It's OK, you can breathe again. Granny Buttons reached Sharpness with no mishap. In fact, it was a completely uneventful passage, save for one joyful, pointless twirl underneath the (original) Severn Bridge, and for me losing my hat before departure. Thanks to Charles Lyne for steering all the way, and to Paul Balmer for filming most of the voyage.
Also to Ken Baines for acting as pilot. Or rather, for being a real pilot, although he was dressed to look like he was acting as a boater ready for a day out on the canals, complete with holiday shorts and deck shoes.
In many ways, today was like a day out on the canals, because the weather was perfect, the Severn was as calm as it ever gets, and the wind was just enough to soothe my sunburned hatless head. A sailor can get complacent on days like this. Charlie, Paul and I were doubly blessed today; we couldn't have asked for better conditions.
Ken's calmness and certainty was very helpful, although it wasn't complete altruism. He is professional, and the cost isn't included in one's boat licence. Turn here, line up those two boys, pull a bit to starboard please, watch that white square on the power station, etc. The only frivolity was the loop-the-loop we did under the Severn Bridge, and that was because we were in good time. More details on how to hire a pilot are available on the Gloucester Harbour Trustees web site.
What could have gone wrong? The only fear I had was that the engine might conk out, the way it did on a previous boat, the last time I came this way in 1994. The Severn is not a river for beginners, with mudbanks, shoals, undertows, massive tides and currents, and buoys with wires stretched between them - a boat can easily get into trouble in the wrong place, and at the wrong time and tide.
Ken told us a story of a man who navigated a narrowboat alone down from Sharpness a few years ago - he (the man, not Ken) was apparently using a road map for navigation, and struck a wire strung between two bouys and the boat sank on a mud shoal. For some reason (no fatalities, perhaps) I found this hilarious, and I've resolved to do a blog post soon on the best road map to use if you are going to get from Sharpness to Bristol by water.
We locked out of Portishead Marina at 11.30am, and reached Sharpness about 3pm, before the turn of tide. We then had to wait an hour or so to lock through, before finally mooring up at the visitor moorings outside the docks around 5pm. Oh, joy! I'm finally past the most dangerous part of my six-year trip on Granny Buttons.
But one must always beware. Disaster is a comedian with a superb sense of timing, and he knows how to deliver a punchline unexpectedly - often even before Complacency has stopped laughing at the previous narrow escape.
As the massive gates of Portishead Lock opened in front of us and the various seaworthy vessels alongside us gently motored out at twice our maximum speed, I opened up the engine and as we emerged from the frothy confines of the lock, the six miles of open water looking NNE to the new M4 bridge was somewhat daunting to those of us who rarely venture out on anything bigger than Tixall Wide!
I thought of the Captain's words "Take her to sea Mr. Murdoch" as Titanic moved out (in the film at least) towards her destiny. Not that we had any fears of icebergs in the Bristol Channel, but the rocks, mudflats and strong tidal flows provide a very definite risk to a boat with a top speed of about five mph. Under Ken's capable directions though, we were always sailing well within Granny's capabilities.
The loop we did just after the M4 bridge doesn't appear at first to show up in the GPS log, because although we turned 180 degrees and tried to go back under the bridge for a second bit of video, we actually only succeeded in slowing our northerly progress to 1 mph from the 10 mph we'd been doing through The Shoots.
Similarly, when we were just outside Sharpness, we had to wait for a moderate sized cruiser to leave the outer lock, and did a 'U' turn. Although moving quite fast through the water, and it felt as though we were going south, looking across the 250 yards to the shore we could see that we were still inexorably moving north (backwards) towards the massive wooden jetties.
What I found particularly fascinating were the little whirlpools and eddies of mud swirling up from the depths below us. All in all, an experience not to be missed.
Thanks Andrew (and Ken, and Paul).
Posted by: Charles Lyne | Monday, 18 July 2005 at 08:32 PM