CUMBERLIDGE ON CRUISING
PETER CUMBERLIDGE: The North Sea is filling up with new wind farms, especially off the Dutch coast. Anyone heading for Holland this summer needs the latest charts and a carefully planned route
The Netherlands are building vast new swathes of offshore wind farms opposite the Westerschelde Estuary, stretching up to 30 miles out. This small but resourceful country has an extraordinary record of maritime works, not least in securing its very existence from invasion by the sea. Now they are beavering away to meet the EU target of producing 14% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, and 16% by 2023.
The recently released charts of the southern North Sea are quite literally action packed. The Belgians are at it too, so there are pecked wind farm zones galore, along with the usual complexity of traffic lanes, separation schemes and sandbanks. Anyone cruising to Holland this season simply must have the latest cartography on board, and I say this as one who generally hangs on to charts for as long as possible.
Imray’s popular passage chart C30 covers the whole area likely to be used by yachts crossing from England to Holland, and has the great advantage of clearly marked waypoints and routes to show the ways through all the magenta tint. While to some folk wind farms at sea have an elegant, aesthetic quality, I find them rather sinister except in the calmest summery conditions. For navigators, they are like malevolent expanses of reefs suddenly created to hinder an otherwise straightforward landfall.
Imagine being carried towards a wind farm by wind or tide in the event of an engine problem or something round the props. Picture the scene in a bit of weather, those short steep seas, frothy brown over the banks, and a lurking lee shore of battalions of turbines. Makes me shudder to think of it.
Yet Holland is a delightful boating country once you penetrate its burgeoning layers of civil engineering. I love exploring the intricate rivers, sheltered meres and placid waterways through neat rural landscapes and picturesque towns. But to get there you need a flanking strategy, a sideways attack behind all the hazards. For most UK boats, the least stressful route is to start from Dover or Ramsgate, cross the Dover Strait to Calais or Dunkirk, and then follow the coastal buoyed channels east towards Vlissingen, stopping in Ostend if you fancy a jolly Belgian interlude.
This way you scuttle inside the copious shipping lanes, TSS junctions, wind farms, waiting anchorages, mine-laying practice areas and other discouraging features. Vlissingen is a vibrant estuary pilot base where huge ships pass constantly. Here you can lock into the real boating Holland and relax, especially when passing those beautiful old windmills that, unlike their modern descendants, look so soothing.
To some folk, wind farms at sea have an elegant, aesthetic quality. I find them rather sinister except in the calmest summery conditions