Traject: Dover - Zeebrugge

Blog van 2012 – 08 - 20
Traject: Dover - Zeebrugge
Crew: Skipper Cees
Sam Krikken

Due to the fact that we had our berth in the Granville Dock, witch has an tide lock to keep the guaranteed water depth, we had to plan our departure time according the closing of the lock.
We had inquired the time for the closure and had been informed at 04:41 UTC or 05:41 BST.
We got up at 05:00 British Summer Time and heard some ships leave the marina too.
The weather forecast from the day before was moderate wind, good visibility.

Anyway, when we left the Dover harbour through the West opening we found ourselves in a thick soup of fog and strong South wind and high waves. Not the weather you wish for a smooth crossing.
With the help of our AIS and Radar we could very clearly follow the movements of the other ships that were in the vicinity of Dover Port. The same time we left, four Ferries left Dover Port on the North-East Port entrance too.
It was quite exciting having a visibility of 100 yards. There was a cacophony of ship horns around us and we also took part in that symphony.
The high waves in the end were to blame for breaking down of our main magnetic compass.
This also caused malfunctioning of the auto-pilot or automatic steering instrument.
So, we had to steer on our small manual bearing compass...
All ingredients for disaster were in place, but we managed anyway to have a save AIS now-a-days so you can see them and calculate the moment they pass you.
Nevertheless we made it to the start point of the crossing of the Traffic Zone and at the other side we came close to the Ruytingen SW buoy. We then sailed some time on the genua but gave up when the wind reached 30 kn.
We then followed the Out-Ruytingen Dyck Occidental canal to Zeebrugge.
We landed at Zeebrugge at 20:00 in a very busy Marina.

Totally we did this day 86,3 miles at 5,9 avg speed.