Wash crossing

[Martin@75]

Thank you. I wondered who was hooting at me!

 

more photos on my blog...

 

 

Not us!

 

Not what you know but who you know

We are on the Boston boat club moorings, opposite where you will moor!

 

 

Hi Each We missed the both of you. n.b. Braggabout is on the Boston CRT moorings we are in Poole. Should be going north on Tuesday. Simon how long will you be in Lincoln? You can PM me.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Martin@75

[Scholar Gypsy]

Bother. We go home tomorrow, boat is in Burton Waters marina until August...

Edited May 24, 2015 by Scholar Gypsy

[Naughty Cal]

We will be back on the Witham on Wednesday looking at the weather forecast.

 

We will have a steady run back to Burton Waters.

[Scholar Gypsy]

We are now safely in Burton Waters - very impressive and friendly place.

 

Here's a little video of the Wash crossing - somewhere approaching Roaring Middle lightship I think

 

Edited May 25, 2015 by Scholar Gypsy

[Naughty Cal]

Hope you enjoy your stay at Burton Waters. We are on E37 if you are around any weekend and fancy a drink or three.

[Scholar Gypsy]

Hope you enjoy your stay at Burton Waters. We are on E37 if you are around any weekend and fancy a drink or three.

 

Thanks - that will be fun.

 

I am sorry we didn't meet up in Boston, we just about got onto the pontoon before falling asleep - 0500 to 2200 without much of a break!

[Naughty Cal]

We had an early night anyway. Had an early(ish) start on Sunday.

 

Unfortunately due to the further weather forecast we are heading back tomorrow afternoon but we will have a steady run back up river.

 

Had a great few days here in the sun though. Plenty of pictures when we get back to civilisation and phone reception.

[Scholar Gypsy]

 

Hi,

 

Wisbech Yacht Harbour has an A4 sheet grandly titled 'Port of Wisbech List of Lights and Beacons'. A Jan 13 version was pinned up on the pontoons when I last set off from there (August 13) and I snapped a pic of it for the unlikely event I needed the lat/longs so I could dig that out for you if you want.

 

You can usually, though not always, see from one buoy to the next in the main channels and a rough bearing off the chart is often enough to sort things if not... no harm in researching and plotting these things but I'd not worry too much if you don't have them.

 

 

My apologies for not getting back to you before.

 

I have now managed (I think) to get myself on the mailing list for Wisbech Notices to Mariners, and two interesting emails arrived today.

 

So I have added to section 5 of this page the latest version of the grandly titled document you refer to; and also the work in progress version of the chart (which shows the main channel moved a bit to the East, I think).

 

I will publish later versions on my website in due course.

[shipsbiscuit]

 

My apologies for not getting back to you before.

 

I have now managed (I think) to get myself on the mailing list for Wisbech Notices to Mariners, and two interesting emails arrived today....

 

Thank you for the update... you're more up to date than me now and your Wash pages are rapidly becoming a useful cruising resource for the area!

 

FWIW I've come out of the Nene channel at Lake before now as an experimental shortcut across to the Sunk cardinal as there's long been a bit of a channel shown through the westmark knock sands but it wasn't very comfortable and things have a changed a lot if they've now buoyed it to bring the ships in and out that way.

 

Congratulations and well done on your crossing by the way. I enjoyed the pics and write up and I think you win the prize for the bumpiest narrowboat in the Wash/at sea blog I've seen. I thought at the time you had perfect weather in the days leading up until that wind popped up and then I wondered if you'd still go. It's impressive what a narrowboat will in fact cope with.

 

Quite how Simon T managed to get up Clifton House for those pics of you coming through Lynn I don't know but they're great

[Scholar Gypsy]

 

Thank you for the update... you're more up to date than me now and your Wash pages are rapidly becoming a useful cruising resource for the area!

 

FWIW I've come out of the Nene channel at Lake before now as an experimental shortcut across to the Sunk cardinal as there's long been a bit of a channel shown through the westmark knock sands but it wasn't very comfortable and things have a changed a lot if they've now buoyed it to bring the ships in and out that way.

 

Congratulations and well done on your crossing by the way. I enjoyed the pics and write up and I think you win the prize for the bumpiest narrowboat in the Wash/at sea blog I've seen. I thought at the time you had perfect weather in the days leading up until that wind popped up and then I wondered if you'd still go. It's impressive what a narrowboat will in fact cope with.

 

 

Thank you very much. It is a bit confusing that the ships come in now on the Old Lynn channel, but I guess everything has moved around in this part of the world (the Nene and Ouse certainly have!).

 

The conditions were at the margin of what Daryl is happy with, but (he said) the boat handled very comfortably. Some of the people were a bit uncomfortable/queasy, but there was no upchucking. I have spoken to one boater who went across in a Force 6 from Boston to Wisbech, not with Daryl, and found that distinctly hairy.

 

We think it was the wind over tide that had the main effect. As some of the photos show, the difference between steering N into the wind, with the tide still going out, and running S with the wind and tide behind us, was huge - the latter was very smooth indeed, even though the true wind was just the same.

 

 

Quite how Simon T managed to get up Clifton House for those pics of you coming through Lynn I don't know but they're great

 

Um, he lives there. At one stage they unfurled the Jolly Roger, but I didn't get a picture of it.

 

The tower is open to the public on a number of occasions each year

[shipsbiscuit]

I think historically Lynn was approached from much further west than it is today... and of course it's only compartively recently that the Nene and the shore come up as far as they do now. The whole landscape round there is disarmingly fluid though in the Wash it's a natural process whereas it's mostly people that have moved the fens rivers about. (One tip if you get chatting in Wisbech is that there still seems to be some lingering bitterness that the citizens of Kings Lynn stole its river when they diverted the Well stream, and hence the town's trade, money and rightful place in the history books.)

 

Good solution to the mystery of Simon T's pictures. I had visions of someone knocking on the door and saying "would you mind awfully if I just nipped upstairs for a picture of a narrowboat?". I have queued on one of the town's heritage open days to get up the tower which was well worth it even though I'm not good at queueing and don't like heights.