August bank holiday weekend promised much but eventually delivered little for the Dale based cruise of Milford Haven in south west Wales.

With four or five boats showing an interest before the weekend it was only the Friday before travelling to Wales that I learnt of final confirmed numbers – us in W1038 and Geoff and Marion Hall in W98, with Syd who lives locally planning to attend but unable to sail as he had lost his newly purchased wanderer recently in the Haven on a lee shore.

We drove up on the Saturday and got ourselves comfortable in a self catering cottage on St Annes head overlooking the Milford Haven approaches. This meant we could easily get down to Dale for 9:00am on the Sunday morning, where we found Geoff and Marion rigging and Syd arrived on his bike to greet us.

Dale offers a public slip, good parking and rigging space not far from the beach and a café and toilets near at hand. The sailing club were very welcoming and happy to arrange dinghy parking for us in their boat park plus access to their club house. We paid £15 each for the 2 boats for temporary membership, the main benefit of which was the dinghy park space. The public slipway is well maintained, on an easy gradient and at low tide runs onto a firm if slightly boulder strewn sandy beach. The slip is quite busy with powerboats, dinghies and canoes launching, especially after about 10:30 when the car park fills up (Charge for parking was only £2 a day)

The weather however wasn’t playing ball. From our vantage point on St Annes head during breakfast we had seen the white horses and swell which would greet us once out of the shelter of Dale roads. We both decided to reef and I made sure of properly inflated masthead buoyancy, had personal flares and whistle on my person and had Max clipped into the boat on a lifeline from a U bolt in the back of the centreboard case.

After a briefing using the chart of the Haven we set off from the beach meaning to head first south of two cardinal marks for Sandy Haven on the north shore before seeking a lee from the brisk SW wind for lunch in Angle Bay about 6 miles away in all.

That was plan A… but running away from the sheltered beach into the Haven the wind rapidly built and I soon decided to check our ability to make back to windward against the weather and sea. This proved easy enough under the reefed main and when Geoff and Marion also declared themselves happy to continue under reefed mainsail alone after trying a brief beat, we carried on into the open water.

Once clear of the shelter offered in Dale roads we encountered the swell running in from the Bristol Channel, which built quickly to become quite impressive. Geoff and Marion later described how we disappeared between the swells leaving only the top of our mainsail visible, despite sailing in close company. The swells themselves, though impressive, weren’t actually a threat to us, as they weren’t cresting and were long and gentle. The sea running on top of them was confused however and occasional white horses reminded me that while it remained easy to run downwind it would be a long wet beat back to Dale and if conditions deteriorated we might struggle.

Bouncing around off the entrance to Sandy Haven we lay a-hull to consider our options. I was not keen to enter Sandy Haven and to embay ourselves on a lee shore. Frequent white horses were still running past us and the large swell ran straight into the bay. Now that we were exposed to the full force of the SW wind and swell our lunch time destination in Angle Bay was looking a long way away, so we rapidly agreed to turn tail and beat straight back for the shelter of Dale. ‘Better to be ashore wishing you were out there, than out there wishing you were ashore’ as the saying goes. It is always difficult to recognise when a deteriorating position passes a critical point so I was pleased that Geoff and Marion very quickly agreed the suggestion that we head back in without letting bravado or false hopes of an improvement in the weather cloud our decision making.

Making to windward in fresh winds under reefed main only in the Wanderer is a delicate balancing act. Too tight a main or too close to the wind and you go nowhere slowly, but too free and you are easily over pressed and not making to windward at all. Constant attention to maintaining boatspeed and always trying to head off the wind a little more than usual with the main eased to the leeward corner over the eased traveller kept us moving well enough. Tacking had to be planned carefully, going in as fast as possible and hauling in the main to swing us into the wind and easing it immediately to let her pay off on the new tack to gather speed again before pointing up. I employed all Gavin’s advice on de-powering the rig which really helps keep things calm in such conditions – tight luff (front reef pulled in very hard), chocks removed from the mast gate and kicker pulled on hard to bend the mast and take the depth out of the sail, traveller dropped off to leeward, centreboard raised until a decent balance was achieved letting us sail on a neutral tiller.

A Wayfarer under full canvas with three large crew came roaring out to play as we beat slowly back and showed what speed we could have had if we were braver and heavier, but happy and comfortable we continued to plod back to the beach. We arrived back after a couple of hours rather than the planned six, and put the boats straight to bed in the dinghy park, hoping for better weather on Monday.

They were vain hopes sadly, it blew harder on Monday and we all decided immediately when we met up that we weren’t going to be sailing. Instead we showed Syd over the two boats and helped each other pack up the boats ready for the road.

We stayed on for the rest of the week in blustery and damp weather but managed to spot seal pups in the bays near Martin’s Haven opposite the island of Skomer and visit four local lifeboat stations.

In summary, Milford Haven seems to offer great cruising grounds if you can find the weather for it and Dale would be an excellent base, however Bank Holiday weekend August 2008 was too windy and wet to explore it to any significant degree.

Thanks to Geoff and Marion for making the journey and for their wise counsel on the water.

Tim Robertson W1038
August 31st 2008