Ellos - UK Leg 6: "She's coming home, she's coming home, Atom's coming home!". Den Helder

We pulled out of Den Helder at 1030 on Friday morning into the most horrendous slop with Donald and Judith driving, the boat being slammed every which way and David at the chart table trying to submit a UK Pleasure Craft Report customs declaration. After a few hours it all calmed down once we got to deeper water, so we hoisted sails and flew south towards Rotterdam and the Maas.

The journey to the Maas was uneventful and very quick. In bright sunshine we bowled past Amsterdam mid afternoon, had nice VHF interraction with a Scottish skipper on MV Karver, a rig service vessel which we called up as he was heading straight at us out of a wind farm at 20kts, and many cups of tea. We knew Rotterdam would be busy, but none of us had been through there before. On leaving Den Helder, the entire coast is a TSS with a windfarm inshore of it, so you can either stay right inshore or go way out towards the UK coast on the other side of the lanes. With the wind we had, only the inshore route was an option. Crossing the Mass is tightly controlled (unlike Antwerp Zeebrugge but more of that in a while). We called up Mass Entry on the VHF from about 10 miles away. We were thanked for alerting them and asked to call again when coming up on MN1 buoy, which is the end of the TSS just outside the Maas. A couple of hours later, in reponse to our notification that we were abeam MN1 we were instructed to "maintain course and speed and stand by". A few minutes later the transmission went as follows "Sailing Yacht Atom, if you look to your port side you have a large tanker with a CPA of 0, he will slow and go astern of you. Maintain your course and speed and you will cross in the space he has left". In the background we could hear the tanker saying, "I can't turn to starboard because I will hit...don't worry, he is also turning to starboard...and so on". We shot through the gap between them all and were left with the impresion that it was brilliantly controlled, however as Donald put it, "I'm glad we did that in daylight or I would have been shxxting myself". We had supper as soon as we were clear of Rotterdam as we knew the next hours would be busy. If the Maas is a busy motorway, Antwerp Zeebrugge is Spaghetti Junction with three shipping lanes coming together, less stringent control and informal TSS rules inshore. For us this simply meant "keep out of the way". Coming down on the entry, we were, from a big ship perspective, the wrong side of the first cardinal mark and we realised that an Italian tanker was heading through a gap in the windfarms and intending to cut the corner on our (wrong) side of the cardinal mark. Thank God for AIS! David called them up on the VHF and the response was "ooooo eees this!". At this point Zeebrugge control piped up and said "You are talking to a sailing yacht trying to keep out of your way. I suggest you pay attention"! Suffice to say, no course alteration materialised from the tanker, we turned 180 degrees and drove fast the opposite way and then turned behind her. We then crossed into an huge anchorage on the other side where the ships were at least stationary and found a nice quiet spot to get over the third lane about two hours later.

From there we motored to Dunkerque and approched the Dover Strait Channel TSS at the Sandettie Light Vessel. A quick chat with Channel TCS alerted them of our intention to cross and we turned away from the coast. There was little wind and overnight many small boats had set out from Sangatte. There was a dreadful slop in the Channel and the boats had been carted East directly into our path and some had overturned. We found ourselves in the middle of a huge search and rescue operation including the French, Border force "Ranger" and various other boats. We were asked to report but not to become inolved. It was clear that people were losing their lives around us which made us very sad. Crossing the TSS to Dover was uneventful and helped by a tide carrying us West. UK Border force paid us a visit off Dover which was very pleasant. They had done their homework, knew who we were, where we were going and who was onboard, albeit that the got so close our AIS alarms went berzerk. Folkstone customs also paid us a visit and we then spent the rest of the day slowly motoring towards Beachy Head and the old Royal Sovereign Light Ship .

After supper, at Beachy Head, the wind swung South and filled, and we could hoist our sails. It was as if Atom knew she was nearly there and she lifted her skirts and flew. As I wrote on the family WhatsApp, we were absolutely tramping along and I had tears in my eyes as I thought of my Dad and my Mum and hoped they were up there somewhere proudly watching us ... We travelled from Beachy Head to the Solent at 9.5kts and after a gentle sail through the forts and up the North Channel we moored up in Hamble Point at just before 0700 on Sunday 1/10/23. After a few hours sleep and a call to the Royal Southern to check our berth was free, we moved Atom to her berth at RSrnYC just before lunch.