Kestrel On Delivery - An Adventure From Aldeburgh To The Solent

15 August 2009

Matthew Lingley, owner of Kestrel GBR207 - brings us this tale of his Dragon delivery adventure from Aldeburgh to the Solent.

I put 'Kestrel' back together nearly 3 years ago now, after finding her in a pretty sorry state in Warsash on the Hamble.  A very low budget 9 month 'restoration' with the aid of friends, family and various Dragon owners in helping me source parts and sails, in particular the encouragement of Peter Wilson, gave me an elderly, rough around the edges but ready to race Dragon, joining the Aldeburgh fleet in time for Aldeburgh Regatta 2007. I am in my early 20's, a student (just graduating this year) so not your average Dragon owner perhaps, but I understand the original brief for the class was for it to be a low cost boat for younger people!

The idea for sailing her round to the Solent from Aldeburgh for a few regattas came about after hearing the stories of Peter, John Haig, Patrick Gifford and others sailing round in the past. This sounded like it could be fun to me, and as work this summer would result in me living in Southampton it seemed like a logical thing to do.  I wanted to race her in Round the Island Race, so the weekend before was set as the date to sail her round.  Jack Gifford (no relation of Patrick) was very keen to crew for me for the trip, and got the Friday off work giving us 3 days to complete the trip, however the weather forecast for that weekend looked light the week before so I recruited another friend, Ollie Dewhurst to help bring her the first stage from Aldeburgh to Brightlingsea with me the Wednesday before.

Luckily for us Peter was taking his 8 metre 'IF' down to Levington for the East Coast Classics that weekend so offered to tow us out of the Alde and down to Harwich should we need it. Given that there was next to no wind when we took the tow off moorings at 10:15 this was very useful, and it meant we were out of the river mouth at half flood giving us 3 hours or so of fair tide once clear of the river. By the time we had made the Orford Haven buoy we were overtaking the tow with the main up so we separated from 'If'.  Just as well really as we couldn't bear to watch Peter and his crew drink any more Bloody Marys whilst we were on a dry ship!

It seemed to take us very little time to slip past the mouth of the Deben heading, roughly, on a bearing for the Naze tower. We had to make a brief tack offshore to clear a large container ship heading for Felixstowe and then crossed the fairway with little trouble, the breeze coming roughly from the south at about ten knots promising to give us a fetch down the Wallet. However the breeze had a little bit of a falter once we were level with the Naze tower and around midday we realised we might have made a mistake in the lack of food we had brought, as what we had brought in the Aldeburgh bakery had been demolished before leaving the river, leaving us with just two packets of Super Noodles, two Mars bars and unlimited coffee and sugar on board. With nowhere to go apart from Brightlingsea ahead, about 15 miles away, it was lucky the wind decided to fill in again at this point! We then had an easy sail if a little slow with a contrary tide, down to the mouth of the Colne.  The shape of the coast gave us a freeing breeze down to the Colne Bar Buoy, where we popped the spinnaker up, carrying it all the way to Brightlingsea Creek, getting in by six pm. The harbourmaster directed us alongside a fisheries patrol vessel on a swinging mooring to make it easier for us to sail on and off, and after a quick tidy of the boat we headed ashore for much needed fish and chips.

For the rest of the trip, Jack joined as crew. We slipped off the out mooring at 0350 Friday morning, pretty much bang on the start of the ebb, and rapidly got spat out of the Colne, on pretty much a dead run in light airs. We put the kite up once we felt awake enough to do so at about 6 am, and headed for the dolphin marking the Sunk.  We then made pretty slow progress through the gaps in the sandbanks. We crossed the Black Deep channel thankfully without coming across any shipping, as we wouldn't have been able to do much to get out of the way. The Wind then fully failed us half way down the Fishermans Gat, we decided to paddle for a bit, but gave that up when we realised it was far too much like hard work to go nowhere. So kedge down, sunscreen on, time for a doze! We were in about 4 metres of water so nothing big could bother us. The wind filled in again after an hour and a half, light from the south east, gently building all afternoon so by about half five we sailed past Ramsgate. We thought a little as to whether it made sense to go into Ramsgate, but decided that as the wind was doing as forecasted, and at this point was pretty much a steady force four, we would crack on for Dover. Pasta was served for dinner at about half six, I having discovered that with a decent amount of heel on the stove would lodge nicely against the roves in Kestrel's frames and any angle needed! We then had a bit of a bounce down to South Foreland, the wind slowly heading requiring a bit of a beat before we could lay Dover. At one point we counted 7 Ferries around us, which was a little exciting to say the least. We wondered for a bit as to if we should tell the Harbour Control we were sailing in, but then decided it might cause a fuss so wasn't worth it, asked permission to enter via the western entrance and sailed right in, paddling the last bit into Dover Marina, getting in by ten pm. 

Next morning, 4; 30 am, we were off again, target; Brighton. It should have been easy.... Dover's pubs had not looked very inviting the night before, so no hangovers for us! Paddling our way out we were passed by a Dutch yacht that offered us a tow, they were especially impressed by Jack rattling away in Dutch to them, and they proceeded to tow us out of the harbour and about a mile up the coast, which is fortunate as otherwise we would have had trouble making headway against the tide ripping past the harbour mouth. The wind stayed light and fluky for most of the morning, slowly building in the late morning. Dungeness was passed with ease at half ten.  The Royal Sovereign light and then Beachy Head were the next two way marks, with a fair tide and a force 3 from the south west giving us a gentle fetch up the coast, with a couple of tacks to clear Beachy Head itself. However, soon after the wind totally failed us, and as we still had fair tide it was paddles out again to give us an extra knot. It became clear that the next addition to Kestrel's cruising gear should be a large pair of sweeps. After an hour of paddling we picked up a breath of wind from the south. We considered at this point going into Newhaven, as we were less than a mile from the mouth, however we decided against this as it would have required a hard paddle in and out with next to no wind, and as we decided to do this engineless, asking for a tow unless it was offered was not in the spirit of the trip!

We sorted out some hot food before we ran out of light, and as we still had a little wind and the very end of the fair tide we kept sailing, Jack got his head down in the cuddy between the plastic crates I had screwed to the floorboards for storage (a Dragon fitted for racing has nowhere to store pots, pans and stove, this is an oversight!). However he wasn't down for long before the GPS was showing our track in the wrong direction....time to put the kedge over the side.  So between about 2230 and 0400 we took turns on anchor watch, with a thunderstorm going round us and the odd rain squall thrown in, watching a dredger go in and out of Newhaven, plus one ferry go in, but seeing no other shipping. 

So, at 4 am, Jack wakes me to say that Kestrel had swung round, meaning we had fair tide, and that a light breeze had been filling in from the Southwest. Kedge up! By 7am the breeze was a steady F2-3 and by 8 we could see Lancing's chapel abeam. Our target was to round Selsey Bill by 3pm in order to get swept round and up the eastern Solent, but with an ever growing breeze we rounded it an hour early. The final leg up the Solent was the fastest and wettest bit of the trip, with the GPS showing a speed of up to 8 knots at times, whilst bashing to windward.  We were alongside at Sheppard's Wharf marina by 6pm, damp, tired and fantasizing about beer and food, but altogether extremely pleased with ourselves for sailing the 215 miles from Aldeburgh. 

Many times on this delivery we thought that really, a Dragon is not bad as a cruiser. Ok, Kestrel, like all racing Dragons, has no bunks or accommodation and is wet in any sort of head sea, so in that respect she is most peoples idea of a terrible boat to cruise....  But what pleased us however is that between Brightlingsea and the Solent we did not see one other yacht that was not motoring or motor-sailing. Kestrel was a just a pleasure to helm the whole trip.

Matthew Lingley
GBR207
Kestrel

Fiona Brown
Press Officer
Fiona.Brown@fionabrown.com