Tollesbury Rally August 2011

The Tollesbury Rally was a great success with Club members finding ways of dealing with the awkward tide times. Tony Lavelle and Sean O’Malley in Woodstock Hi sailed there direct from Dover and braved the Woodrolfe Creek challenge to get in overnight. Chas Hessey and crew in Aurai and Wil Pretty in Chica sailed up on Friday, anchored-up overnight in an adjacent creek and went over the cill on Saturday morning.

High Tide at Tollesbury, photo by Charles Hessey

Stephen Bush and Graham Pugh in Summer Wine and the Commodore and Roy Francis in Clouds sailed there overnight on Friday, arriving in good time to get over the cill on Saturday morning. Those with more time to spare, including Celia and myself in Ember, approached from Brightlingsea on Saturday morning together with Annie and Martin Smith in Sisu, Tony Chamberlain in Maia, Carol and Mike Townsend in Kailani , Inis and Brian Hayes in Elysium and Sheesh and Mark Bloomfield in Symphony. Mike Townsend has written a separate article about the travels of this fleet for publication on the Club website, so I will say no more about it here.

Everybody seemed to enjoy the rustic charm of Tollesbury. The club catering was excellent and the bar welcoming. It was very good to see Beryl and Keith Boddy coming by land yacht to join in the fun and celebrate Keith’s birthday on the Saturday. I’m not going to say what birthday it was, but many of us enjoyed his 70th birthday in the same venue quite a few years ago. Very good walking was enjoyed by the energetic members and a considerable amount of boat visiting was indulged in. I understand that some early morning types even went swimming in the club’s covered pool.

Keith Boddy with Ines and Brian Hayes enjoy a catch up, photo by Mark Bloomfield

On Monday morning those who hadn’t already left went their separate ways. Wil Pretty set off North to Woodbridge via the Walton Backwaters and Tony Lavelle went South directly back to Dover. The cruising group returned to Brightlingsea and then went home from there, leaving just Maia and Ember. Tony Chamberlain then came up with a cunning plan to avoid the Spitway as the low water was down to Chart Datum and the necessary departure time was unacceptably early and dark. This involved sailing through the Ray Sand Channel to the Crouch and spending the night at anchor in the Roach. Departing from there next morning we exited the Crouch and carried fair tide all the way back to Chatham. This trip allowed us to experience the new buoyage in the Crouch and also to see the newly placed buoyage in the Ray Sand Channel. We did not know about this previously but we found the new northerly safe water mark on our track across the Buxey. All became clear next morning when we saw the new line of buoys, apparently provided by the Crouch Harbourmaster, utilising existing buoys made redundant by the new scheme in the Crouch. This now provides an excellent means of getting from the Crouch to the Blackwater.

Martin Richards

See some more pictures from the weekend here

Date Published 27th Sep 2011