Hi everyone, welcome back to East Coast Sailing.

I had originally planned to take the boat on a wintery birthday sail from Tollesbury to Chatham in Kent. I had booked the Friday off work for a long weekend.

The weather wasn't playing ball. The forecast on multiple platforms showed winds speeds of 25 knots gusting 35... I like it rough but being out in those conditions for 8 hours on a new boat I'm still learning to master in sub freezing temperature's is asking for trouble.

The route I had planned is bad enough on a good day navigating 100's of dangerous wrecks, moving sandbanks which expose at low water, busy shipping lanes over the Thames estuary and adding the weather, freezing conditions, lack of daylight & boat unfamiliarity up's the risk factor significantly.

I went down to the boat early Friday incase the forecast changed but the predicted conditions remained. The boat was was jerking around like it was possessed tied to the dock. The devil on my shoulder was urging me to go and get some wild footage but sense prevailed, there's no point damaging the boat for views.

Saturdays forecast looked a lot better showing wind speeds of 20 knots gusting 24. I changed the route from Tollesbury to Burnham on Crouch which was only a 20NM each way. I expected the journey to take 3.5 hours as I was sailing down wind for half of it.

I can only get out 2 hours either side of high water so I had to gun it out the marina as soon as I has enough water to get over the Buxey Sands which cut 1.5 hours off the journey. It also meant I would not have to be as far off shore if anything happened.

The conditions started off very calm and gentle with the winds growing the further I got off shore. As the wind fetch increased the wind speed grew and the brown menacing seas stirred.

It was a beautiful crisp day with clear sky's but my fingers were numb after a few hours sailing. I'm a warm weather sailor at heart and id normally have the boat lifted out in October but as I have only had this boat for 2 months I was itching to get out.

The wife and little one tracked me from the safety & warmth of land using AIS and met me at Burnham on Crouch. We stayed the night and explored Burnham going to the old cinema where Hugo ran riot after eating sweets and bumped into some old friends from our old marina. I have broke this trip into 2 parts