We wanted to beat the bad weather and left the Inverness sea lock early to sail to Lossiemouth.
What was meant to be a force 3-4 headwind actually turned out to be a very uncomfortable force 5.
This had two effects on us:
1) The boat crashes up and down on each wave.
This makes everything very difficult due to the violent motion. We had to rig a rope from the end of the boom to hold on to, otherwise it was impossible to stand at the tiller.
Going to the loo was not easy. Imagine sitting on a bucking bronco........!
2) We have to motor into the wind and boat speed is reduced.
Our 20 horse power faithful engine will go forever but as they say on Top Gear - it has lost a few horses over it's 32 year life.
This means that rather than powering through the waves, each one almost stops the boat.
It is very demoralising to constantly watch the speedo drop to 0.5 knots on each wave! We tried sailing (tacking) but progress was even slower.
The 36 miles to Lossiemouth took 12 hours - I could have walked that quicker!
On top of this we had the concern that the Lossiemouth entrance is very narrow and exposed to strong swells in Easterly winds.
More of that later, but I would say that it was the most difficult pilotage that I have ever had to do.
Anyway, safely moored now and probably here for 2 days until the weather blows over.
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