GSC Forum

Apologies in advance if this is old news but I've just stumbled upon an excellent website. It gives information on harbours all round the UK including tides & pilotage notes etc.
The home page is at http://www.visitmyharbour.com From here you can click on (say) Wales & NW England, then on Glasson Dock and get pilotage notes and tidal info' plus a lot more information, you can bring up the Admiralty charts both for the local approaches and the wider area, and you can look at photos of the port; and you can apparently do this for every port and harbour in the UK! It's like owning a bookshelf full of pilot books, in fact, if the information given about Glasson is typical, it's more comprehensive than the pilot books I've seen.

Just had a look at this site Jim,really useful.

http://www.dtg.org.uk/industry/coverage.html. on the subject of good websites,this may help in deciding where you go brian,shows how good the tv reception is and which channels you might get, cross reference with the harbour details.

I never thought of that Dave.

Hello Brian. I'm surprised my friend, Slippers, - I use the term friend loosely- didn't suggest that I would find the website useful to sail into Fleetwood mishap free. Alex.

Go to page 4 of the West Scotland & Northern Ireland section, click on "Strangford Narrows, Strangford Harbour and Portaferry", click on "Approach" and play the video of the yacht in the approaches... and this is where we're going for the Family cruise ???

Hi Alex, There's an old saying "Let the curs bark" Anyway there's a rumour going round that a certain "yachtsman" FAILED the ICC today. Apparently the basin was too rough! And if that wasn't enough he refused my offer of a loan of the ICC" how to do it book"( I could see he was in trouble) Pride comes before a fall.

Hi Brian,

When are you posting the photo's you were taking of our test? I thought it was funny that you had the ICC book open on the page reading out aloud step by step instruction to Dave as he attempted to tie on to the jetty.
Well at least you had a good laugh watching us all attempt to moor up

Mick

Hi Mick, unfortunately I didn't have the camera with me, in fact I didn't even know the test was taking place. What's worse I thought it was just a practise session until I saw Jack Seed. Blimey I'm getting slow on the uptake since I retired! Any way I can assume that you all passed with flying colours so well done everyone. Ps if you think your mooring efforts were "embarassing"you should have seen our efforts when I did the test but I'll draw a veil over that.......

Getting back to Jim's comment about Strangford Lough I was crewing for Norman in 2001 and we entered the lough. This is an extract from my account of the cruise, address below:

" ... Approaching the entrance to Strangford Lough the skipper had warned his crew that there would be overfalls and that the sea would be angry if they got there too soon or too late. Consequently Roger and Chris were prepared to have to 'shoot rapids'. The wind still being north to north easterly was in the 'safe' direction and despite arriving too early, used the wrong 'tide', the Belfast one and not the Strangford Lough one, it was a smooth entrance, once over the 'line' between the two tides we were practically stationary but that was the only difficulty encountered. We were at low water in the Irish Sea but once we'd got into the lough we were at one hour forty minutes before low water so we were pushing a fairly strong tide, about five knots. We didn't see the Routen Wheel, a famous whirlpool, it's somewhere just north of Gowland Beacon to the right of the charted transit going up. ...
...We left Quoile at about 1610 hours. Once clear of Quoile and almost back into the main lough we, in Dave's words, saw some "Jesus seals". They appeared to be basking on top of the water, seven of them. They were on a reef, which fortunately was marked on the chart but unfortunately the chart gave the impression that the reef was submerged and not on the surface! No problem we gave it a fairly wide berth and carried on down the lough, gradually being picked up by the tide. Back past Portaferry, soon we were doing twelve knots through the water. Through the binoculars we couldn't see the wall of water (a Severn bore type of phenomena?), this must happen when the wind is from the south. Not even white water. We never got to thirteen knots, much to our skippers disappointment, but we traversed the entrance smoothly, being jigged about a bit, and made our way inside of St. Patrick's Island and on course for Ardglass. ..."

http://www.naimad.co.uk/jmswarbrick/mic ... nd2001.htm

Jim,its dave Burton, my illness is making me weaker all the time. Do we have an agenda for the Family cruise. I will be confined to Marinas from now on, I can't clamber over a boat if we are rafted out. I need to consider the trip as a whole to see if I can manage it. I guess that this year is my last sailing year

Hi Dave,
We're proposing to set off Fri/Sat 20/21 July to Piel or straight to Port St Mary. Port St Mary would be a challenge for you but your decision. From there it's into Ardglas or into Strangford (Portaferry) in one hop (both marinas). You may wish to go via Peel to shorten the leg. Once into Strangford, I'd propose to get to Ballydorn Lightship + pontoon and then meander around to for a week before exiting. The weather will decide! I don't think there are many marinas as such in Strangford but I'm sure we as a club can assist you ashore as required.

Have a think

Roger P

Roger thanks for that
I went on the last trip to strangford but I was a lot healthier then
So if I can manage to get in Esmerelda then i am game for the trip
Got to check my rigging for winter damage, I know that one stay was looking poorly
Then confirm with Dermott.
As you say, Peel may be one of our diversions, but i did that last time too
Again , thanks for the info, and I am grateful for the offer of help
You lot were brilliant with me last year in Wales , so I know that i will get help.