Navigating the Menai at night

[BruceK]

Can you see anything? No nor could I and the amount of boats not showing lights was incredible. Depth perception went out the window too. Made it on instrument only but not a particularly enjoyable experience.

[_Ed_]

I really like night boating. I've done a few hours now, but always fancy more. Around there though with people without lights would definitely be interesting!!

[Ianfs]

I hadn't realised how difficult this area was until I saw Jon Boyles Celtic Crusade and that the Almanacs talked about the Swellies and rocks below the surface. I'm sure you local chaps know where they all are but at night to the visitor must be a nightmare!

3:30 Menai Bridge

[BruceK]

Yes. Also this weekend saw one of, if not the biggest tides this year. Big enough to overturn a pontoon and sink three boats in my home port Conwy on Friday night. I was up at stupid o'clock trying to save a small yacht which had snapped all but one of it's mooring ropes on my pontoon due to a meter high standing wave under the boat.
Once you get to know the Swellies it's no heartache. I went through on Saturday morning 3 hours before high slack and my speed went from 25knts to 16 knts SOG without touching throttles or losing revs. For a sailboat it's sheer hell, for a motor boat you have to be quick to counter steer through the reverse eddies.

[ColinR]

I love night boating but preferably mooching along under sail when you have time to pick out lights etc. Navigating on a sports boat at night is a different thing but really I like the security of a well planned route on the plotter otherwise I'd be down off the plane, especially in our area where there are loads of large, very solid and unlit mooring buoys around. Not to mention unlit chunks of steel poking up out of the water when you get further up the river.

[BruceK]

[BruceK]

I love night boating but preferably mooching along under sail when you have time to pick out lights etc. Navigating on a sports boat at night is a different thing but really I like the security of a well planned route on the plotter otherwise I'd be down off the plane, especially in our area where there are loads of large, very solid and unlit mooring buoys around. Not to mention unlit chunks of steel poking up out of the water when you get further up the river.

I've done a lot of night passages but this last weekend's one was unique in that normally you get your night vision and can enjoy the experience. I was totally blind here. For a full moon it was still very black. My speed was way down to 10 knts (5knt following current). I was attempting to use the navigational buoys but I'd steer for a buoy and then get the fright of my life when it would pass down the side with a yard or two's grace when I thought it was still 100 or so yards distant. Depth perception was totally shot so I reverted to instrument only. Even the wife on the bow for debris watch proved fruitless. By the time she saw anything it was too late to do anything about it.

[ColinR]

I love night boating but preferably mooching along under sail when you have time to pick out lights etc. Navigating on a sports boat at night is a different thing but really I like the security of a well planned route on the plotter otherwise I'd be down off the plane, especially in our area where there are loads of large, very solid and unlit mooring buoys around. Not to mention unlit chunks of steel poking up out of the water when you get further up the river.

I've done a lot of night passages but this last weekend's one was unique in that normally you get your night vision and can enjoy the experience. I was totally blind here. For a full moon it was still very black. My speed was way down to 10 knts (5knt following current). I was attempting to use the navigational buoys but I'd steer for a buoy and then get the fright of my life when it would pass down the side with a yard or two's grace when I thought it was still 100 or so yards distant. Depth perception was totally shot so I reverted to instrument only. Even the wife on the bow for debris watch proved fruitless. By the time she saw anything it was too late to do anything about it.

Been there added to the glare from the docks, refinery, and Southampton in general makes it almost impossible to pick out time flashing channel markers.

Great experience though.

I did a night sail to Cherbourg more years ago than I care to remember and we almost hit a sodding great buoy half way across! Bliimin huge it was

Caught me out as I thought out there it would be too deep to put a channel marker but there's a string of them the whole length of the English Channel. (I was not navigator by the way, just an innocent string puller.

[BruceK]

[argonaut]

Best night boating I did was on my Army Boat Handling course - involved a high speed run up the Medway in support of a real life drugs bust ..... no lights, full speed, 4 rigid raiders (Army Ribs)