Holyhead to Peel (Isle of Man)

The dreaded alarm clock game. This time at 3:20 am… Ugh. Even earlier than whilst working and heading off to get an early flight from Heathrow. Somehow though, this didn’t seem as bad. Why? Well, there was no traffic jam on the motorway, airport queues, Heathrow air traffic delays, airline food or meetings at the other end to enjoy. Just a trip across a very calm sea (official forecast was for “slight becoming smooth” and they overcalled it) into a sunrise and heading for the lovely Isle of Man. We wanted to visit as the crew had never been there and the captain’s only visits had been for work, many years ago.

Why leave at stupid o’clock? Well, all the harbours on the island are heavily tidal and so we had to arrive around high water. As there was a 60 nm trip, we needed 10 hours to get there so you can work out the rest. We actually needed a little longer as the tidal patterns don’t go “with or against” you, they kind of end up pushing you sideways apart from at the start of the trip, around the Skerries, where you have to fight some strong tides that are on the starboard bow. We were recommended to go to Peel as a quieter and prettier harbour than Douglas where, apparently, you find the odd beer can or worse on the boat deposited by the lads leaving the pubs around the harbourside.

Departure and the trip were very relaxed really, we just had a faster run than normal (1650 rpm) to make sure that we arrived on time. Pushing the tide as we left Holyhead, we had a glorious sunrise over the Skerries to enjoy:

As the winds were light, we cut close to them, going through the edges of what would normally be some big overfalls. Instead, today, they were just little whirlpools and not rough at all. They did cut our “speed made good” to about 3.8 knots at some stages though, about 3 knots adverse tide. There is a traffic separation zone around the Skerries (like the one near the Channel Islands) and so we did the proper thing and made a dogleg in our course so we crossed it at right angles. It was busy but nothing like the English Channel version of course, with a few ships heading to / from Liverpool. Approaching the “Calf of Man” (the rocky outcrop bit on the bottom of the island!) you see the current lighthouse near Chicken rock and some older ones on the outcrop itself. Gives you an idea of how dangerous this area was in the days before AIS, GPS, radar etc etc and how important it was to mark it properly in the dark or bad weather:

Heading up the west coast of the island, we pushed on a bit more power so we arrived just around high water – yes, a full 1800rpm cruise, steam coming off the prop! (As a reminder, full power is 2,400 rpm or so. 1800 is about 60% engine load and the speed that most people use for “coastal cruising”.)  Approaching Peel after dodging many pot markers (but all pretty well visible, no milk bottles used as markers here thank heavens) you get a great view of the castle:

We heard a few boats calling the harbour radio for the 2pm bridge swing (there is a footbridge across the harbour entrance) and so we put on a spurt (OK, hardly a spurt, another half knot) so we could enter as they left. We were given a berth close to the entrance which meant swinging around and reversing onto it. Whilst swinging the boat, she seemed very reluctant to turn – not due to the helmsman’s stupidity for a change this time either. Instead, the keel was meeting mud… Although the books all say the place is dredged to a minimum of 2.5 metres, the heavy storms last winter had washed lots of silt down the river and caused some shallow spots in the harbour area. Luckily not too bad and we could push through them OK and get onto our (slightly) deeper berth which the harbourmaster said had 2 metres at all times. Bearing in mind we were only 30 mins before high water, the message for leaving Peel is clear – don’t go much before HW! The good thing about the Nordhavn is that you have a full keel and that would just settle into the mud a little on our berth if needed. No exposed propellers to worry about. The harbour has a cill and raising flap gate so the water level stays pretty constant after HW+2 or so when they close it.  

A great view from our berth of the castle and harbour area:

It was one of those perfect sea trips. Dead calm, sunny, little wind, great views, terrific final destination. Yes, it was another one of those “I remember why we have a boat” days.

For the tekkies – 60 nautical miles over land, about 75 through the water, 10 hours underway. Half an hour of wing engine exercise and no maintenance issues to report. (The captain had changed the main engine and main gearbox oil / filters whilst in Holyhead so there were frequent checks for leaks from the new filters initially. The gearbox filter runs at full pressure and so a leak would be pretty dramatic, emptying the oil out quickly and causing lots of damage.) 

The irritating Navigation PC has settled down now. Instead of random errors, it now works just fine but the AIS targets seem to freeze from time to time, although the plotter function, feed to the autopilot etc is still working. Restarting the Maxsea software, not the whole PC, rectifies this. As per earlier reports, it sounds like an issue with the serial card in the PC that links to the Furuno AIS unit but the hardware checks out all OK. The captain still has to fire off a mail to the French software vendor for some support. Not sure if we will get any of course after our earlier rude comments about their countrymen trying to ram us…. Will let you know.