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- Category: North Sea Passage Outward 2019
- Hits: 5573
Friday 21st June Ref: 2019/6
A slightly uncomfortable, but straightforward, cruise across the North Sea with the 8 to 12 knot force 3/ 4 fresh breeze leading to slight/moderate sea conditions. Coming from the West and veering West North-west, it enlivened the sea as it was across the prevailing tide. We eventually met up with Ikon off IJmuiden and then cruised inland along the Nordzeekanaal to the town moorings at Beverwijk for a quiet night’s recuperation and rest.
I had made arrangements for us to leave very early and we managed to slip our moorings and head out of Lowestoft Harbour by 5am British Summer Time, which was an hour earlier in GMT. We immediately found sea slightly uncomfortable and, with a breeze of some 12 to 13 kn from the West and the tide running North/South, it was leading to a slight/moderate sea in a troubled fashion making some awkward movements aboard Lady Martina.
As a trial, I decided to keep the vessel on a constant heading and allow the ebb tide, passing northwards up the North Sea, to carry us further north and then, later on, the flood tide to carry us back again on course. In this way, I hoped to take best advantage of the conditions and consume less fuel as we would not be fighting against the cross tide all of the while. This plan worked quite well until later on when there was far more flood tide energy than ebb tide pressure such that I had to go on the autopilot for the final approach.
We cruised at about 8 to 8 ½ knots, allowing the boat engines to turn over economically at some 13 to 1400 revs and we organised our normal distractions of flasks of tea and coffee plus sandwich and snack breaks every half an hour or so to break up the possible monotony. Even so, it was a long day cruising and with over 12 hours later before we approached the Dutch coast, entered into IJmuiden harbour, and linked up with Chris and Maggie Cole on their boat Ikon.
We then made our final approach into the Klein Sluice south lock (as the normal Northern lock was closes for maintenance) and then into the Nordzeekanaal. At my suggestion, both boats turned into the first canal on the port side and made our way to the town moorings at Beverwijk for a quiet night’s recuperation and rest after we had had our customary social drink together to celebrate our achievement.
16-25degC; RH 69→38%; 1014→1016mb→1019mb rising; slight/ moderate seas with fresh 8-12 knot breeze , mainly Wly; and fair visibility
- Details
- Category: North Sea Passage Outward 2019
- Hits: 2657
Sunday 22nd June Ref: 2019/7
A very restful and peaceful night’s sleep in Beverwijk, after which we took time to get started for the day and then re-arranged our bridge and brought up our folding bicycles and assemble them for future use. This, before Ikon and us set off along the Nordzeekanaal along to the Zaandam area, where we filled up with fuel and then cruised further up the navigation to moor at a yacht club ready to view the Zaanse Scans windmills in the morning.
Our cruising colleagues Chris Cole had made several previous purchases of diesel fuel for Ikon from the barge JH Hierro near to Zaandam and so, this morning, after Chris and Maggie had taken shopping trip by bicycle and I had spent time restoring Lady Martina after its sea trip, we set off and cruised along the Nooordzeekanaal where we turned into Zij-Kanaal G and moored up alongside for our fuel at the Hierro boatyard services yard.
Interestingly, the skippers of both vessels could monitor the fuel we had used for the North Sea crossing very closely as we had both filled up before leaving Lowestoft and I had only used 268 L at a cost of some €313, due to my economy. By my calculations this bill would have been €664 at 12 knots and €864 at 15 knots; and would have taken 8½ hrs and 6½ hours respectively.
This done, I took the lead and made the necessary VHF calls on channel 22 to some five or six bridge keeper’s and a navigation lock or Sluis, all of which open for us and accommodated our passage so that we eventually cruised further along the navigation until crossing over the De Poel lake and taking on water and mooring for the night at YHZV De Onderlinge on its north bank.
Having secured a mooring for the night, we were within range of the Zaanse Schans windmills which we intend to view the following day, A session with our colleagues making our plans for the next couple of days and then I settled down to some writing and log-work before my journal and to bed after I had made us some milky coffee.
