Newtown Creek - a solo mission

Time for a confession. It’s been a ridiculously long time since I took Lucice (our Sadler 26) out for a sail. The last time Elpie and I tried, we had a nightmare getting off the dock. Embarrassingly caught out by a strong ebb tide and Lucice’s reluctance to go backwards in a straight line to begin with. We decided not to continue. This time though, I was sensible, I waited for the slack water just before high tide, which would also give me the Solent current to carry me west to Newtown Creek once I exited the marina.

So the tide was fine but there was a stiff breeze blowing me off my dock. I am moored on the east bank of the Medina with Lucice berthed bow-in, port-side to, pointing out to sea as can be seen in the image below.

The location is conveniently right in front of The Lifeboat’s beer garden for the maximum audience. Lucice also has a heavy prop-walk¹ to starboard, and she’s been in the water 6 months since her last hull clean. So the growth on the prop, giving less than optimal efficiency, does like to drag hard to starboard, and backwards with much less speed than normal.

In an easterly wind that’s fine, the stern is pulled to starboard, the bow gets pushed to port by the wind and I can motor forward out of the marina nicely. Not so much when there’s a wind blowing onto the near shore. This however is 20-20 knowledge/practice. I should have known this, but thought I could get away with it. At the back of my mind was the lack of steerage in reverse, making me prefer going out forwards into the wind.

What this all resulted in was ~10mins of me faffing around in the channel: first trying and failing to turn the boat into the wind, then losing track of which way to turn the rudder to do what I wanted, and finally realising what to do, but losing confidence that she’d actually make it out of the channel without hitting the boats behind me. Eventually I managed to kind of reverse ferry glide out of the channel, and into the river proper.

That’s a long-winded way to say I had a bit of a nightmare getting out of the marina. However, no boats were harmed in the production of this blog.

I motored slowly down the Medina, my weed and barnacle-encrusted bottom slowing me to 3knots at 2200rpm, crossing the chain ferry and into Cowes Harbour and then the Solent. The wind was definitely stronger out here. I turned to windward, and put up the main with the first reef, I fell off pointing west to get down to Newtown, pulled out the genoa and immediately realised I had too much sail up, I moved to the second reef, pulled in more of the genoa and set off. Checking SolentMet, the measured wind was F5, 17knots gusting 25knots.

The wind was against the tide making it choppier, and as I got into deeper water the swell was big enough to be uncomfortable but somewhat “fun”. The bow was occasionally piercing the waves sending water rushing over the decks, and there were a couple of waves that hit the bow in a way which sent a cold shower of water over the decks and on to me. This didn’t last too long however, and the waves were less severe in the shallow water on both sides of the Solent.

I was a little nervous going into Newtown Creek as the entrance is narrow, and shallow at the sides. I’d timed it however for high tide or just after and in the end it was fairly obvious where to go and using the navigation software showing my position I avoided any shallow areas. The creek is naturally very protected and even though there was still a lot of wind, the swell was nonexistent in there.

I could see several boats already on the mooring balls and chose a free one. I prepared a line running from a cleat on the bow, outside the boat and back into the cockpit. Approaching the mooring ball into the wind I failed to keep enough speed and the wind blew me off course. I quickly circled around and came in for a second attempt, this time smoothly bringing the ball alongside, hooking the pennant and passing my line through and tying it off. As I drifted back with the wind the pennant was pulled along the line until it reached the bow and I was secure.

I eventually pulled the main mooring ball’s strop to cleat onboard Lucice, not wanting to trust either my line, or the pennant overnight. Then I settled in for the night. I was treated to the most beautiful sunset but it was a cold wind so I settled inside the saloon and watched the last two episodes of DareDevil on Disney+ accompanied with a couple of Dark and Stormy cocktails and then straight Havana Club 7 when I ran out of the ginger beer.

I had the best nights sleep in a week, waking at 0700, missing the sunrise but being greeted by a beautiful day and a couple of visitors looking for some treats. I’m sure they cruise past all the boats in the anchorage regularly.

At about 0940 I decided it was time to leave, the water was high enough and the tide would be more consistently in the right direction for me. So I reslipped the pennant and did the reverse operation to get off smoothly, recovering the line and heading back out and off to Cowes.

The wind was much lower and had shifted such that it was mostly a broad reach. Yesterday’s swell had dropped so it was now champagne sailing.

Right until I hit Cowes harbour when the wind shifted and rose, making it a fast final mile. Then it was sails down and back into the Medina, navigating the tricky flood tide currents inside the harbour made more difficult by the lack of power from the prop, but I navigated it safely.

Getting on to the dock was less dramatic than leaving, the flood tide meant that I could pass the entrance to my H pontoon, turn around into the current then slowly ferry glide forwards into the berth. I was stupid and rushed the final approach, going too straight in, which lifted my fenders above the pontoon. No damage done, the wood is smooth and I was going very slowly. Then it was just time to tie up and leave Lucice to head back home.

All in all this was a great learning experience and anchoring in Newtown Creek was fabulous. I hope to go out on Lucice more regularly this year, the lessons learned will then stick a little more than they have. Every time I leave the berth in East Cowes marina the conditions are a little different, but I’m getting better every time, and preparing more thoroughly too. I’m very much looking forward to the next trip - hopefully with a clean bottom and prop though!