Yes, We Were Back on The Briny Again - August 2019

[The Stationmaster]

So once again onto the seas dear friends.  This time we had not only booked for the South Coast but I knew full well from a look back in April at the ship's detailed programme that she should not only be on the south coast but in the vicinity of the Isle of Wight so I guessed that we might well be boarding at Southampton.  Despite the weather the previous week which had kept the ship hiding off Margate from gales in the Channel for several days she duly got to Cowes - where we had to join; I had guessed wrong with Southampton alas.

 

So we had to get from Southampton to Cowes and took the quicker way using Red Funnel's Red Jet service which had the advantage of going to West Cowes, where we needed to be, and the disadvantage of costing a lot more than their ro-ro ferry to East Cowes.  The Red Funnel ticket chap told us that we could save money by buying return tickets but although we were supposed to disembark at Cowes the following week we'd 'been there before' as far as Patricia was concerned and decided to save the added cost of the return tickets.

 

So off we went down Southampton Water on one these -

 

All good fun, nice and smooth but the fact that it was by then pouring with rain to add to the spray didn't do much for the view -

 

And the weather didn't do anything to encourage the taking of photos at Cowes.  In fact we made our boat trip out to Patricia with a TH waterproof jacket over the top of our own waterproof coats and still got a bit damp in the process.  Later the rain eased off  but the murky visibility remained so even photos of ships passing nearby - from or to Southampton - came with a very grey background.

 

For various reasons Trinity House having a mooring buoy on the Prince Consort Shoal north of Cowes breakwater roughly south west of the Prince Consort cardinal buoy.  The buoy is the black object on the shoal in this chart - which you might have to enlarge to see more clearly.  The Prince Consort Cardinal buoy is a north cardinal which means that shipping has to keep to the north side of it - as you will see in some later photos - and the 'Precautionary Area' is a major turning point for ships heading to/from Southampton Water.  So overall be moored on the buoy, as we were, gives an excellent spot for ship photography with some of the results of my efforts already posted in this thread -

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/124983-anyone-interested-in-ships/page/44/

 

And to give me something to do we were destined to spend the next 50 odd hours swinging round the buoy watching the traffic around us -

 

This view of the chart puts the section shown above into its wider context with Southampton Water at top left and the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour over on the right -

 

Here is the Prince Consort cardinal buoy - the two upward facing cones above teh superstructure indicate that it is a north cardinal. The way in which the cones are placed indicate which of the four cardinal points of the compass apply on such buoys.

 

And here it is again with the cruise ship 'Marina' outward bound from Southampton passing to the north of it, the weather is not much better! -

 

We were of course there during Cowes Week when it seems as if every yacht worth its salt gathers at Cowes for a week of racing and the crews going ashore to enjoy themselves.  For whatever reason but mainly in case of any emergencies Patricia kept one of the workboats swung out ready to lower but the only call for its services was a broken down rib that needed a tow.

 

I don't know much about the sailing side of things but there were plenty of them about engaging in numerous races.  In the picture immediately below the much clearer weather gives a view of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth over on the horizon on the left  and there is a large container ship approaching on the horizon -

 

 

 

 

And thing do get a bit crowded as here with the Red Funnel ro-ro ferry waiting for the same container ship and its tug to pass before proceeding to Southampton -

 

And if you wondered why there is a Precautionary Area where the big ships turn here's what happens when a really large vessel needs a tug to help it make the turn - 

 

And still the small boat sailors carry on almost unperturbed although that chap with the yellow sail had very wisely altered course to keep clear of the 'MOL Triumph'.  But we also had a good view of Cowes with the weather clear and here is East Cowes with the large hangar originally built for constructing the Princess flying boat well in view.  Over the years the hangar has seen many uses varying from hovercraft building to being used to build some of the newer Red Jet ferries

 

Looking now over West Cowes the hammerhead crane at the former shipyard of Samuel White dominates the skyline as a sign that Cowes history hasn't just been about yacht racing.  Whites built ferries and warships the last of the latter being launched in the 1960s.  The hammerhead crane is reputedly the only one surviving, albeit in preserved form, anywhere in England - 

 

And the clearer weather on Thursday even allowed a view of distant Portsmouth -

 

And a nice sunset over Fawley refinery -

 

Friday morning was still fairly clear with Fawley refinery in the background as the MV 'Eddystone' headed out to Sandown anchorage

 

But a couple of hours before we got underway it was already closing in 

 

To come - down the Solent in some rather murky weather

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

So Friday saw us slip the mooring buoy off Cowes and head away eastwards down the Solent to St Helens Road, on one of the anchorages off the east end of the Isle of Wight. Two reasons for the move - firstly, and most importantly, our Captain was itching to get on with some work and there was a possibility of some suitab;e windows of lower wind speeds plus the island would provide some shelter from the south westerly wind.  And secondly we were moored right in the middle of the exclusion  zone for an RAF Typhoon display during the last evening of Cowes week  although the worsening visibility was likely to (and in the end did) mean that would be cancelled.

 

So off we went with the tides in our favour-

 

 

and the course duly plotted on the navigation screen, here we are more or less due north of Ryde with Ryde Pier at the bottom of the screen.  The red dotted line showing our planned course and the black dotted line what is actually happening -

 

While the Captain keeps a sharp lookout ahead as we come across the various ferry traffic

 

including a hovercraft 

 

 

and Brittany Ferries 'Bretagne' inbound for Portsmouth

 

Our first view of St Helens did not show it in its best light

 

And the anchorage was quite busy - here are five of the other seven ships anchored there

 

 

While the passengers on P&O's Aurora were having a rather gloomy start to their cruise as she passed between us and Southsea

 

While we could look forward to a nice comfortable evening at the dinner table where there would be a good 4 course meal, plus wine - and no hint of gloom

 

By Saturday morning things were definitely brighter with a much better view of Southsea and Portsmouth,

 

St Helens,

 

No Man's fort (now a rather upmarket hotel), and

https://solentforts.com/no-mans-fort/

 

of the ships we were sharing the anchorage with

 

The morning  wind was low enough to encourage the Captain to get on with some buoy work so while the cadets used a more traditional method of finding out where we were and Mrs Stationmaster enjoyed the morning air the captain made ready to head for our first buoy of the day

 

The New Grounds east cardinal buoy he;lping to keep vrssels in the deep water channel east of the shallower water of East Grounds

 

 

and here it is

 

being lifted inboard.  This perhaps helps show why buoy work cannot be carried out during winds above Force 3-4 as there are several tons of buoy slung from the derrick in this picture.

 

After that we also lifted the South Pullar buoy (no chart picture sorry) but that was all that could be managed because the wind was strengthening and the third job was to have been a much larger, and heavier, Class 1 buoy which it would have been to dangerous to lift in those conditions.  So we headed to Sandown Roads to again shelter from the south westerly winds, anchoring just after 14,00 with a good view of Sandown,

 

and an equally good view of Shanklin

 

 

 

 

 

[Kris]

Sounds like I was sharing nearly the same bit of water as you on the Saturday. 

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Kris said:

Sounds like I was sharing nearly the same bit of water as you on the Saturday. 

We were there last moth.

[Kris]

So was I Mike, I sailed across to the IOW on the final Saturday of Cowes Week (seeing the final bits of racing from the ferry), just as you went East. 

[The Stationmaster]

And so to Sunday, a working day for Patricia's crew as long as the weather is on their side and on this particular day the Captain was hoping to take advantage of low winds first thing in the morning to tackle the Class 1 buoy he'd had to leave on the previous day.   Notwithstanding some high cloud cover at 07.30 the day was looking to be getting a bright start as we got underway to the N2 buoy.

 

 

Back to the chart and thos should give you an idea of where we were heading compared with our first buoy on the previous day.  You can also see the position of the Nab Tower which is an important navigational object even in the electronic age

 

N2 is a Special Mark buoy,  denoted by the yellow cross on top, and it is also big.  Class 1 buoys are a lot bigger overall - for reasoms you will see shortly - than the Class 2 buoys we were lifting yesterday and they are also heavier (c.10 tons) and come with special handling needs of their own.  Here is the simple view of it afloat doing its job -

 

And here's the Nab Tower - a not particularly impressive structure which has gradually been reduced in height over the years -

 

But back to N2 and the first job is to move alongside it and then 'the happy hooker' is used to get a line through a lifting eyes on the buoy-

 

 

 

The line is used to pull the lifting straps through the eyes on opposite sides of the buoy and it is then ready to lift

 

The usual procedure is to lift the buoy alongside to allow the main hull body to be jet washed to remove marine growth.  And no this jet wash isn't really much use for cleaning the car when you're in port as the pressure is 140 bar (not 140psi but 140 x14.7 psi so it would probably dent many average car body panels

 

Then it is lifted inboard and as you can see here it also differs from the Class 2 buoy because it has a long, hollow, tube, below the main hull to help stabilise the extra height and weight of the suprstructure. To accommodate the tube it is lowered into a special tube in the deck - it's just visible at the bottom of the  jet wash photo.

 

Here it is being swiung round towards the tube with Bob the bosun standing handy to relay instructions to the crane driver -

 

Half an hour later it had undergone its full check and service and was back in the water, and we were on our way back to Sandown Bay as it was getting too windy to do any further buoy work.  But that wasn't the end of the day;'s work because within 20 minutes of anchoring one of the ship's two lifeboats was being lowered for a training exercise. 

 

Along with the rib

 

And that was the work done for the day once both craft were back aboard so the crew were off below to eat and we were off for our buffet lunch, a normal arrangement for the passengers on Sundays.  Meanwhile the Captain was engaged in serious study of the weather and what work could be attempted and duly decided that on Monday we would go down to the west end of the Island in the vicinity of the needles where there were two CEFAS monitoring buoys in the hope that it would be calm enough either that day or on Tuesday to work on them.

 

So just before 08.45 on Monday we were on our way along the south coast of the Island heading for the area of The Needles in a rather choppy sea.  But before we got there the ship received orders from the TH Planning Office in Harwich to go to Eastbourne  -  a bit over 5 hours steaming, in the opposite direction.

 

So in a less than ideal sea (and a wind which that nice Mr Beaufort would categorise as a 'Near Gale', i.e. Force 7) we turned round, very carefully.  And this is as close as we got to The Needles -

 

So it was maybe just as well that we had trusted to past experience and had not bought a return ticket to get us back to Southampton on the Red Jet ferry because at this stage it was beginning to look rather unlikely that we would be returning to Cowes by Wednesday morning.  And as the next part of this tale will relate we went off to do a little job somewhere quite a way east of the Isle of Wight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

So as duly bidden off we went eastwards up the Channel - with a wind gusting to Gale Force to help us on our way.  The reason for our enforced redeployment was quite simple, Trinity House have to keep a buoy tender within 6 hours steaming of the Straits of Dover in case of any emergencies such as the need to buoy a wreck or deal with problems on a buoy or light vessel.  For much of the time this cover is provided by the smaller, and faster, THV Alert which is usually based at Harwich but the Alert was suffering mechanical troubles and was unlikely to be in full working order for a couple of days so Patricia was moved eastwards to be able to provide the necessary coverage.  Oddly it was the second time this year when we had been aboard that Patricia had been redeployed in that area for emergency reasons because on our first trip we'd had to attend the problems on the Foxtrot 3 light vessel.

 

As will become apparent this move also suited our Captain as there was another little job in the area which the weather and sea state would probably be kind enough to allow us to do on the Tuesday.  So off went and got a second viewing of Ventnor that morning -

 

Although we were using the inshore channel clear of the main traffic lanes we were cutting off the corner so to speak so for a lot of the trip we we only had a distant, and sometimes poor, view of the South Coast. and saw very few other vessels.  The main thing we saw before the coast east of Newhaven towards Beachy Head came into view was the Rampion Wind Farm which lies more or less south of Brighton and extends between 8 and 16 miles out to sea.  As this telephoto view shows the seaward end of the wind farm it is obvious why we couldn't see the land because it was almost 17 miles away.

 

Our first decent sight of land came as we passed Newhaven and the Seven Sisters cliffs and Beachy Head. opened out before us.  the first view is looking more or less directly at Cuckmere Haven, beyond the yacht, with the Seven Sisters to the right.   The second view is the continuation eastwards to Beachy Head.

 

 

And in this one you can just make out the lighthouse at the foot of the cliffs -

 

But in case you missed here is an extreme telephoto view -

 

And the wind and tide were still giving us a good push -

 

So we then anchored overnight off Eastbourne.  The job for the next day, Tuesday, was duly explained and involved a trip out to the Greenwich light vessel (so named because it lies more or less on the Greenwich meridian but is obviously nowhere near Greenwich) in order to rectify its defective AIS transmitter.  The trip out gave a much better view of Beachy Head lighthouse -

 

 

 

The Greenwich light vessel marks the south western end of the Straits of Dover TSS (Traffic Separation System) and is moored in the 'dead' area between the two lanes as can be seen from the chart below. (if necessary enlarge this picture to see the detail).

 

And here it (she?) is -

 

So off went the workboat with the  ETO (i.e. technician) and First Officer to rectify the fault and carry out a brief condition check on various equipment.  The sea was a bit choppy, but who cares when you're watching someone else 'enjoying' it?

 

 

However being a very nice sort of chap the Captain asked if any of us passengers would like a nice little boat trip to get a closer passing view of the light vessel and a view of our own ship as well.  Two passengers decided not to go - probably finding it more amusing to sit and watch us, the other seven, who duly took advantage of the offer.  It was great fun, especially the (frequent) bit where you found yourself looking up at the crest of an approaching wave, and it was definitely not a stable platform for taking photos but I managed a few using the small Fuji although as it is ageing the shutter reaction time has slowed down a bit.

 

 

 

 

And here's what it looked like as we headed back alongside on the lee side of 'Patricia', mill pond stuff.

 

Notwithstanding being right in the middle of one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world the opportunities for ship photography were rather limited because all the passing traffic was quite a way off - usually as much as a mile or more.  But at least you could see the English coast in the background as this tanker headed south west down the Channel -

 

To give you an idea of how busy it can get here is an AIS screen grab from yesterday evening - the Greenwich LV sits inside a little dotted black outlined box

 

And that was it.  Back for another night anchored off Eastbourne and then ashore the next morning to get the train home - just as the crowds were beginning to head for Reading Festival.

 

As it happened our diversion to Eastbourne was quite welcome as it meant I could tick off another useful length of 'coastline we have passed on THV Patricia'. in my 'Big Boys' Book of the British Coastline'.  And of course the lightship visit added plenty of unexpected interest to our voyage.  The train journey back from Eastbourne via Gatwick to Reading was undoubtedly a lot less comfortable than our much easier rail journey from Southampton would have been but my decision not to buy return tickets on the Red Jet was nicely justified.

 

Here in the final picture is a chart extract to give you a more comprehensive idea of where we went and why we stayed out to sea between Ventnor and the approach to Beachy Head -

 

 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2019 by The Stationmaster
Remove duplication in a caption

[The Stationmaster]

Addendum.

 

A possibly useful chart extract showing in greater detail the waters around the Isle of Wight

[Ozexpatriate]

On 14/09/2019 at 05:34, The Stationmaster said:

The main thing we saw before the coast east of Newhaven towards Beachy Head came into view was the Rampion Wind Farm which lies more or less south of Brighton and extends between 8 and 16 miles out to sea.

I'm glad you weren't closer to those windmills Mike. I'm informed (by a certain politician) that being in proximity to them causes cancer.

 

Less facetiously, those views of those famous chalk cliffs are quite magnificent. Thank you for sharing them.

[The Stationmaster]

On 15/09/2019 at 22:48, Ozexpatriate said:

I'm glad you weren't closer to those windmills Mike. I'm informed (by a certain politician) that being in proximity to them causes cancer.

 

Less facetiously, those views of those famous chalk cliffs are quite magnificent. Thank you for sharing them.

Thanks Michael, the Seven Sisters are a lovely looking line of cliffs and we were just the right distance away from them with the light coming from the ideal direction so it worked out quite nicely.  The windmills were actually quite a long way off so even better - this  view shows how they looked to the naked eye without any use of telephoto. You might need to click on the picture to enlarge it to see them properly

 

 

 

 

[Neil]

Well it wouldn't be my first choice of holiday but it's a fascinating insight into a different world. Thank you Mike.

[62613]

Deliciously old-fashioned lifeboat there!