Wednesday 12th June Ref: 2019/2
Moving Lady Martina from Great Yarmouth to Lowestoft for its first sea passage in two years on another damp, dull and drizzly and day, but with calm seas. Getting everything ready for a 10.30am Haven Bridge lift and then a simple calm passage undertaken as a sea trial and, apart from the bridge screen and MLR satnav buttons not working, all else was fine.
The Haven Bridge time of 10:30am this morning was convenient as it gave us time to prepare and be absolutely ready. Even so, being out of practice, I worked with Kathleen, intervening to make sure all the windows were tightly closed, the grab bag was situated on the bridge, bungee clips we used to secure anything that might move and everything else was ready for the forthcoming cruise.
With about half an hour to go, I radioed the bridge to make sure they were ready and then cast off and Kathleen continued storing the ropes and fenders as we waited for the Haven Bridge to lift. We were joined by two pilot boats, which went first, and we made our way through the inner harbour and out to sea. To begin with, we cruised quite slowly, around 6 to 7 kn, as I checked out the autopilot and other equipment was working and then I increased speed to 1300 rpm, which was 8 kn through the water, as we made our way south down through Corton Road until we got to the Lowestoft harbour entrance where I radioed on Ch14 for permission to enter. All the way, we were against a tide that started off around 2 kn and went down to about 1.3kn and there were constant rain showers, but the sea was slight to smooth so it was a very satisfactory trial for our first cruise.
After getting our ropes and fenders deployed and getting permission to enter the Royal Norfolk & Suffolk marina on channel 80, we cruised inside and made for the fuel berth but, unfortunately, somebody had moored a rigid inflatable boat there and we had to radio and asked for it to be moved before we could tie up. Eventually after a 10-minute wait, the duty officer arrived and passed down the red diesel hose and I put a total of 480 L of fuel in the cost of some £513.54 p, which represented a cost of £1.06 p per litre. This compared with some 90p a litre last year, so costs continue to rise insidiously. I had calculated that we would need about 350 L and so this was 130L extra, some of which can be accounted for by use of the heating generator during the two years that the boat has not been navigating. After the fuelling, I move lady Martina to an inside berth, as a Marina manager told us that the dredger was coming later in the week to dredge the visitor moorings.
Just as we did so, I had a call from Charity and Taylor of Lowestoft, who told me that my 15-inch monitor had arrived and was ready for collection. I set off between very heavy rain showers to arrive and collect the screen from their office, paying them in the process, and then made my way back to Lady Martina and sought to commission it. At least it was dry under my canopy but I soon found that the control buttons on the screen were not working and so, despite much research and many phone calls, I concluded that the screen was faulty and arranged for Charity and Taylor to come the following morning with their stock 19-inch screen to investigate the issue. We ended up taking that instead and modifying Lady Martina’s bridge to accommodate it!
21-26degC; RH 53→50%; 1009mb steady ; smooth with 6-10kn cylconic breeze; good visibility; very damp and drizzly
