A trip to Conwy with the regular Irene Goodwin race. This is where the regular crew take the helm. Quite difficult to work out who that should be with our boat!
| Date | Saturday 4th September Sunday 5th September |
| Time | Leg 1 - Beauamris to Conwy Start: 10:45 (race start 11:00) End: 13:45 (race finish 13:27:55) Avg Speed: 5 mph Distance: 15 miles Leg 2 - Conwy to Beaumaris Start: 12:30 End: 14:30 Distance: 12 miles Elapsed: 2 hours Avg Speed: 6 mph Min Depth: 3 metres across Lavan Sands |
| Tide UTC | 11 1218 7.97 0640
0.29 1855 0.54 12 0039 8.30 1301 7.65 0725 0.65 1941 0.91 |
| Crew list | Carolyn and Glen |
Route
Route
Weather
South westerly F4-5 occ 3, Fair, Slight, Fair with Showers
Notes
The race was from RAYC start line to Conwy fairway transit with C2 at 11:00. We were ready with our GPS and at 11:00 were at the line ready to go. Paul on Stargazer, the OOD, seemed to be slightly behind our time and didn't call Go until 11:01:30 - fortunately the wind allowed us to go along the line.
We hammered across to Conwy, with the wind on the quarter. We had to gybe to get a transit between Fairway and C2. We seemed to beat the next boat by about 1/2 an hour so confidence in winning set in (probably wrongly!).
We contacted the Conwy Harbourmaster (not the Conwy Coastgaurd) on CH 14 (not 40!) and told him about the other 7 boats and was told to go next to a great big schooner - Pickle:
Hwll Dda arrived in due course with all the other boats, and attached itself to us:
We went to the Conwy Cruising Club, where the Grolsch was on offer at £1.50 a pint, as it was on the sell by date. It was fine! Quite a gathering of us:
It was incredibly hot and stuffy in the cruising club so most of us decided to head off for another venue. The crew of Sylvan decided to leave early and ended up getting stuck in the mud in the water taxi.
We went back to the first pub we went into and took part in the Karaoke:
The water taxi runs until 11:00 pm:
The next day we awoke to bucketting rain followed by sun - pretty standard for the weekend.
Hwll Dda were in a hurry so left at 1030, we left at 1230 when the water was running like a drain onto our stern on the flood. Putting the boat into reverse took the strain off and we could slip the lines.
We decided to head directly for Beaumaris once we cleared the Conwy channel - our depth went down to 3 metres (1.5 under the keel) - and that was at the top of a big tide.
Lessons Learned
- Do not attempt to go across Lavan Sands unless on a very large tide and rising. Then don't do it anyway
- It's CH14 for Conwy Harbourmaster
- It's not that cheap in Conwy (£14)
- Getting off a pontoon in reverse with a strong flood tide is relatively easy