At the WCOA Wraysbury training event earlier in the year I met up with John Miller and ‘Wanderlust’, a smart looking green wanderer with a steel plate. We were rigging side by side in the Silver Wings car park and got chatting about where we sail and what our plans were in the summer.

It turned out we both had an idea of sailing from Poole round to Swanage and said we would fix a date to give it a go.

John booked a holiday with family and friends near Swanage over the 2nd bank holiday weekend in May and we arranged to meet up at the Studland Beach slipway on the 29 May.

The tides for Swanage turned out all wrong on the chosen day, HW at 14:00 meaning we would have to push the tide there and back, so as plan B I planned a passage to Christchurch, 10 miles to the East across Poole bay, taking advantage of the knot or so of tide both there and back.

An 11:00 departure would give us 3 hours to cover the distance before riding the tide back, 3 knots seeming about right as a safe baseline boatspeed for passage planning with tidal assistance a bonus. If we bettered that speed my plan was to spend some time exploring Christchurch harbour. If however we missed the 14:00 HW at Christchurch entry I knew we would have to abandon the attempt as the current through the channel at Mudeford is very strong once the ebb gets going.

The forecast for the day was very positive, with force 3 variables forecast to weaken during the day before strengthening to 3 / 4 s overnight. No rain was in the forecast with sunny periods promised.

With such a positive weather outlook and benign neapy tides I decided that this would also be a good opportunity to try out sailing with both the children, Niamh (6) the old hand, and Max (3) the first timer.

In preparation and to passify a somewhat nervous partner, I registered W1038 online with the coastguard using their simple online form, which creates a CG66 registration, identifying your vessel, likely crew details, vessel description and contact numbers to be referenced by the coastguard in the event of a ‘problem’. http://www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga-hm_coastguard/mcga-hmcg-cg66.htm You can update your record using a password protected username any time and the record expires automatically after being left for 2 years. I also left a clear passage plan with my partner so she knew where I intended to be and when.

We met up with John in the National Trust boat park as arranged at 9:30. The boat park is well separated from the crowds buzzing round the NT café and loos. With National Trust membership you get charged £7 for the day to get the car in and use the slipway, which is constructed of what look like old concrete railway sleepers laid across the crown of the beach before you drop onto the firm gently shelving sand– there are a few sizeable rocks around on the sand though, so watch your gel coat.

John’s crew for the day was his friend Mike, who was new to sailing and much rope learning was underway as they rigged and mounted the new outboard for the first time. It was decided that it would be sensible to run the outboard as soon as we launched to check all was well…we forgot this plan in the excitement of getting away from the beach which was later to influence the outcome of our day.

A very useful tool for cruising in company, which John produced before we launched was a pair of ‘walkabout’ short-range two-way radios. These allowed the two boats to communicate freely with scant regard for VHF protocol, knowing we weren’t interrupting formal VHF communications.

A slower than normal rig and much time spent squeezing children into waterproofs and buoyancy aids meant we got off the beach by about 11:30. We got away first and tootled into the bay under reefed main to let Wanderlust catch us up. The shallow beach made departure a little tricky as we couldn’t immediately make our desired course for the first waypoint (South Hook Sands Cardinal Mark) without a centreboard to check our sideways drift. So we reached off north east into deeper water before hardening up to claw our way south east again and clear south of the Hook sands.

Pootling along gently in very benign conditions approaching the main ‘Swash’ channel in and out of Poole, waiting for John to catch us up, we were caught out by a very steep wake from a mystery vessel we never saw. One minute all was calm and kids were happy, next minute we rose to a large wave and then stuffed comprehensively into the following sea, more than 6” of solid green water rapidly crossing the foredeck and dumping all over the two children sat up in the bows. I remained completely dry as I watched surprised faces turn into unhappy ones as the wet stuff found its way down their necks and poured off their sagging sun hats. A busy 5 minutes followed as I helmed the boat, unpacked waterproof bags, undressed children one handed and replaced soggy clothing with fresh dry fleeces. I was defeated in the end by the double D ring on the waistband of Max’s buoyancy aid and had to let the boat look after itself while I did him up and clipped him back onto his safety line (D ring sewn into the webbing of his BA clipped to harness line, clipped in turn to a U bolt on the back of the CB case).

Once things were warm and comfy again and good humour was restored by a box of nuts and raisins to nibble on, John and Mike had joined up with us and we unfurled our jib to beam reach across Poole bay, a course with the Needles on the nose carrying us on the tide towards the far off Hengistbury Head, where we planned to turn to port and run the mile or so North to the mouth of Christchurch Harbour. Checks on the GPS every 15 minutes or so saw the 7.5 nm slowly run down and confirmed that our course was good for the waypoint just off the headland to clear Beerpan rocks. Our ETA, as predicted by the GPS, started at a healthy 13:30 or so with speed registering between 3.5 and 4 knots.

It was at this stage that a surprising disparity in performance between our two boats became most obvious. Unfurling my jib led to us rapidly pulling away from John’s boat, despite us both having a reef tied down. We discussed centreboard positions, sail trim and comparative crew / equipment weights, but John remains convinced that the main culprit was the steel plate in Wanderlust. He improved matters somewhat by bringing his weight forward in the boat, a la Wraysbury training event advice, but we still found that the only way for us to keep station was for me to furl my genoa and sail under reefed main alone. This brought our speed down to around 3 or 3.5 knots and the ETA figure began to creep towards the 14:00 HW deadline.

Out in the middle of Poole bay was a great place to be in a dinghy on Sunday. A long lazy swell running in from the SW let us know we were really at sea (1st time in salty water for Wanderlust) whilst the reliable breeze running in from the SSW was as steady as a rock and made looking after the two children and the boat thoroughly manageable (Freak waves aside). We worked our way steadily across the bay, passing Bournemouth and Bocombe piers well out to sea, with Hengistbury head growing larger in the haze.

As the Isle of Wight emerged from the mist on the bow I radioed John to suggest we work a little closer to shore, the slackening flood no longer carrying us in towards Hengistbury Head as before. After ten minutes or so, with the breeze weakening, it became clear that John was not making reasonable progress towards land. He radioed to say firstly that he was going to fire up the engine to follow us in, and then to say he was having no joy getting the new engine to fire.

I motored back out to offer all the obvious advice (fuel on, breather open, kill cord in, choke closed, throttle cracked open etc) all of which John had already checked to no avail. With the time approaching 14:00, the wind fading and John’s ability to push his way up the channel into Christchurch compromised even if he could cover the couple of miles left of the open water passage - it was decision time.

I didn’t fancy trying a tow for the first time in open water with a boatful of small people so we decided to about face and start the passage back across the bay to Studland. I took a picture of Hengistbury to prove we nearly got there and then gybed round to start the beat back, preparing a heavy line as a tow rope should we need it later (bowline round the moulding at the back of the CB case under the thwart, line led aft and through the tiller aperture, then brought forward and dropped in the stern ready to heave to John if needed.

We could not lay the course back to the South Hook waypoint, so put in a long board to the WNW, accompanying several yachts making for the inside channel to Poole harbour. Drawing steadily ahead of John now that we had our genoa set to aid pointing ability, despite his shaking out his reef, we passed the conspicuous marks of Christchurch, Boscombe pier and the ‘trippers’ balloon above Bournemouth, before practising our heaving-to for the first time to allow John to catch up (very easy with a bungy loop holding the tiller down to leeward and board half up, however backing the genoa was difficult as the leech caught on the spinnaker pole ring at the front of the mast and needed a firm tug to windward to free it – once set we were very comfy drifting slowly sideways downwind).

When we had joined up again we tacked out into the bay, heading for Cherbourg for 20 minutes or so, until I estimated we could fetch the South Hook cardinal. Tacking back onto the westerly course for home we dug out more food for the troops and had a play with our binoculars spotting aeroplanes, boats and birds. Heaving to with 3.5 miles to run we discovered the delights of trying to answer a call of nature at sea in a small boat. Max’s hilarious attempt involving the centreboard case is not to be repeated as it calls for a degree of accuracy not achievable by a 3 year old on a boat at sea, whilst my effort kneeling on the buoyancy at the stern felt rather precarious with me as the only adult aboard…Niamh declined to join the experimentation.

Sailing in such open waters again, with a steady sea breeze, was a refreshing change from the inland waters explored so far this year, once sail trim was set I could steer a steady course to the wind, maximise boat speed and still have Max asleep on my lap for an hour…a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

As we approached the Hook sands from the east John was some way behind and dropping steadily below us towards the sand bank. I was not making good the cardinal mark either anymore, passing about 500 yards to its north, John a good 500 yards further north again. I called him up on the radio to suggest he tack further south to clear the hazard (not knowing if there was enough water over the banks at this state of the tide, nor what the sea conditions would be like in the shallows). Even where I was approaching the bank to his south the seas were noticeably shorter and the water was becoming a brighter blue as the depth dropped off.

Keeping a weather eye on the sea state and listening out for the first touch of the board on the bottom we cut across the Hook sands, then the Swash channel and finally back into Studland Bay with the café and slipway standing out clearly in the sweep of the bay. John tacked south and crossed the bar safely too, following us to the beach 15 / 20 minutes later, where we were met by John and Mike’s families to help haul out and de-rig.

Working from a surefooted position in the shallows we were able to get John’s outboard to run for a few minutes, kicking out murky gunk from the exhaust in some volumes before it cut out and refused to run again….back to the agent who serviced it.

De-rigging was easy enough with all the damp stuff chucked into the back of the car for later attention, but I was pleased to have the decision to buy the spare wheel for the trailer justified at last, as Mike discovered one of my road wheels was flat as a pancake in the dinghy park. 5 minutes with a socket set had the replacement fitted, a simple thing which otherwise could have spoilt an otherwise successful day.

Report & all Photos - Tim Robertson W1038 May 2005