This trip had been planned the previous year: A circumnavigation around the Isle of Wight in the company of three others: Gavin Millar, Keith Morris and Graham Cooke. These guys are way more experienced sailors and canoeists than me and I felt quite honoured to be invited on such an ambitious and daring trip. Gavin has circumnavigated the IoW previously, partly as a testing exercise for his circumnavigation attempt of the UK in a sailing canoe, details of which are found here.
The date was picked for midsummer when the tides and daylight hours would combine to enable us the best chance of getting round the Island by meeting the various tidal gates; of course the weather conditions on the day was the one thing we couldn't dictate. It was forecast to be South westerly F4 gusting to F5 on the Saturday. Although this wind strength was higher than we wished, we still felt it was within the envelope of do-ability.
My previous sailing this year had been in very similar conditions in the Medway estuary (F4-5+) so I felt reasonably confident. That experience had highlighted some issues of waves breaking over the bow and running into the boat. I often sail with a small battery powered pump to remove water. I felt using higher capacity pumps could enhance this. In the end I fitted 2 x 750 gph 12v pumps linked to a 7.5 ah battery. I could switch them on alternately depending on what tack I was on. Also a wave deflector was needed to prevent the waves running up my flat front deck. I didn’t get round to manufacturing this before the IoW trip. A fact that caused me issues later.
I set off from my work on Friday afternoon and drove down to the small village of Keyhaven. I did not know where I would find the others as I arrived quite late in the evening but my instincts proved correct when I found them in the nearest pub to the small harbour, pouring over maps and charts.
The plan was to set off that night and sail a short way out of the harbour and bivi on Hurst spit, ready to catch the last hours of the ebb tide the next morning at sunrise. Once out through the Needles Channel, we would then take advantage of the flood tide to push us east along the South and East coast of the Island. The next tidal gate was Bembridge point, where the ebb tide would hopefully help us with our westerly passage along the Solent.
I quickly assembled my canoe in the fading light, the others having already done so earlier, and swiftly edited down my camping and other gear to ensure it would fit. In a little while we were sailing in the darkness, in the gentle breeze of the warm night air, trying to find the correct route though the harbour and its mudflats under the dark but starry sky. After a few false turns and backtracking we soon came to just past Hurst Castle and beached on a thin pebble spit and bedded down in a pebbly hollow, sheltered from the increasingly strengthening South Westerly wind, with the stars blazing above.
Heading out to sea
We woke just before dawn, packed up our bivis and bags and prepared for the day ahead. As was predicted the wind has increased over night and was now blowing strongly from the South West.
We set off from Hurst spit encountering some rough water as we skirted the Traps tidal race. Taking on a bit of spray I turned on my, as yet untested, 12v dual 750 GHP pump system I had recently constructed. It is operated by a remote radio switch attached to my PFD in a waterproof bag: It ran for 30 seconds, then quit….
As we headed down to the Needles channel, conditions calmed enough for me to get at the watertight battery box which was wedged under my front air bag, opening it up I could see that a lead from the battery had come undone, I soon sorted that and the pump was working again and into the channel we went.
Somehow I found myself ahead of the group. I wasn’t too sure of the best line to take; I knew we were to keep to the channel for some distance to avoid the overfalls off the Needles, before turning east. As we progressed down the channel I could see large breaking waves to the left and right closing in, and then found myself running the biggest waves I’ve ever sailed in: The canoe leaping off the top of the crests and seemingly free falling down until slamming in the bottom of the waves, they must of been six to eight feet tall. Waves started breaking into the canoe, both 750 GPH pumps were running, but I found myself swamped to the gunnels. After trying to heave-to to bail, and trying to tack the
Keith & Gavin setting up, outriggers are an essential safety feature for offshore canoe sailing
Manin Photo: heading out to see at sunrise, Credit: Cooke, Leidenhosen, Millar, Morris
14.