North Sea to Hartlepool

Tuesday 28/5/19 into Wednesday 29/5/19

I was awoken in the night by the boat moving. The wind had picked up and was causing a bit of a chop in the marina. By the time I’d walked to the end of the pier at 0700 the seas had picked up and a nasty swell was running down the narrow entrance to the harbour. Our aim to leave at 8 was looking unlikely.  

Bruce had gone to dispose of our rubbish and had a casual chat with Bertie, the ultra helpful harbourmaster. Shortly afterwards, Bertie appeared at the boat with a plunger. Bruce had, in passing, mentioned we had a partially block sink drain. Bertie was there to help.  Oh if everyone had his attitude. 

By 0930 the seas and wind had abated sufficiently to make the tight turn into the harbour entrance doable.  We set off at 0940 and headed straight into a choppy beam sea. The discomfort was short lived and after a couple of hours the ride became quite comfortable.  We made the tidal gate at Rattray Head and as we turned south the waves were put behind us and we could once again move around the boat with impunity. By 1600 we were heading south for Hartlepool a mere 169nms away.  Only 20 hours to go.

We treated ourselves to some hors d’oeuvres, a glass of bubbly and a lovely salad. All was good in the world.

That didn’t last long! As darkness fell the wind that had been behind us giving a smooth ride turned through 180 degrees and stayed stubbornly on our nose for the night.   With strengths of between 13 and 21kts, Bruce couldn’t sleep in the forward bunk. With the bed disappearing from beneath him as every wave dropped away he decided to hot bunk in the rear cabin where the motion was less. To ease the pounding we slowed down which made sleeping possible.  By 0600 the wind had veered sufficiently for us to speed up.

We arrive in Hartlepool at 1430. We added 1335 litres of fuel having covered 918 nms since the last fill. This gave a consumption of approx 1.45 litre/nm running at approx 1800rpm and about 7.6 kts through the water.  

We ate at the Thai restaurant in the marina and on return spotted a boat whose owner I can only imaging had fallen out of love with his boat!