Plan to fail, fail to sail
Dave hatches a perfectly awe-inspiring passage plan. What can possibly go right?
Hard to believe I know, but sometimes I’m convinced I know too much. In fact I can prove it. All season my mate Mark had set his sights on a trip to Orford in Suffolk in his Jaguar: a pleasant enough jaunt I thought, until I realised he drove a Vauxhall, which is certainly not a Jaguar. Among the many fatal flaws in his passage plan was that the Jaguar he shares with his chum “quiet” Dave is not a car at all, but a Jaguar 24 bilge keeler; in other words a boat; in other words a vehicle entirely unsuited to entering the River Ore.
Here, for the benefit of south-coast sailors, I should explain that the east coast is generally on the east coast, but it’s not as simple as that in the case of the River Ore. It’s one of those places that fills sailors with what can only be described as a sense of ‘or’. Ostensibly the entrance to the Ore is in Suffolk but is prone to relocate to other counties after a bit of a blow. Who knows where it will be after Brexit! Thus, for centuries past sailors approaching the turbulent water between ever-shifting shingle banks at an entrance where the tide can run at six knots have said: “…Or shall we go somewhere else?” Hence the name, it’s truly or-inspiring.
And that was precisely what I was thinking as we sat in the Shipwreck Bar at Shotley Point. The Shipwreck Bar is the kind of place that concentrates your mind, particularly if you’re trying to avoid being shipwrecked on a bar. And that’s exactly what we were trying to do. Another term for it is passage planning... or arguing. And that’s what I was doing. If nothing else, I have the courage of my assumptions.
“Look,” I reasoned as I jabbed at my tablet, “it says here on the internet: ‘No charts will display the entrance channel, quite simply because it changes so often’.” Then I paused to let Mark and quiet Dave absorb the gravity of the situation and said: “….Or we could go to the Walton Backwaters.”
I could tell quiet Dave agreed with me, though he didn’t say as much. Mark said he could tell quiet Dave agreed with him.
“Look, I’ve done my research,” I said insistently as I spread out charts and pilot guides. “It says here ‘probably the time to enter or leave the river is from about one hour after low water.’ Then it says here ‘ideal time to enter the Ore is about 2hr before HW.’ Then it says here ‘entry or departure should only be attempted during the hour before HW’.”
Again I paused for effect: “No one’s got a clue… or we could go and see a movie. Mamma Mia II’s on at the Ritzy.” I’m not sure that strengthened my case.
“No chance,” said Mark, and quiet Dave agreed with both of us, although he didn’t say as much.
“Or how about this?” I persisted. “It says here on this actual most up-to-date chart: ‘This chart is not to be used for navigation… depths are subject to constant change…and consequently this chart should be used with extreme caution as the situation is likely to be different from the one depicted on the survey.’ …Or we could play golf.” I was getting desperate.
I continued quoting about ferocious tidal streams, depths altering drastically after south-east gales and the fact that ‘bearing lines shown on the chartlet give bearings from one buoy to the next on entry, and, as explained above, do not necessarily mark the route with the best water’.
“In other words the buoys don’t even know where they are,” I shrieked calmly.
They say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, and I was planning to fail to sail. Failure was the only option.
But there are some things you can’t plan for. Next morning, shortly after Mark found the engine’s carburettor in a toilet cistern in the shower block, we set off.
Quiet Dave didn’t say as much, but I’ve got a strong suspicion he might have said something. I didn’t plan for that!
‘Ostensibly the entrance to the River Ore is in Suffolk but is prone to relocate to other counties after a bit of a blow. Who knows where it will be after Brexit!’