PATHFINDER Powerboat Club
East Coast Shakedown
April 2005
Well we did not get off to a good start with the weather on the Saturday being force 4-5 and a temperature being seven degrees. So it was decided that we would cancel the Saturday and hope to get some boats out for the Sunday, as the weather was looking better for that day. Saturday was not a complete write off as we had a meal that evening at Alan and Teresa’s house. There was Chris and Shirley, Richard and Irene, Tony and Janet and myself. Many thanks to Alan and Teresa for letting us use their house.
So up early, load up the car with the gear and off to the marina, weather looks better and with three boats from Titchmarsh and one from Burnham it looks like we might have a good day out. I said we could start launching at 12.45 as that was two hours before high water but by that time we had all three boats in and were ready to go- think the crews were eager to get out that morning. So with Maverick, Larimar, Obsession in the water we set of to meet Twister coming out of Burnham. We started to head down that way but it was clouding over a bit going that way so we decided that with the time we had it was not possible to meet up with Tony and Janet on Twister. With the tides for that day we only had about a four hour window to work with. So we said we would have lunch at Suffolk yacht harbour.
We did a close run into the beach on the way back and the weather was starting to look better going that way. The course we were taking was close to a lot of lobster pots so I told the crews to keep a good look out for the markers- the last thing we needed was to get hooked up on one of them.
Coming up to Harwich Harbour we slowed down but kept on the plane as much as possible till we saw the patrol boat heading our way so it was time to slow to snail pace to keep them happy. The river was quiet so we had a couple of short blasts, slowing for a couple of yachts, and to start putting out fenders to get into the marina. We radioed the marina for some berths and went in for lunch.
At Suffolk yacht Harbour they have an old lighthouse ship they use as a restaurant and by now the sun was beating down. We had lunch out on deck, we said this was the life and after a nice lunch we set off back to Titchmarsh to recover the boats. The water was getting low but we still had enough to get out. Maverick first then Larimar and then Obsession which was a bit of a job as Ian has a bunk trailer that you need to float the boat on and we winched it on.
We washed the boats down and said our goodbyes till the next time.
So thanks to Daniel and Lorraine (LARIMAR) Ian Saggers and his crew (OBSESSION) and me (MAVERICK) Tony Gurden hope to see you out on the water.Tony
