Boat Moto Cross! Like being locked in the boot of a Paris Dakar rally car for 4 days.

Boat Moto Cross! Like being locked in the boot of a Paris Dakar rally car for 4 days.

We covered 1,970 nm and burnt 2,000 litres of red

We did this trip anti clockwise just to be different as no one ever does it 'the wrong way'! (Neither do they do it in February; they also normally wait for good weather!)
We added a couple more hours by setting off from Wells rather than Lowestoft but we wanted to do it from our home port.

This record has still to be ratified by the RYA and approved by the UIM but these are the times that we have submitted to them.

Departed Wells Fairway buoy 0943 Saturday 26th February 2005
Arrived back at wells fairway 2154 Wednesday 2nd March
108 hrs 11 mins
Old record was 126hrs 5mins. We took 17 hours 54 mins off and took 33 hours off Steve Fossit's sailing record.

I decided to take my workboat 'Titan' around Britain while my friend Simon Sanderson with who I am building Kali was on holiday Para gliding in Goa.
With Easter approaching and no work for a couple of weeks this seemed to be the right time to go on holiday before the silly season starts, and if it is as hectic this year as last there will be no time for fun until next November!
I haven't been around Britain for a couple of years now due to running my Charter buisness from Wells and working on Kali with Simon taking up all my time, so when I actually found myself with 'nothing on' all I could think about was getting a fourth Circumnavigation under my belt.
Titan had recently been re engined with a new Yanmar 315hp straight 6 replacing the nasty Mercruiser that let me down for the last time in December, I could go on for a long time about my feelings for Mercruiser having spent more than a justifiable amount of time keeping three of the things running for the last 2 years and not to mention spending a fortune on ridiculously priced spare parts for them which crucified my operating profits, but I won't, apart from saying I will never buy anything with the word Mercruiser on it again as long as I live. To the point; Titan is now quarter of a tonne lighter with another 15hp and 10 mph quicker and full of confidence inspiring Japanese reliability. Just run in, I thought it a perfect time to do a long distance trip, leaving the Mercruiser bravo three leg as the only weak link in the chain, however the new engine whilst being more powerful and higher revving produces less torque than the last engine and it is the torque that destroys these legs, I have had 5 of them let go on me in the last 16 months, at between £500 to £1,500 per rebuild depending on where about inside they decided to let go. So with a recently re- built leg and carrying a spare, ratchet strapped to the front deck, I thought it a reasonable bet to think we might get round without any mechanical worries as 70 + nautical miles sitting out the back steering an 8hp 'sail power' auxiliary outboard in potentially poor conditions was not a thought I relished, I have done 40 nm before under an auxiliary on a large RIB that broke down on me mid North Sea and it is like watching paint dry travelling at about 4 knots!
Titan is a MCA Category 2 coded boat so therefore carries all the necessary safety equipment aboard all the time saving me a lot of time in preparation, I substituted the 16 man SOLAS life raft that weighed about 65kg for a light weight 4 man valise kindly lent by Justin from the Marine Safety Centre at Lowestoft, then to increase the range I commissioned a pair of long range tanks holding three hundred litres each from Henderson plastics near where I live, These were tailor made to fit either side in between the engine box and the sponsons at the stern. The idea was to fill the main under deck boat tanks from these with an electric transfer pump even though they had pick up tubes to run straight to the engine filter if required.
With the fitting of an inverter to power a microwave and low power electric kettle and another 300 litres worth of deck fuel cans giving a fuel capacity of 1,300 litres Titan was ready to rock!

I ran the idea of going around the entire British and Irish Isles past my old buddy Wayne Johnson as I could not do a non stop challenge such as this on my own, Titan has no auto pilot therefore there needed to be constant concentration on maintaining the course every inch of the way and apart from working together for years on work boats and safety boats in the Marine construction industry, Wayne has circumnavigated Mainland Britain with me before and has also done a circumnavigation of Ireland with me. I knew that he was top crew, knew what to expect and had the stamina for it. Thankfully he jumped at the chance.
Looking at the isobar chart Friday morning it looked like there was a small high developing for Sunday just North of the Shetlands which all looked good for a Saturday am depart and if we could reach it in time we would have the wind behind us running down towards St. Kilda, so I gave Wayne the call to go shopping for micro wave meals and to meet at the boat 0800 Saturday morning while I went over the boat and all the kit and charts until 1 am Saturday morning. When I got back to the house I turned the computer on to study the latest weather charts only to find that all had changed and the weather was looking bad, especially up the North Sea, our first leg. It was too late to call Wayne and everything was set and ready for the off so I went to bed and worry about it in the morning.
Wayne arrived at mine to leave his car about 0630 so we went on line again to see the latest weather charts, which had changed again, this time it looked good, a radical change from the last update, apart from a fairly rough ride up the North sea with a NE force 4 to 6 predicted, but I reckoned it was a good idea to have the nasty bit first while we were all nice and fresh so we made the decision to go and memorised the weather charts for the following 120 hours, knowing that with stuff moving quickly up North they would all change soon but we needed something to work on!

Bob Smith the Wells harbour Master came to fuel us up and witness and time our departure, he had briefed Yarmouth Coastguard what we were doing and they were ready to log us off from the Wells fairway buoy whilst he listened on the radio from the boathouse and confirmed that the time we called the Coastguard was the time that we were leaving the fairway. It was not a bad day and it was good to get going, I don't really think that it had sunk in yet exactly what we had chewed off, I thought that if we have a problem or don't look like we are on for the record we can always take a scenic route and have a bit of a holiday, it was just nice to be out at sea doing our own thing rather than working doing a boring survey or something.
As we logged in with Yarmouth and said good bye to Wells I was somewhat relieved to feel Titan come up onto the plane as I had never put 1300 litres aboard before and that is no small weight of fuel.
The first two hours were pleasant enough as we passed through the Amethyst field off the Humber, there was a good NE swell but we could make 25 knots o.k. so I was happy with that as I wanted to average 20 knots over the trip and every knot over that was like putting time in the bank. Gradually the NE wind started to increase building the swell and making it uncomfortable as promised. Our route had been a straight line nearly due North from Wells to Lerwick so we were nicely offshore, that gave us a bit of leeway to head more N West to increase the wave length and look for lighter winds closer to shore, these never really materialised and as we went on the wind kept freshening taking us down to 8 knots at times which was annoying as we were now spending time! We decided to just keep hammering North which put us further and further from shore. From the start the Coastguard had asked us to log in every 2 hours which is all very well but 20+ miles off it's rare to get comm.'s so as we logged in I told them that I didn't think our route would enable us to communicate at the next log in time but they seemed to think it wouldn't be a problem, so I was quite annoyed when 2 and a half hours later I just heard them calling us and not being able to receive our calls back, they kept calling eventually putting out an all ships broadcast for any ships in the area to try and contact us, I was not going to detour off our route by half an hour or so just to let them know our position as if that was to be the routine for the whole trip then we would never be able to get anywhere if we could not travel offshore for more than two hours at a go, they knew what safety equipment the boat was carrying including an EPIRB so if we were in trouble we could raise help. After a while a ship answered their calls out of radar range from us but we managed to relay a message to them via him with our position and another reminder that we would be out of comm.'s for a long while. The conditions were fairly poor, so it's nice to think I suppose that someone is thinking about you!
As the light started to fade we set about refuelling the main tank from the two rear deck tanks using a 12v fuel transfer pump, a smart bit of kit that has pumped thousands of litres in its life, until half way through filling from one deck tank, the door slammed shut while jumping off a larger wave severing the cable that I had crocodile clipped onto the batteries, Mmmm, not a problem, so we decided to stop have a piss, spend some time from the bank (we were now on our overdraft by an hour or so) and fix the wire, Wayne spliced them together quick fast but in the hurry the croc clips got swapped about and we wired it up backwards which it didn't appreciate and gave up the ghost. Mmmm, now we have a problem, I thought it should have pumped backwards at least but shows what little I know. It didn't even go with heavy hitting! So we motored on having got enough fuel in before the door slammed to make it through until about 5am giving me time to come up with a plan, this was such a pisser as all our refuelling at sea had been planned around this little gadget and now we had to think of a way to get the fuel out of the deck tanks into the main boat tanks, the 300 litres in cans up the bow was easier as we could pour it in using a funnel but not whilst at sea unless we wanted more on the deck than in the tanks. We made a plan to alter course to Peterhead so that we could get in behind the Harbour walls and refuel on flat water from our cans and try to rig something up to suck the fuel direct from the deck tanks to the engine filter using the half inch hose from the defunct pump.
Now it was properly dark, our first night into it and we could now feel the distance ahead after having a bumpy day of it, not a lot to do now that there were no clouds to study, too bumpy to cook anything or sleep, so when not doing a stint at the wheel I would just sit in the Navigator's seat and just try to switch the brain off, think of nothing and try to conserve the mental batteries.
Our new course after a few hours brought us about 20 or so miles from land where to our dismay we could hear Forth Coastguard calling all ships to try to contact an 'inflatable' boat 'Titan' that was several hours over due from reporting in and to make matters worse they were calling ships in an area miles many hours back, so after going to all the trouble of relaying the last message telling them of our route, speed and again that we would not be able to make contact so do not worry about us etc it was frustrating that none of the important details had been passed on. They did not even know what type of craft we were in, there is a big difference between an 8.8m cabin RIB with self righting wheel house and an inflatable, no wonder they were concerned if they thought the vessel that was late reporting in their area was a slow inflatable hugging the coast in those conditions at night. Try as we might we could not raise them or any vessel in radio range to relay a message for us so we soldiered on to Peterhead, now well offshore off the Firth of Forth to make contact hopefully somewhere off Aberdeen.
We made contact shortly before Peterhead and all was cool they did not appear too bothered by our long absence from radio contact but it is a horrible feeling when you can hear them calling you with urgency out there and you can't get back to them, thoughts of a wasted search creep into your head and all the bad feeling that would create if we were found not to be dead, but 100 miles North of where they expected us to be! Speeding in on the leading lights of Peterhead harbour was nice as we actually had the sea behind us for the last mile after hitting into it since leaving Wells! A large ship was entering ahead of us so we had to dally about a bit while they turned but the pilot boat kindly let us slip round the back of it so we could enter the Marina and set about refuelling from the deck cans on the flat water. I did the dieseling while Wayne put his Delia smith head on and fired up the microwave, a Nuked Shepherd's pie and coffee had never tasted so good, it was the first thing we had eaten since departing the previous morning. We took a look at what we had to connect up our deck tanks to the engine fuel filter and found a way into the engine box whilst keeping the lid on and the water out, felt like the film Apollo 13 when they have to make stuff from what they have laying about in order to get the craft home, only not quite as life threatening! Fuel in, food down, foot to the floor and back out into it as the first light cracked the horizon. The first dawn with a full stomach still tasting the coffee was a treat. We were now heading NE for Lerwick right into where the wind had been coming from but as the dawn rose the wind dropped the Sun shone and we could now put the throttle down as the waves turned into a lazy swell, still quite a large one though, but we were back just the right side of 20 knots though 4 hours behind on our anticipated time because of the rough ride all the way up the North Sea and our dog leg into Peterhead. During the night the choppy sea had been banging us about so much that the card on the steering compass had somehow got wedged at about a 45 degree angle inside the fluid filled glass and stopped spinning, I had never seen that happen before, it is a top quality compass too!
There is nothing like a bright sunny morning with good visibility and light winds to raise your spirits and at last it felt like we were on holiday. All night I had been watching the Barometer rise, extremely quickly, which was a little concerning but we were travelling towards the High so I suppose it was about right, there was little wind now as we carved a path through the massive platforms to the East of the Orkneys and up towards Fair Isle. A large swell remained on the nose but with a long wave length allowing us to cruise at about 25 knots getting air here and there only on particularly large ones which was very satisfying after the last leg.
Checking the boat over as we blasted along I noticed the 8 hp Suzuki sail power Auxiliary saddle bracket had cracked so we had to stop and remove it from the transom and ratchet it to the deck to stop it flying off into space. I used to race Suzuki motorcycles and the one thing I noticed was that they were always at the fore front of technology, bloody good bikes really but they always used crap metal, this trait seems to have followed on into the marine division, a saddle bracket is not the place to use 'monkey metal' as the guy I got to weld it up on return described it. While we were stopped we were amazed at the visibility of the water, it was incredible, after living in the muddy pond of the southern North Sea it was a treat to see, and at least we should have no problems from sand blasted impeller housings!
By know both our hands were aching quite badly due to holding onto the thin metal wheel with one hand and occasionally the stainless handrail on the Port side of the cabin with the other with a vice like grip to hold us in place for virtually the whole trip up so far. I never knew that there were muscles in my hands, it was a strange feeling, I could deal with all my other muscles aching, and being well used to that, but this new ache was a strange one! It was affecting Wayne too, 'white knuckle boat rides'!
Summer occurred for us for a short but welcome few hours East of Fair Isle it was truly gorgeous but the smallest of small highs that we had been aiming to hit North side of the Shetlands was now South, we were still 4 hours too late and the High had not done what the Isobar charts from the day before had told it to do, so while we were chewing up the miles in gorgeous conditions we knew that we were going to get it in the face again when we got around the top hanging a left at 60 and a half degrees in the Norwegian Sea.
Lerwick was great, it was nice running fast up the sound on calm water to meet Tommy from 'Lowestoft Herring drifters' a fine name for a chandlers, my Great Granddad ran a Herring drifter out of Lowestoft, I wondered if he had ever put in here? We fuelled rapidly whilst taking turns to borrow Tommy's bog; it was now about 3pm Sunday (many thanks to Tommy for hanging about on us to turn up all day on a Sunday, what a Star.) Running along the quay to the Khazi was mad after being bounced about for the last day and a half, it was like being pissed, where you stagger off in the wrong direction pin balling off the wall while your brain is trying to tell you to go straight! The local Coastguard popped down and gave us an almanac's worth of advice which was fantastic and a free coastguard pen! He also said that he would get the weather reports for the sea areas that we were going to be going to so we could work out in our heads how the Isobar charts were changing in relation to the memorised ones from home.
Lerwick was a great place, definitely worth a visit by RIB for a longer cruise of the Islands when not in such a hurry.
Back on the charge, we exited back the way we had come, South, and rounded Bressay, once more heading NE to the outer Skerries and on to the furthest point North in the U.K. that anyone was in a RIB that day, it was quite a buzz knowing that in a short time we would be putting some South into our course, it almost felt that we were on the way home, when in fact the worst was still to come big style! Sure enough as we passed the Skerries the skies darkened and the wind whipped up from the South West just in time for us to start our South West leg! Well at least we were used to Force 6 on the nose now so just accepted that we were going to get a battering for a few hours until the wind came round more westerly as forecast for later, sure enough the Coastguard was most helpful in getting back to us with the sea area forecasts for our next leg and included current reports of what was actually happening from platforms so we had a good picture of what was going on. It all summed up to say that we were still 4 hours behind with the weather and didn't really want to be where we were at that time!
It was building large for later but at least it was forecast to swing from SW through W to NW as we headed past Muckle Flugga in the blackest of black nights. One good thing that occurred from all the knocking into it was that the compass card got the required velocity jolt at some point and was now swinging freely again.
After a good stint on the wheel Wayne thought he would try to get his head down on the floor. He writes; "As soon as I got into the bivvy bag and closed my eyes I was suddenly being elevated 3ft into the air and an invisible Gorilla would then slam me back down to the deck, after about half an hour and taking a bad one on the jaw I gave up. It still took me another half hour to get out of the bivvy bag and stand up." After a couple of hours sure enough it started to come on our Starboard side, there was still a good swell from the NE running, making a strange feeling Sea in the dark in a small boat. We were managing about 15 knots in this and all night the wind kept swinging gradually around and as it slowly came more on the side we could gradually up the speed. The Barometer made interesting reading, it just fell off the planet it was dropping so fast it made the hairs stand on the back of my neck, we were now running towards the low pressure while it was running towards us, so this would make the needle drop quicker but last time I saw a Barometer drop that quick I was out at night in a storm in which two people drowned. We just had to go as fast as we could and try to out run it, at least make sure we got it behind us.
When not on wheel duties it was just possible to snatch 10 minutes of kip here and there but it was quite surprising how little sleep we actually felt we needed, when getting 10 minutes it felt like enough, it must be the quality of sleep and how deep you shut off rather than the amount of sleep you get that counts, we were probably topped up with adrenalin without feeling it, also we didn't seem to get particularly hungry which was a good job as it was not possible to heat anything, we just nibbled on the odd Muesli bar and lived off our reserves.
A couple of hours before dawn The clouds had broken and moonlight had started to break through, then
Just before dawn we saw the light of Rona and could make the Island out in the moon light, and then as dawn on Monday came we passed Sula Sgeir which was a pleasant sight after a long night. The Barometer was still dropping like a stone and the swell had now too swung from the NW. The strong winds had not arrived yet it was about a F4. So now it was light and we could see what was coming we could up the pace a few hundred revs and were making reasonable progress, the smile side of 20 knots mostly with the swell behind us on our starboard quarter which was encouraging as we were acutely aware that we had to make time up and get away from what was coming; they were currently getting it bad around Cape Wrath and down the Pentland Firth East of us, luckily we were in the right spot for that moment with some nice unstable Cumulus and blue skies. Being so far off we were missing some nasty stuff closer to land, but as we passed St. Kilda we got a warning of storm 10 imminent in our area of Rockall.
It was then that we had to make a fuelling decision, we had enough fuel to reach the NW side of Ireland only problem was that we would have arrived in the early hours of Tuesday morning and we had not booked anything with anyone as we had no idea of where or when we would be at that time when we left Wells, also due to the large swell we had used a lot more fuel than anticipated, I had hoped that we may have had the range to make Dingle harbour in SW Ireland from Lerwick whilst planning the trip from my kitchen table a few days prior and I had made a few exploratory phone calls to the Dingle Harbour Master as to fuel availability before leaving, but I had not sorted anything for the NW side. We had booked Tommy from LHD at Lerwick as we had a good idea of our ETA at Shetland, even though we were 4 hours late. So rather than pull up at 3 in the morning at a Port in Ireland wasting time waiting for some one to turn up and unlock the pumps at 9 in the morning and not being able to get a reply from anyone on St. Kilda just in case they had some Generator diesel that they wanted to flog for cash (quite what they would spend it on I don't know) we had a chat with Stornaway coastguard and they very kindly did some phoning around for us and arranged some fuel for us at Barra Atlantic on the Southern tip of the Outer Hebrides. We felt that putting this dog leg in was preferable to doing the straight line and waiting on arrival at Ireland, my main concern was that from Barra we would be heading SW with a northerly F10 on us for the night when I would rather have had it square on the butt and also a couple of hours on the wrong side of the coming storm 'Needs must when the devil shits in your handbag' we needed fuel so we had to again get what we were given.
We ran into Barra on a lively squall but it was coming from the NW and we were now heading in SE so not only could we go quick but we could cook as well, it was easy to keep the boat under control enough to get the Delia Smith book out and Wayne did his best again and heated up the most welcome Chilli Con Carne I've ever had.
It was tricky going through the small Islands and rocks flat out around Barra as our charts were too large scale for that area as we never intended originally to go there, so while Wayne steered I navigated juggling chart, Almanac and Portland plotter, running on compass bearings and transits with heavy use of the mark 1 eyeball. We had no electronic charts for that area or for the whole journey apart from the home patch, it was all done on waypoints we entered in off the chart as we went along, luckily it was daylight and rough so the waves were crunching well on the shallow stuff for us to see it o.k. We stuffed the bow a treat on the back of one breaking wave that made us giggle! As we came in we laid a 'paper trail' on the G.P.S. so we could retrace our footsteps back out, so as not to miss out circumnavigating any small 'British rocks'.
The Port of Ardmenish, I think that is how it is spelt as it was too small to be marked on our chart, turned out to be well buoyed and we didn't have to slow down until about 300 metres from the quay. We tied alongside a Prawn trawler at about 3pm Monday afternoon and now stationary could again marvel at how clear the water was, being able to see the bottom of the Harbour. Wayne went to pay for the diesel which brought him out in a sweat as he had to run a fair distance in his flotation suit to the 'Barra Atlantic' office, then up several flights of stairs and back while I sorted the boat out ready for the coming nights entertainment, the spare out drive leg had worked loose so had to be re secured and a few waypoints had to be entered as I anticipated us arriving off NW Ireland before 1st light. The guys on the Prawn trawler beside us gave us some welcome local knowledge and informed us that we would have wind against tide until 2000 hrs that night and told us what we already knew, that we had to get going now as with the squalls now going through the real thing was soon to come. If only we were 4 hours ahead! If we had not have lost that time going up the North Sea on Saturday we would have followed the flat water all the way down the West side of Ireland but now we were going to ride the F10 instead.
We changed from a deck tank that we had been running on to the main tanks however the fuel had drained back from the pre filter to the tanks over the last 12 or so hours and it took a long time to bleed the air out of the system, luckily we were able to keep the engine running at tick over with the rack wide open while moving forwards while Wayne cracked the air out of the injectors, after about 10 minutes Titan roared ahead with all air expelled and we were back on the case even managing to brew and drink a coffee in the lee of the Islands before re tracing our paper trail back into the weather.
All the while the wind was getting stronger from the NW so leaving Barra for the West coast of Ireland we had the sea on our side which made it interesting as it started to break!
As darkness fell and we chewed the Southerly miles the wind veered and was now coming from the North so as we headed SW it was much the same direction in relation to our heading as what we had had for the last 12 or more hours enabling us to make good progress.
As night came in black as a hat we concentrated on eating the miles up just waiting for the storm to hit but it wasn't currently too bad we were just bouncing along like we had been for the last 24 hours, after we had settled into night time routine Wayne took the helm for a couple of hours while I stared at the inside of my eyelids, a couple of hours later when he had had enough he reported that it felt weird helming, hard to keep it straight and that he was occasionally seeing 30 knots on the G.P.S. The swell had increased massively and before I took over I went out side for a piss where the wind nearly blew me back into the cabin, it was howling out there but thankfully coming from the stern. 'Love is a following Sea'! The F10 was on us. We were now surfing and bouncing down some very large waves indeed at a hair raising 30 knots + pace in the total black then stuffing into the bottom of the next one where Titan would either skew to Port or Starboard scrubbing off speed as it began its next seemingly eternal 15 knot climb back to the top of the roller coaster ride for the next one, this was a real fly by wire seat of the pants experience going as fast as we dare, taking intense concentration, we were still trying to out run it which wasn't really working, as it was out accelerating us by quite a bit. It was however blowing us along with it quite nicely and we were chomping the miles with a smile. By about 2330 the moon started to rise making things a little easier as occasionally we would see a star and have something to steer to rather than going 'bog eyed' staring at the instruments, we could also get an idea of the size of the Sea which wasn't so nice!
During the course of the night we had to change over our improvised fuel line to the other deck tank so we came to a halt and went to work out on the rear deck, now stationary we turned from a plough to a cork and I got a real scare as a wall of white water tall as a house came thundering down onto us with a roar like a freight train, I just stared at it with awe in the dark thinking Wow! Lets get moving, not the place to be sitting about, 70 miles from land.
First light Tuesday came as we reached the NW side of Ireland and then we could really appreciate the size of the Sea, it was a bright day and running with it we could really open it up now that we could see what was going on and when to back off at the bottom of the troughs. It was an uneventful morning spent surfing monster rollers feeling almost normal now that we were used to such conditions. The wind was so strong that when stuffing into a lump at up to 30 knots the spray would fly forwards instead of backwards! There was no other traffic out there with us; we had the place to ourselves with bright skies and big waves. We were making a good average speed and the miles were tumbling it was a nice feeling.
On the way down the Irish coast we had mobile phone contact and were able to arrange for a fuel tanker to meet us at Dingle harbour. We rounded Great Froze rock the most Westerly of the small Islands to the North of Dingle bay and hammered it up to Dingle, now in the Lee of Slea head. Short squalls had started to come in on us and it was really nice and sunny in between the squalls though blustery, at last it seemed that we had outrun the storm and possibly made up the 4 hours that we had been chasing for the last 3 days!
We arrived in Dingle just after lunch Tuesday and the fuel tanker was there to meet us as promised. I did the diesel while Wayne legged it off to procure a takeaway. The Harbour Master turned up to see us; he was very helpful and let me use the harbour office facilities while the tanker driver filled us up. Tanks full Wayne returned with fish and chips that he got free! The owner of the fish bar saw him run in his flotation suit and asked what he was doing, so when Wayne told him that we were on a record attempt he brought him to the front of the queue and wouldn't accept any money from him for the meals, what a star.
After no more than 15 minutes we were on our way again cruising slowly out of the harbour eating the best fish and chips washed down with a tin of coke. It was the first hot grub for 24 hours and extremely welcome. It is amazing how, just by stretching your legs on some concrete, sticking your head under a tap and eating some hot food can make you feel like new again. The sun was out, we had refuelled the boat and ourselves, the wind appeared to be dropping off and Dingle's resident Dolphin even came out to see us off. All was well.
While we steamed out past Valentia Island and still in mobile phone range Wayne studied the almanac and rang ahead to organise fuel for our arrival back at the British mainland, we estimated that we could possibly make Brighton marina but thought it better to re fuel somewhere around Penzance or Falmouth then we should have enough fuel to get us home without any further stops. Our ETA for Cornwall we estimated at around 5 in the morning so we had to make prior arrangements or we would be gutted if after all this time going as fast as we could push ourselves we would have to wait on a fuel berth for opening time.
As we rounded the Great Skellig rock off Kerry and aimed Titan at the Scilly Isles putting our backs to the swell again the wind dropped more still and gradually as we headed more SE the swell dropped right away as we were now in the lee of the mainland, this was extremely welcome, it was the flattest water we had encountered since leaving Wells all those hours ago and gave a real sense of being on the home run at last. I dare not get too exited about it as sod's law dictates that as soon as you remark how good the conditions are they will suddenly change for the worse so we just kept the throttle nailed in the sweet spot and watched the miles fall waiting for it to roughen up when we got clear of the protection of the mainland. The forecast for Shannon was for imminent gales so it dawned on me that we had now outrun the Storm and it was behind us and we were now actually where we had intended to be from the plan at the outset. We had made up our 4 hours!
Now the sea was not going crazy under us we could actually get a bit of rest on the floor when not on the wheel and the miles quickly tumbled as darkness came again for the 4th night. I had always wanted to go by RIB to the Scillies and explore, so as we stomped past half a mile off Bishop's rock and turned East I felt ripped off, as my only memory is of the light characteristics of the lighthouses, a couple of fixed reds and a few shore lights. That is the down side of doing a record attempt, you don't get to spend any time at the nice places you pass, Wayne fell in love with Dingle and swears he will return, we both want to go back to the Shetlands, a tent, a RIB a fishing line and a month in summer is all that is required there, and I still want to go to the Scillies!
The flatter water had enabled us to put even more distance between us and the coming weather it had also brought our ETA for the refuel forward a good amount so as we rounded Wolf rock I got Wayne to call the guy who was fuelling us to stand by his bed as we would be in Penzance shortly. Wayne replied "what do you mean Penzance? We are going to Falmouth" "We don't bloody want to be, I have done half an hours worth of chart work and waypoints and memorised the almanac and cruising pilot for entering Penzance where you told me you had organised fuel" was my reply. The light came on and there followed 5 minutes of frantic checking note pads and phone numbers before it was discovered that it was indeed Penzance that had agreed to come out in their pyjama's for us, phew! As we got deeper into Penzance bay it flattened off completely and Wayne said he would nuke some soup in the microwave, brilliant idea! As he crawled about in the dark searching for mugs, soup, plug sockets etc I focussed on going into a place for the 1st time at 30 knots in the dark hoping that the waypoints I had taken from the chart and port plans in the Almanac had been written down and transferred into the GPS correctly, I always check them three times as the computer is only as good as the idiot entering the numbers! There was so much light pollution from the shore that it was difficult to see the harbour lights but I would get them then lose them again as I focussed on something else. There were about 5 large ships hanging about near the entrance that I was carving through when without warning about half a mile from the harbour entrance the revs dropped and the engine cut out, at the same time all the electronics went off. "What the….?" I knew we had at least half a tank left in the tank we were running off, and as to why we had lost the auxiliary battery I couldn't even guess at, torch out and frantic checks revealed that in the search in the dark for the soup making kit Wayne had somehow managed to turn the fuel tanks over to the empty one and knocked the isolator switch off, luckily the motor fired up with only a few cranks and didn't require bleeding when swapped back to the original tank, which I still can't understand as normally it's a bitch to get the air out, and with the Isolator back on we had all systems go again just in time for the microwave to 'ping' and the resulting hot soup then instantly steamed all the windows up! It was really funny that it all went pear shaped at that moment of max concentration, at flat out speed entering a new harbour in the dark with lots of traffic. My brain nearly fried itself! It was on overtime then got thrown a whole sack of hot potatoes to deal with!
Two minutes later we were sitting under the lock gate being passed a diesel hose, drinking our soup and putting in the next waypoints of the Lizard and Beachy head. We could only fill one of our deck tanks as the other we had discovered had ruptured a seam on the top in the F10 on the West coast of Ireland so it was leaking a little, but worse, spray was running over the top of the tank and creeping in, filling the filter with salt water, we had to drain the filter on the way to the Scillies when the fuel filter water light came on. We still thought that we should have just enough fuel to get home on especially if the sea remained placid.
The trip up the Channel was surprisingly smooth, as it got light and we heard the updated 0500 inshore forecast they were giving reports of gales coming soon from the NW in the sea areas that we were just clearing and apparently it had been blowing hard from the NE down the channel earlier, but as we travelled East the wind remained light and the sea state was such that we could cruise at between 25 and 30 knots, it seemed that we were right in between two weather systems with everything happening everywhere else other than where we were, so holding our breath we motored on with big grins amazed that we had got such good conditions when all around was shitty or coming bad soon behind us. The visibility paired off through the morning but we passed close enough to the Isle of White that we could see it, then after meeting a Frigate that came alongside to check us out the next land fall was Beachy Head. We gave a double take as the landscape was covered in snow, looking more like the coast of Iceland than the South Coast, all the way round we had only known what the weather was doing in our current area and the areas adjoining, we had no idea that the South of England had been getting snow! As we rounded Dungeness tucking in close to the shore to miss the small race off the tip, the swell started to get up and was coming from the NE so we could see that they had been getting it bad earlier, the swell was against the tide and the sea got fairly lumpy, especially off Dover. It had been snowing gently since Dungeness but now off Dover it turned into a blizzard giving white out conditions, I called Dover port control to see if we were likely to be pin balling off any ferries but they just said listen to the port channel which we duly did but couldn't make head or tail of their 'harbour, short hand radio slang' so thank God for radar! We could see hardly a thing in the snow, the windscreen wipers couldn't cope with the amount and one just broke off! The NE swell running against the tide was turning the sea into a motocross track through here but gradually decreased as we passed the port and the channel widened a bit more after South Foreland.
We checked our fuel and reckoned that we were still on for making Wells with what we were carrying so long as we pulled into the sheltered waters of Ramsgate harbour to put our deck cans into the main tanks. We arrived in Ramsgate about mid afternoon Wednesday and set about re-fuelling inside the Harbour with it still snowing, Wayne made a brew and some hot grub. We could now smell the finish! It seemed so close, we still could not believe our fortune with the weather up the Channel, we were well ahead of where we expected to be but the forecast was saying that we should be getting it bad again any second, F7 N Easterlies were forecast, the nastiest direction we could have had for the area of the Southern North Sea we were now entering, they had obviously had a good blow from the NE not long before as there was a good swell still hanging about but we still seemed to be blessed with a lull in the wind despite the forecasts telling us that we should be making reefs right now, so without delay we pressed on to Lowestoft from North Foreland. The snow stopped and the swell had dropped enough to be able to maintain the happy side of 20 knots still, but as we ran through the anchorage off Harwich marvelling at the size of the anchored container ships there, the wind came in with a bang. In what seemed a very short period the Sea turned from a relatively pleasant place to be, to a writhing snotty breaking mess. The wind was now hitting the 7 that we had been promised and it was a nasty short, steep breaking Sea coming from the same direction as we had had it from all the way up to the top of Scotland from the start at Wells. We were going to make Lowestoft by dusk but that still left us 60nm to go to Wells in the dark into this bastard weather, so we decided to pull in at Lowestoft to change from deck tanks to mains, lash everything down and then go for it.
It just got worse as we neared Lowestoft with high surf on Newcombe sand. We pushed on into it gritting our teeth and taking the blows, the term 'drive it like you stole it' summed up the helming. It was on and off the throttle, jumping from wave to wave, turning, running, dodging stopping and powering on. Driving it as we saw it coming at us. We literally surfed through Lowestoft pier heads and into the shelter of the inner harbour. How we wished that we had started the trip from Lowestoft, as the last leg looked like it was to be the worst leg of the whole trip, it was demoralising thinking about going back out there. Me and Wayne felt at home in the Harbour as we had re-constructed Hamilton dock together 10 years previously.
Thank God that we did pull in to change the tanks on the flat water as somehow we couldn't pump the diesel back up from under the deck and it took a good 20 minutes to bleed the system and get it running. We left it running at a high tick over for another 5 minutes just in case it found any more air in the system and died on us leaving the Harbour, while we lashed everything down again. The spare out drive leg on the front deck had ripped its fixing eyes out of the deck so we had to bring this into the cabin with us, a quick check to make sure we both knew where all the safety equipment, grab bags etc were, a long drink of water and we were off again. You really wouldn't put your dog out in it but we had to get going, I wanted to make High water at Wells as I imagined the Bar would be a treat with a NE7 and anything after High Water would be wind against the ebb on the bar to add on top.
Calling Lowestoft for permission to leave, the lady on the radio asked if I thought it safe to be out in it which really made me think, so I had to tell her that I honestly didn't know until I got back out into it. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to do it in any other boat than Titan.
Running up inside Holm, Corton and Scroby sands gave us a little protection from the N Easterly waves and thankfully the snow had eased off to occasional sleet, but I knew that as we hit Hemsby and left the shelter of the sands we would be in for it big time again, as the tide was now running against the wind lumping it up more.
Passing Yarmouth and logging in with the Coastguard there they gave us a wind speed from their roof top at the top end of a 7 and direction of 70 degrees, any way, nothing had changed and sure enough as we left Scroby sands behind we got it in the face again. Being so dark we had to crawl along, down to 8 knots here and there getting knocked all over the place. Now and again a particularly big one would have us. At one point we got a little close to the shallower water on cockle shoal and a wave broke right over the boat, we could just see a white wall coming in from the starboard bow, it was a good job we were inside the wheel house as if we had been in an open RIB I should have imagined we would have been washed clean out! As it was it threw Wayne out of the Navigators seat to the floor! Shortly after, we started to round the Coast along North Norfolk now heading more Westerly, this greatly improved the ride with the Sea on the Starboard stern quarter but in these shallow waters there was plenty of dangerous waves, we found the most comfortable place to be was in the deeper water off the 10 metre contour line, any closer in and the waves were breaking every where but in the deeper water it was a little more sane. Running with the spot light on was a help too as shining it out to the starboard side it would illuminate any breaking surf coming our way giving us a little warning and allowing us to out run it or turn into it. I called Yarmouth up as we passed off the rock barriers of Sea Palling to let them know that we were still alive, they didn't seem particularly bothered! The Sea remained fairly consistent for the next few miles and with about 30 miles left it actually looked like we were going to make it, not even fate would be cruel enough to give us a problem this close to home!
The waves got a bit larger off Cromer but they always seem to be bigger here when the wind is from the North as a long fetch builds between the Happisburgh sands and the Sheringham shoal. Staying off the 10 metre contour still gave us a safe enough ride, and even though the waves were big they were not breaking on us so we ran on and as we passed Cromer and turned even more Westerly we had the weather more on our stern and were now back into surfing mode, enabling us to go even quicker. Now the spot light was swung towards the way we were heading as we were getting some real speed up down the waves and needed to be able to see when we reached the bottom to throttle back and avoid stuffing it. Sheringham shoal gave us a little shelter from the fetch but off Blakeney point, between the shoal and Blakeney Over falls, the waves were again un-interrupted from the NE and got fairly big again, I had started to creep into shallower water feeling the magnetic pull of Wells in my brain, when the Sea started to rise up off the point as the tide ran against the wind, and around it, so we pointed Titan more NW to give Blakeney bar a wider than normal berth, we were so close to Wells now that we could see the town lights shining across Warham marsh and Stiffkey sands and didn't want to make any mistakes 5 miles from home, saying that, as we got a little shelter from Blakeney Over falls and the waves got a bit smaller I couldn't help pushing Titan to the limit as being so close not even a broken arm would have stopped us reaching the Fairway buoy! Just before Blakeney I had called Alan Bushell the deputy Harbour Master with our ETA so he could get down to the Boat house to witness our arrival at the Fairway buoy and listen on the VHF to confirm our reporting time with Yarmouth CG. Pushing Titan along the last mile or so was a great feeling, we could hardly believe we were back after what seemed like a life time living in Titan's wheelhouse, worries about stuffing it went out the window and we spent plenty of time under as well as on top of the water! Before we knew it Wells Fair way buoy was in the spotlight and shortly after we made the call to Yarmouth to report in the log that we had reached home and give us a time, it took about 3 calls as they couldn't read us properly, probably because we were facing into the Sea by the buoy and crunching into the waves, so the Ariel was under a lot of flying water and we were down in troughs then up on top possibly giving a poor signal. They recorded the time of 2154 on Wednesday 2nd March. Alan heard us fine on his handheld and advised that all the channel lateral marks were where they should be again (as when we left Wells a storm a few days earlier had moved a few of them onto the sands) so we checked where all the grab bags were at again, turned South and charged the bar riding into the channel on a wave.
We had done it! Without doing the maths we knew that we had broken the current record and a feeling that we had achieved something large, relief that it was over and thoughts of a soft still bed came into our minds. We had 10 minutes to contemplate and congratulate each other before reaching the Quay and the Civic reception of Alan and Wayne's Mum and Dad! It was a dirty night to be standing on the Quay in a biting North Easterly with snow flurries so we didn't hang about, we put Titan to bed and left it for the morning to un pack all the kit and dashed up the Chinese takeaway before it shut as I had nothing in the fridge at home. That night was possibly the best sleep that I have ever had; I woke up feeling like new. During the 108 hour 11 minute trip we had only probably managed about 6 hours of uninterrupted deep sleep, we had plenty of time off the wheel where we could relax the brain cells but where it was too bumpy to close the eyes, surprisingly we felt o.k. with the little we had while we were travelling, it wasn't until we stopped and got off the boat that it caught up with us, probably as the adrenalin faded away. We didn't eat much food either, I had gone down a belt size on return and I am a skinny git to start with, we didn't really feel that hungry, possibly again running on an adrenalin diet.
Seeing Titan in the daylight, there was nothing about the boat that suggested what it had just achieved, even the stench of 4 and a half day's worth of body odour had gone! It performed flawlessly and I am very proud of it. I wonder if people riding in Titan to see the Seal colony this year will realise that they are travelling in the fastest boat ever to circumnavigate Britain and Ireland!
I can safely say that I could not have chosen better, more capable, determined company for the trip either. I have done many thousand miles with Wayne now at work and in Rib's and he is surprisingly hard, doesn't crumble when it gets tough and is very aware of his environment. I have worked with others that have 'buried their heads' when the conditions have got difficult leaving me all the work, so from those experiences I would rather work alone, at least I know myself and my limits but working with Wayne I know he has the strength of character to 'hack' it and help achieve the goal.
We took 17 hours 54 minutes off Alan Priddy's previous record of 126hours 5 minutes, set aboard the Spirit of Cardiff. A purpose built Rib, larger than Titan with a lot more electronic navaids, a record set between the 3rd and 8th of June 2000. We also knocked 33 hours off American millionaire Steve Fossett's sailing record set 6 years before that.
The Admiralty measure the distance for the record at 1,787 nautical miles however, with all our tacking and dog leg routes putting in for fuel, we actually covered 1,975 nautical miles. From the admiralty distance we achieved an average speed for the trip of approximately 19 miles per hour compared to the spirit of Cardiff's 16.31 mph average.
After this Marco Polo epic, travelling around mainland Britain in Kali on flat water for a go at the Round mainland Britain record with Simon seems a treat to look forward to!
Hopefully soon Simon will have finished his other commitments then we can fit Kali out and go kick some Ass!