Aith Voe to Fair Isle

 

On Friday I sailed from Aith Voe to Fair Isle. It was a slow start with very ligth winds until I got south of Bressay, and then things picked up and I had a long run at 7 knots over the ground. Overall (including the start) I did about 48  miles in 9 hours.

Today (Saturday) I took advantage of the good weather and light winds (which wouldn't have taken me anywhere fast) to explore Fair Isle again. I'll post photos presently.

Tomorrow I'm heading for Pierowall - another 40 mile sail, but with brisk winds throughout from the NE at first, and more Northerly later. I'll stay in Pierowall (or environs) for a day and then start heading south. Wind directions are looking changeable, which will affect progress. The tides through Orkney are also very strong, so I'll need to time moves carefully.

Fair Isle is physically stunning. This is the third time I've been here, but I could easily stand another visit. I had my bike with me this time, which made a big difference.

Aith Voe, Basta Voe, Out Skerries, Aith Voe ...

 

On Sunday night I went back round to Aith Voe, after Edan had gone for the ferry.

On Monday, I headed north. I planned to go through the Sound of Yell, and head back down the West coast, but the wind was kind of against me - 15-20 knots from the NW, and little prospect of it changing. I was fore-reaching all day, and would have had to motor through the sound. Instead, I had the wizard idea of continuing on my best course up the East side of Yell and find somewhere to anchor, then head down the West side of Yell and onwards. Sort of doing a long tack around Yell.

Quite late on Monday I anchored at the top of Basta Voe, above a number of mussel farms.

Between 12 midnight and 1am, the anchor alarm went off, warning me that I was dragging back down the Voe. (The handheld gps was off, so the drag is missing from the track - it's the gap between where I anchored and where I switched it back on again, just north of the first mussel farm.)

I first tried letting out some more chain, but this didn't help. Then I started lifting the anchor, but by this time I was perilously close to the mussel farm area. This was an unpleasant business - the NW wind was still strong, and it was pitch dark. I was watching the tablet chart, shining the torch into the darkness at the mussel farm bouys and running back and forth between the engine controls and the anchor winch ...

I shortened in the chain, and then couldn't get the anchor up - I think it had snagged on some part of the mussel farm mooring. This was a miserable moment, but it did mean that I wasn't moving any more. I tried lifting it with the marker boy line (which is attached to the front of the anchor to make this possible, but got nowhere with it. In the end, I decided to wait until the morning in case things looked clearer in the daylight. I left the engine ticking over in case I needed it in a hurry and snoozed fitfully thinking about how to solve the problem.

I looked up the mussel farm company and the price of a new anchor online. I had the tools to cut the chain if I needed to, and I would have left the anchor bouy for someone else to recover it. It seemed possible that the mussel farmers might have some insight into how to free it from their mooring...

Anyhow, a better idea (as it turned out) formed in my mind. I wondered if, instead of pulling straight up on the marker buoy line, I should attach a rope to it to make it longer, and then use the boat to pull the anchor back in the opposite direction to the way it was going when it got snagged. It seemed a long shot, and involved the risk of running over the line and having it snag on the prop. But it worked.

About 5am I was pulling the anchor back on board and wondering what to do next. I didn't want to re-anchor in the same place.

There was another possibility about six miles away on the south side of Fetlar, also sheltered from the NW, and with a sandy bottom. I headed towards it.

Then I saw that by carrying on for a couple of hours (or a little more) I could go, instead, to Out Skerries. So I did.

I'd been tempted by them on the way north, but they were too far downwind. If I was heading south again, they were an obvious stopping-off point.

And I was heading south again. I'd used up the energy I would need to face a NW 5-6 in the North Atlantic to get to the west side. Going down the east side, mostly on a beam reach or downwind, looked a lot more civilised.

Out Skerries was interesting, but it's an awkward little place to get into and out of. Also, despite glowing reviews, anchors also drag there ... and after an attempt at anchoring, I tied up alongside the pier. An expensive business as it turned out - it cost more than a night in Lerwick.

During my anchoring attempt, I also managed to grind the keel along a rock in a shallow bit of the bay. No water is coming in but I'll be interested to see the damage when the boat is lifted out in October.

Being tied up at the quay was at least fairly secure and restful - I was suffering from lack of sleep and some physical exhaustion.

Getting off the quay on Wednesday morning was horrible. The wind was blowing me forward and Raasay will only turn to starboard going astern. We were tied up starboard side to. I ended up having to go forward into the shallower part of the harbour and turn the boat around there, with almost no water under the keel. Another unhappy moment.

I spend the next half hour manoeuvering around the little bay getting the mainsail up - this involved several episodes of going downwind a couple of hundred yards and then motoring up while hoisting the sail and organising it's various ropes and controls. And trying not to hit any moored local boats. Or any more rocks.

Finally, exiting the south entrance to the harbor I had to do a 360 turn because I realised I'd misidentified one of the markers and wasn't which side I should leave it on.

The rest was almost straightforward. A brisk sail to Aith Voe, three hours or so away. Fore-reaching, again, reefed. 20-25 knots with occasional gusts in the high 20s. At least we were going fast - mostly over six knots through the water and more than seven over the ground. With a little help from the south-going tide.

One minor drama - the outboard motor for the dinghy, which is mounted on the starboard (upwind) side of the boat tilted itself up because of the angle of heel, and started to waggle around in a disturbing way. I was able to get it down and lash it. Another thing that won't move unless it's required to. The list grows with time ...

Sailing in these conditions is hard work. Even moving around the cockpit requires planning - finding hand-holds and timing the big changes of position to avoid violent boat movements. Getting below is like trying to negotiate a climbing frame that someone has hung from a bungee cord.

And there is the constant worry that something might break. The little 6mm rigging wires on the windward side of the boat, for instance ...

Video: Fore-reaching, 20-25 knots of wind

Coming into Aith Voe I had an old problem with the engine overheat alarm, and had to sail in under the main to let it cool. It happens when there has been a lot of motion - air gets into the cooling water seacock somehow and creates an airlock. I can sometimes 'prime' it by pumping the salt water tap at the sink (which is plumbed into the same intake). This didn't work this time, perhaps because we were heeled over too hard to port. The intake is on the starboard side.

And so here I am back in Aith Voe ... I'll be here for two nights because I have some meetings tomorrow and early Friday. Then I will head south again ...

The boat is bobbing peacefully, and it is not dragging. Still pretty breezy.

Round Bressay

Edan and I did a counter-clockwise circumnavigation of Bressay on Friday and part of Saturday. We had a look at going through Noss Sound, but it was too shallow - we'd have been OK at high tide, but we were quite near low water when we looked.

Which is just as well as we'd have missed Noss Head and the gannets.

On Saturday morning we went back round to Lerwick. It was miserable and wet and we didn't gain much by the move ...

After some mooching around Lerwick, fish and chips, lunch on Sunday at The Great Wall, and a visit to the Shetland museum, Edan took the ferry back on Sunday night ...

I moved back round to Aith Voe, and thought about where to go next.

Scalloway to Lerwick

This was probably a daft idea. Certainly the most difficult way of saving a five-mile bus journey I could have come up with ...

My son, Edan, was getting off a ferry on Friday morning, and I was going to meet him. My initial plan was to sail around near Scalloway for a couple of days exploring the firths, and then cycle over to Lerwick early on Friday morning.

Then I thought that maybe sailing from Scalloway to Lerwick might also be interesting, and would bring the boat into the place that he would like better. I thought, also, that I could take a couple of days about it - there was St. Ninian's Isle, for one thing, and also some attractive bays sheltered from the NE weather on the other side.

But they weren't ... by the time I rounded Sumburgh Head, I realised that the swell was coming from the south east, right into the bays I thought I might anchor in. ('Windy' would have shown this, if I had been paying attention to anything but the wind ...)

Then I looked up the almanac entry for Lerwick and discovered that the marina doesn't really handle visiting yachts - the Port Authority has a few spaces on pontoons and alongside. There are also a few anchorages. It was all a bit messy for the end of a long tiring day, so I was happy to take the PA advice and anchor in Aith Voe on the north side of Bressay. I'd noticed this on the chart, but it looked as though it was full of a 'marine farm'. It wasn't. Unless this is something going on on the seabed ...

I went round to a Pontoon in Lerwick on Wednesday morning.

Video: Sumburgh Head

This interesting vessel ('Trinovante') was also in Aith Voe:

Bay of Ireland to Sandquoy Bay, Sanday; and on to Scalloway

On Friday I sailed from Bay of Ireland to Bay of Sandquoy on Sanday, via the west side of Mainland and Weatherness Sound. The steady south easterlies looked fair for Shetland.

I didn't really try to do a proper tidal plan for the trip to Shetland - given my timing, I kind of expected the initial west-going current near North Ronaldsay would roughly cancel out the later east-going current on the other side. This set me quite a bit north of the course I had meant to take, so that instead of ending up anchoring behind St. Ninian's Isle (I have to save that for the way back, now) I went to Scalloway.

I tried anchoring overnight off Ayre of Sandwick in West Burra Firth, but this was a bad idea. Despite the wind remaining light, I dragged in the night and ended up nearly on the other side of the firth. I'd been relying on an anchor watch app that had worked in the past, but somehow I had switched off its notifications (probably while trying to kill off a host of annoying reminders and nudges from other apps ...). Its little warning sign was flashing vigorously, but the beep had gone.

So I ended up motoring round to Scalloway at 4am, feeling a bit lucky.

Scalloway was delightful. The boat club has great facilities and berthing is cheap. It's also only five miles from Lerwick. By road ...

Sinclair's Bay to Stromness, Scapa Flow and Bay of Ireland

Angus and I rested up on Monday and then did an overnight passage to Stromness - timing dictated by the tides in the Firth. We arrived about 5:30 on Tuesday morning, just in time for him to take the ferry to Scrabster and buses home ...

We forgot that there wouldn't be a direct ferry from Kirkwall on a Tuesday.

I spent a couple of days in Stromness and its environs, including two nights anchored in Bay of Ireland so that I could have some Zoom meetings.

Video: Sailing in Scapa Flow

I don't know who the old bugger in the funny hat is. He must be one of the crew.

Portsoy to Sinclair's Bay

Orkney wasn't realistic on Sunday.

There were steady 20-knot easterlies as we left Portsoy, and a swell had built up over the previous day or two. Leaving the harbour and getting set up was hard work. The attentive audience didn't help:

Here's an uncut and rather long video (I may get round to creating an edited version!):

Video: Leaving Portsoy

In the end, we crossed from Portsoy to Sinclair's Bay, arriving about 2am. The weather was cold and wet, and we were close-reaching the whole way. We had to cross the most Southern parts of the Moray Bank and Beatrice wind farms, and discussed this with the watch vessel. I'm not sure what the fundamental rules are, but it seemed appropriate to let them know our plans.

We passed between some of the turbines. They're well spaced out and it's easy to navigate through them. It's a bit harder not to feel like you've wandered onto a 'War of the Worlds' set. They are huge:

Video: Beatrice Wind Farm

Anchoring at 2am:

 

Raasay rafted up alongside the 'Reaper' in Portsoy.

After some head-scratching over changing wind forecasts, my son (Angus) and I decided to leave here today (Sunday 2nd July) and head for Orkney (over night sail), where we think we'll rest up in Holland Bay for a night before heading to Lerwick early Tuesday.

High winds and occasional deluges made Portsoy a bit damp - the crowds were well down.

Portsoy

Anchored off Portsoy, waiting for the tide. Unpromising weather...

R34 vs. R38

Rhum (R34D - a sister ship to Raasay) and Calico Martlet (R38) in Lossiemouth. You get a lot with that extra 4 feet ...

Mainsheet

So. I had this cunning plan.

As R34 owners know, the mainsheet horse is right across the companionway. This is (on the whole) less inconvenient than it sounds, but one of the difficulties it creates is that the sheet itself bears heavily on the sprayhood when your running or reaching.

I thought it might be convenient to have another anchor for the sheet - possibly on the coaming - so that I could keep it away from the sprayhood on a long run or broad reach. I bought a couple of substantial ring bolts, and had been examining some position options. I also had a bit of a problem figuring out which bits of the underside of the port coaming (behind the galley, so less accessible) I could get to.

While doing this, I tried positioning the mainsheet to see what the best position might be - and found there was another problem. While I could keep the mainsheet away from the sprayhood, I couldn't find a position that didn't keep it clear of the top guard wire. My plan wasn't going to work.

The only place I could avoid fouling something was to anchor the mainsheet where it passed outside of everything else - on the edge of the deck, leading it under the guard wires.

Which drew my attention to these U-bolts, installed by a previous owner. I had been trying to figure out what they might be for ...