the remainder of the ebb tide down the channel against me. Star Catcher is a beautiful creature and performs wonderfully when conditions are right for her, but with foul wind and tide, confined spaces limiting us to short boards and a building chop causing us to fail in stays such that several times we had to wear round (at least this is relatively straight forward in a catamaran with loose-footed main sail) and as a result lose much ground, forward progress for a while was negligible. At one point I even decided to retrace my track and go round outside the spit instead of up the channel, but I soon regretted this because I didn’t like the sea that was building offshore, and in trying to remain within the shelter of the shallows, more than once found myself aground in a maze of breaking wavelets and had to jump off to haul the boat into deeper water.

Sailing like an earwig

Somewhere in this vicinity on the chart is marked the ‘Earwig’ buoy. (Sadly, because it is such an unusual name, a recent update removed it). Now I think I know why it was thus named: I was wriggling and squirming like one, in my mind at least, at the discomfort of my predicament!

I reefed the main and set my little ‘Spitfire’ jib (I call it that because of the sound it makes like machine-gun fire when sheeted tight). It never fails to astonish me the way a boat feels so much more comfortable after reducing sail, and how so much more confident one feels as a result. It took me three hours to claw the four miles to a position abreast of the old Point of Ayr lighthouse at the northern extremity of the Welsh mainland, whence, finally, I could lay two large tower blocks at New Brighton close hauled on starboard tack to guide me home on the now strengthening flood. After another forty minutes I’d crossed the Dee and had Hilbre off my starboard quarter. Then after rounding the East Hoyle Bank and homing in towards the old lighthouse at Leasowe, I had half an hour to wait before I could creep up the gutter with the flood to my mooring at Dove Point, two hours before high water and in plenty of time to help prepare Sunday dinner.

It had taken me five hours on the outward leg to cover the eighteen sea-miles to Abergele, reaching in light airs with the tide; and seven hours on the return leg, reaching, beating and close hauled in gentle to moderate breezes, mainly against the tide. This gives an average cruising speed overall of about 3 knots… hmm, not as impressive as I’d expected, but it is good to have some idea in order to plan for next time. Whether or not Abergele is such a dull and dispiriting place, I never found out, but it is a fine anchorage for a small boat making passage along the coast, so I’d certainly consider visiting again.