Middelburg to SYH

Windy passage plan, with departure at 1000 from Vlissingen

I have no problem with long-ish passages, and I quite enjoy night sailing.  Looking at the weather for our return home, Friday 20 June looked fine, Saturday 21st looked fine. Sunday looked unpleasantly windy with a lot more wind over the next few days. I took the decision to leave Vlissingen with a tide that would gradually turn in our favour and give us a boost all the way down the coast towards Belgium. Then we would turn and cross from West Hinder light fairly directly towards Harwich. That would take us away from the shipping "roundabouts" at Noord Hinder and would give us about as much favourable tide as we could get. 

It is not, however, the most direct route, and Janet was a bit doubtful about my judgment. Why weren't we going straight across from Vlissingen? (Because I wanted to stick with the passage I knew, and avoid the heaviest shipping). Why couldn't we stop at Blankenberge or Nieuwpoort? (Because going in and out would add an unnecessary few hours to the journey, and with two of us we could easily cope with a night passage). Why didn't we do a series of short day hops as we had on the way north? (See above, and I was keen to be safely in Suffolk before the wind picked up and the sea got rougher). Why weren't we going on the first "blue wave" of bridge openings from Middelburg? (Because that would mean pushing into the tide for the first couple of hours at least - the boats which left early all had bigger engines).

We managed to more or less follow the "blue wave" of bridge openings to Vlissingen from 0815, with one hiccup when a bridge closed and then fortunately opened again, and locked out of Vlissingen just after 10. There was very little wind, not even enough to fill the jib, the sea was pretty calm (and remained so) and it was very hot. There was a phenomenal amount of shipping in the main channel running parallel with the coast – if we had needed to cross it I'm not sure how we could have done so, as for many miles it was like nose-to-tail traffic in the M25. 

We passed Zeebrugge at around 1300, sailing first with just the jib, and then with the main at about 1430. As the wind continued to strengthen from the eastwe rolled away part of the jib, dodging a survey ship as we did so. At 1600 we put a reef into the main and got told off by Wandelaar VTS for drifting into a pilot area. (One occasion when I was sorry to be transmitting on AIS). Finally around 1800 we crossed the coastal channel, which was a bit quieter although we still had to do a bit of tanker dodging, and reached West Hinder. The TSS (main traffic channels down the southern North Sea) was fortunately quite quiet and we crossed with engine running. It was the shortest night of the year so it wasn't really dark until 2300, by which time the wind had died away again and we put the engine on and the jib away. 

Sometime in the night I had a difference of opinion with Janet, who didn't want to take any time off watch at all. I wanted to ensure that she was rested and alert for dealing with the shipping; she felt that she wouldn't get any rest below and was better on deck. Sleeping when you're off watch is a skill which has taken me a long time to acquire, so I could understand that she might not sleep, but I'd never sailed with anyone before who didn't want to rest at night. In the end she did spend a bit of time below and I spent a bit more time below and dozing, trying not to feel guilty.

The bottom of the Sunk circulatory system was also busier than I had ever seen it before, with ships and other yachts, but no-one seemed to mind our crossing it slightly diagonally. At 0115 we passed Long Sand Head and changed to UK time, where sunrise was due at 0434 BST. The tide was against us and the wind was now NE and only 6-8kt. Finally we slipped into Harwich Harbour around dawn and were back in our berth at SYH by 0445. Just to make life more interesting I couldn't remember our berth number, nor which side of the jetty we should be (as I'd never come back into this berth before), but fortunately the information was all available online and we had no problems.

111 miles from Middelburg to SYH in 21.5 hours.

Just as a footnote, the boats which crossed in one go to the east coast, and the one solo sailor who stopped for a few hours in Nieuwpoort, had no problems at all. The boats who went further south and crossed on the 22nd had a very bumpy and uncomfortable passage and ended up staying in Ramsgate or Dover. One of the Dutch boats picked up a lobster pot off Dungeness and had to be rescued by the RNLI. Worst of all, when Aeolus finally made it round to the south coast and was almost within sight of the Solent on 28 June, she was dismasted and also had to be rescued by the RNLI. Her standing rigging was brand new.

Of course you can't legislate for the unexpected, but I was confident that I made the right decisions and I think in the end Janet was almost convinced too...

Off Zeebrugge in company with Kismet

0230, lovely moon and getting light again of Long Sand Head

Almost home. Felixstowe at dawn