The Strait of Dover - 51° 04' 48" N 01° 25' 41" E

Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne

Taking advantage of a short weather window, we left the glorious Chichester Harbour and scooted the 45 nm (90km) across to Eastbourne.  We locked in and were back in the same berth as our last visit.  

With endless water on tap (literally) we gave the boat a good wash down and get rid of all the salt.  We did any number of small tasks while we waited for the right weather window for the 225nm passage to Den Helder in The Netherlands. 

Our route to Den Helder, The Netherlands

In planning our passage to The Netherlands, there were a few things we needed to get right.  One was obviously the weather.  It makes for a much speedier and pleasant trip if the wind is in a favourable direction allowing us to sail.  We also don't want too much wind, or too little for that matter.  Goldilocks wind is what we want!

The Windy App tells us this is not a good weather window!

The Strait of Dover is a mere 35km wide at its narrowest and the tide absolutely thunders through. Timing is critical. Fortunately for us, there is a bit of weirdness about the tides.  The tide at Eastbourne turns much earlier than the tide through the Strait.  If timed correctly, we would have the tide with us right through the Strait and into the North Sea - for 12 hours. 

There are software packages such as Predict Wind that will help work all this out but we currently choose not to buy for a subscription.  The number of longer passages we do are few so we can just figure them out by looking at wind and current predictions (doing it manually is also good practice for understanding the factors that go into good passage planning).  We will be subscribing to Predict Wind later in the year when our passages are longer, but the time doing it manually will give us a better feel for what should be the right departure time and route.

Tidal Streams through Strait of Dover

So we figured out that if we left at 08:00 (8am local time), we could ride the current for 12 hours which would get us well into the North Sea.  The wind was forecast to be light but with a favourable current and our new Code Zero, we decided to go.

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We locked out with five other boats and tip-toed along the very shallow channel. It was a low, spring tide. Spring tides occur a couple of days after a full or new moon. Due to the gravitational pull of the moon, tidal ranges are larger on springs.

We were underway as planned at 08:00, the current favourable, the wind slight and a pea-soup fog obscuring everything!

And it was busy! Ships transitting, ferries (who have right-of-way) crossing, fishing boats going about their business of fishing and, according to announcements by the Dover Coastguard, small craft were crossing. Yes, migrant boats.  We were asked to be vigilant and report any sightings to the Coast Guard.  And radio chatter advised that a French warship was undergoing a search and rescue operation and all craft were to keep clear.  A very busy place...

Marine Traffic shows the activity in The Strait of Dover.

Thanks to modern day technology, none of this caused us a great issue.  We had a couple of radio exchanges with boats that were close to confirm their and our intentions and listened to the radio chatter of vessels passing through the mandatory reporting area of Dover.  And all the while, we didn't see another boat, ship, ferry or white cliff, just fog.  For hours and hours...

We were well into The North Sea before dark.  As it approached, we shortened the sails (took in a reef to make things easier in the dark if the wind built up) and started on our watch schedule.  We have decided that longer watches work better for us as it allows more sleep.  As Sean is a night owl and Kate a morning person, Sean usually takes first watch, roughly 8pm - 1:30am.  Kate then takes over until Sean wakes up around 7:30am.

Off the coast of The Netherlands, it's a busy place with wind farms and TSS

The night was bright with a big moon. We saw lots of shipping as we were running up the edge of one shipping channel and crossing another.  There were also lots of lights from the wind farms. The North Sea is very busy with wind farms.  We are not allowed to transit through them so have to dodge and weave around.

When you are on watch you have lots of time to ponder.  Passing these wind farms created many questions about power output, size of (and clearance under) the blades ... so we did a bit of research.  Each turbine is 200-250 metres tall and the new ones generate 15MW (megawatts) per turbine (they are about 60% efficient so each actually produces 7.5MW). They are quite awe-inspiring. The wind farm in the picture above has 69 turbines and covers an area of roughly 300 square kilometres.  That's enough to power about half a million homes.

Also, as close to the water as the blades seem to swing, they are never closer than 26 metres from the highest high water.  Chinook's air draft is just over 20 metres, but we hope to never test those data points.

 

Past the wind turbines we go.  Sailing so close to these is much more intimidating than the picture reveals! 

How is that jib sheet looking, Sean?

Just about right in this wind.  Notice that the main sail is not all the way up to the top of the mast?  We have the "first reef" in, meaning the sail is cinched down about two metres, reducing the sail area so Chinook isn't overpowered.  We can put in up to four reefs in this sail (the yellow and the blue lines being second reef and third reef respectively with the fourth reef line not run on the rig yet) ... bringing the main sail down to be quite manageable in up to near-gale force winds. If "near-gale force" is a bit vague for you, follow this link to read about the Beaufort Scale.

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It was getting dark as we entered the Schulpengat, the channel into Den Helder.  As Den Helder is the home of the Royal Dutch Navy, we had to call on VHF 62 (the radio) seek permission to enter.  With this granted, we then had to find the entrance to the harbour and then into the marina.

Tricky navigating into the marina in the dark

With so many lights and boats, it was rather tricky to make out exactly where the entrance to the harbour was.  We found it thanks again to modern GPS systems. Trying to find the narrow entrance to the marina was even more challenging.  We just pointed the boat where our GPS said to go and squinted into the lights and busyness trying to see the entrance.  We did a sail-by, found the narrow gap and were tied up on the hammer head of G-Dock in short order.

Even in daylight, that's a pretty narrow entrance!

Chinook is now tied up near some PRETTY BIG Dutch naval vessels.  When you see a working ship like Guardian, it's frightening to imagine a sea that requires that class of brawniness.

Once we have rested a bit from our passage, we will explore Den Helden and see what we can learn.