A R T I C L E S

The best laid plans of dogs and men...
or "how it all went wrong but I escaped"
by Paul Metcalf

More by good luck than good management…

The previous year I had spent 6 months single handing my 32ft Nantucket Clipper Yawl Polarity up from Barcelona, via the Canal du Midi/Bay of Biscay/English Channel and left her for the winter in Amsterdam. Picking her up again in early June, I made tracks for the Baltic Sea , via Helgoland and then the Eider river which joins up with the Kiel Canal from the north about half way along.

Arriving in Helgoland is something else. All around this fair size island is a massive exclusion zone, you can not come within about 3 miles of any part of it except one very narrow entry channel. To reinforce this there were 3 or 4 German coastguard ships stationed around it - these ships being 150-200ft long converted ocean going tugs. When they say "Verboten" they mean it.

Helgoland itself is very odd, the small part of the island you were allowed to enter had lots of antennas, short squat houses and ditto the people. Lots of strange round things mounted on stone columns… Not so much area 54 as Latitude 54. It was very spooky.

It was also the largest open air duty free shop in Europe and there was a constant stream of yachts and boats shuttling booze and cigarette laden tourists to and from the mainland. Having joined one of the rafts of 10 boats (no kidding!) the dog and I set off to find a chart for the entry to the Eider river as all I had was a Reeds Almanac and a large scale chart showing the Safe Water Mark. It was late evening so chart hunting ended up being put off until the following day. I left the raft (now 15 deep) to drop the hook in the deserted and peaceful outer harbour.

I awoke late the next morning and having lazed around a bit I picked up the shipping forecast just before leaving to go chart hunting. I had some maintenance to do that day and I had planned to leave early the following day to sail the 35NM directly east to the Eider river SWM and on into the river, through the lock to Tonning. However the forecast for German Bight was SW 3-4 for that afternoon backing SE to E increasing 5-6 the following day. Visions of being stuck in the outer harbour of a duty free shop for another 3 days flashed through my mind, I did a quick look up of the tides , the distance and the sunset… I had about 9 hours till sunset and I reasoned an hour or so after that of twilight, I would get the first hour or so of ebb out of the river - knowing that my little yacht would average 5 knots with a F3-4 behind and hey, it’s a river - been up lots of them, stay between the red and the green, bound to be lit. No problem…

Well the 3-4 SW lasted for about the first half an hour whereupon after it is noted in my logbook under "sea state" as FAC (Flat Ass Calm). So I put the engine on, and mentally added another hour to the journey. OK 2 hours of ebb out of the river…

An hour later the engine slows and starts thumping, I reduce the revs right down and it stalls. A glance over the back reveals a very large chunk of blue netting and a big sheet of plastic wrapped firmly around the prop… Out with the bread knife and the wetsuit… and add another hour to the trip. But those channel marks are bound to be lit, no problem…

As I finally pass the SWM I notice that the ebb coming out of the river seems to be flowing early, and at over 2 knots - nothing like what the tables said - a maximum of 1.5kts, ah well, its almost full moon and it's a river…bound to be lit - no problem…

I pass between the first two entry markers and the sun is setting, the ebb is about 2.5 knots, we are crawling, noted in the log "Capt. Stressed… dog asleep" … The marks lights are not on yet, they are bound to be lit though... aren't they…?

Another couple of hours and noted in the log under "Visibility" is VD (Very Dark), the flow seems to be increasing which is weird. The marks are not lit, and they are now lying on the drying sand. The river entry twists and turns and I strain my eyes through the binoculars to pick out the next mark in the gathering gloom. My hand gripping the tiller tightly.

An hour later and I am right by a mark, I set off for the next one across the channel - which is now about 100ft wide and wending between sand dunes - suddenly the depth comes up rapidly on the fish finder and the alarm goes off (I thoroughly recommend a graphical fish finder over a straight depth sounder!) I do a 180 and head back for the previous mark. I repeat this out and back a couple of times before it dawns on me to take a back bearing on the mark I have just left (in the dark, whilst steering a straight-line for the front mark). I manage to do this and can see that I am being swept down the channel towards the shallows by what seems to be a current of about 4 knots. I carefully "ferry glide" across the channel by pointing the bow about 20° off the current and thus sliding sideways. I had full engine and was making almost no headway.

It's now about 22:00 and I have been steering up this river for 4 hours, making about 1 knot over the ground. I set off for the next mark and after about 20 minutes, the current stops. Not gets less, just stops. I keep going for the next mark very perplexed and as I round the corner, there - high, dry and heeled over - on the top of a sandbank about 10ft above me is an 80ft fishing trawler, dutifully showing its 2 reds and a white.

Half an hour later the current starts again, back up to about 2-3 knots. I struggle on, bouncing from one unlit buoy to the next, the moon comes out making things a little easier. Two hours later I finally arrive at the lock , and its massive! I'm looking up about 12m, The lock keeper looks down at me and my little boat in Germanic disbelief (it's now 01:40) and says "You haf comen upen ze river??" I took this to be a rhetorical question - It turns out they had been sluicing the channel by flushing several million tons of water down it in one go. Hence the strange current and the beached fishing boat. They only did it once a month and it was announced on the VHF of course… In German.

The silt in the water had jammed up my variable pitch so I had no neutral or reverse which added to the fun the next morning. Once through the lock I landed in Tonning, which I noted in my log: "… is gorgeous. The sun is out and it's market day - it was almost worth it…"

Paul Metcalf
Aka Polarity