NEW HORIZONS
Richard Krause breaks free of Poole Harbour for a Solent adventure
W ith the costs involved in owning your own boat, you really do have to log some serious water time in order to justify it. Work, weather and domestic chores often conspire to keep you firmly tied up on the pontoon, but on occasion the stars align and a plan comes to fruition.
PLANNING A MINI CRUISE
Walrus 2 had just been hauled out for a couple of days and was resplendent, with a sterndrive sporting new anodes, antifoul and polished props. A full service meant she was now ready to cruise.
I dare say we are quite cautious in our approach to venturing away from the known waters around Poole harbour, but I suspect many of you may be the same. So, modest as it may be, this is how we managed to spend a splendid two days aboard our Landau29 and cruise up the Beaulieu River to Buckler’s Hard.
With both Claire and myself finding a week in our diaries totally free, we started by looking at the BBC long-range weather forecast. The Tuesday and Wednesday looked good, so I started preparing a passage plan and checking the Channel Almanac for tides. There is much information in the almanac regarding the Western Approaches to the Solent and much to be cautious of regarding sea states. My plan as usual was to run with the tide across Poole and Christchurch bays and arrive at Hurst Castle around high slack water. This meant we would be entering the Beaulieu River on the ebb tide but with at least 3.5m of water to safely get over the bar and navigate the river. For practice, I manually plotted the tide curves and worked out the secondary port differences. Once I remembered that the published Portsmouth times were all UTC, and added an hour for BST, I was amazed how close my sums were to the IMRAY tide planner app on my phone.
The HW-1 time at Portsmouth for entering the Solent was 1100 local and gave us a scheduled departure time from the RMYC of 0930. Perfect. A quick telephone call to the harbour office at Buckler’s Hard confirmed they had space for us for the night on a marina berth. The plan was starting to come together.
On the Monday, I checked the inshore waters forecast on the met office website and all looked fine. Mainly SW Force 3 or less, sea state smooth or slight and visibility good. To be honest, we probably would cancel if sea state was moderate, as we cruise for fun and wouldn’t enjoy being tossed about in a small boat for hours. The following 24hrs gave similar, but with the wind freshening and sea state becoming moderate later. Fortunately, my passage plan for the return gave a departure from Buckler’s Hard of 1000 and I reckoned we would be back home well before the swell picked up. As it looked like we were in a ‘go’ situation, we took Walrus 2 to Poole Quay and topped up with 150 litres of diesel and then victualled ready for the following morning departure. That evening I looked at the Beaulieu website and watched Tom Cunliffe’s video again, just to ensure I knew exactly how to make the correct transit into the river and avoid any embarrassment.
Using the safetrx app made everything feel effortless
Conditions on Tuesday morning were calm and idyllic. We slipped our berth as planned at 0930. Normally I would call the coastguard with a passage plan, but having recently downloaded the RYA safetrx app, I decided to use that instead. It is quite intuitive and sends SMS messages to chosen emergency contacts of your plan, tracks your progress, and, if you don’t turn up at destination at ETA, starts search procedures for you and crew. Just remember to send an arrival message to stop the tracking and avoid emergency calls going out.
BEAUTIFUL BUCKLER’S
Our sail across the two bays was lovely. 12kts in smooth seas was all we had hoped for and we arrived at the NE Shingles cardinal mark at
1059, one minute before slack water. We had used our autohelm before, but only really in a power steering mode. This time we allowed it to track our course and it made everything effortless. I still took the odd bearing off
Boscombe pier and Hengistbury Head with my hand-held compass and made a position mark on the paper chart. How quaint.
Once safely into the Solent we noticed how much more traffic there was. Up to then we had hardly seen another boat. We tracked to the Solent Bank red channel marker and then to the Yellow Sevenstar Yacht Transport buoy, often disengaging the nav tracking to give way to all the boats under sail. As we approached Sevenstar, (the recommended starting point for the transit into the river), we had already identified the Millennium Light House, the Boat House and Lepe House. As per Tom Cunliffe’s video, we put the Port No.2 channel pile just to the left side of Lepe House, established ourselves on the 324˚ bearing safe water track and gently coasted into the river at 5kts. A quick call to the Harbour Master on Ch68 confirmed berth C12 was ready for us in the marina.
The Beaulieu river is beautiful and easy to navigate. At 5kts it takes around 40 minutes to motor the 3.5nms to Buckler’s Hard Yacht Harbour and the 18th-century village where ships were once built for Nelson’s navy. There are various points of natural and historical interest along the route and I would recommend you download a guide to fully appreciate it. The tide was still quite high and depth was never a concern for us. Some of the traditional withies that mark the channel are not reliable however, so steer clear.
Rounding the final bend, the iconic view of the village came into view. The terraced labourers’ cottages and the Master Builder’s House hotel were bathed in glorious summer sunshine.
We found our berth, reversed in and turned the engines off at 1245, giving a cruise time of 3hrs and 15 mins. There was no phone signal but free Wifi, so we walked to the Harbour master’s office for the code and notified the RYA safetrx app that we had arrived. Buckler’s Hard is an award-winning marina and we could see why. The facilities are excellent and the location absolutely stunning.
Once we sorted the admin and hooked up the shore power, we decided to walk the path along the river to the village of Beaulieu itself and have a late lunch. It takes around 40 mins., but some of the views along the river are amazing. Later, some friends joined us on our boat and we drank a few bottles of wine as the sun went down. What a perfect end to a wonderful day.
We slept very well aboard our little cruiser and awoke to another perfectly still morning. Hundreds of tiny jellyfish were drifting in with the tide as we took breakfast on the aft cockpit. After a quick check of the weather and my calculations, we set course down river and back to Poole. Once again, we arrived at Hurst Point close to slack water and then went with the tidal stream across Christchurch bay. The wind was forecast as variable 1-2 but SW 3-5 later and the freshening breeze in the afternoon gave us a little wind over tide. The ride was not as smooth as our outbound leg and we cut the speed back to 9 kts. Nevertheless, we entered Poole harbour 3 hrs 45 mins after leaving Buckler’s Hard feeling we had made excellent use of our 9.5m Landau cruiser, and we’re already looking ahead to our next mini cruise in the Walrus.