Having made it from Runswick Bay, Yorkshire, to Harwich, Essex, in just one day, Ian Furby continues his attempt to circumnavigate Britain in his 18ft Nordkapp speedboat
DAY 2: 11 JUNE 2021
HARWICH TO FOLKESTONE: 52NM Harty and I met as planned at 4.30am. The Pier Hotel in Harwich had kindly prepared a takeaway breakfast for us but we’d failed to anticipate the locked gate leading to the pontoon. Bugger! Not wanting to wait hours for the office to open, I scaled the 8ft gate, jumped down and buzzed Harty through.
Back aboard Summer Buoys, we stowed the covers and topped up the fuel and oil. The 115hp Evinrude E-Tec outboard on my boat is a high-tech two-stroke engine and the oil it burns is chuffin’ expensive! Being American, it comes as an American gallon (3.75 litres) and costs around £55. In a normal year, I’ll use just over one of these for the 30 to 40 engine hours I typically do. On that basis, I calculated I would need up to 15 litres of oil for the 100 engine hours it should take me to cover the 1900nm round Britain. To check my sums, I also contacted an Evinrude dealer, who reckoned two extra gallons on top of the 5 litres already in the tank would be fine. To be safe, I took three.
We were both wrong. By the end of day one we’d already used a gallon of the stuff and we still had ten days to go!
To be fair, in a normal season, I’m not constantly running at 4,000rpm or more and I only go out in calm conditions to avoid a mutiny from my wife and kids. In the lumpy seas we were now tackling, the engine was having to work considerably harder. I was going to need more oil. A lot more. No worries; I’d pick some up on the way round – there’s a chandlery every five yards on the south coast!
At 5am we slipped our lines and headed out onto the Stour. The sun was just rising as we slid through the glassy water at 5 knots towards the open sea, full of excitement and anticipation.
Today’s plan was to reach Brighton, via Calais. Why? Partly because it would be fun to bag another country and partly for the bravado of crossing the Channel in an 18ft boat. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem, it’s only 22nm from Dover, but at the time we were still in the pandemic and the Frenchies had banned us from coming over. We’d make a final decision later.
In the meantime, we had a couple of options leaving Harwich: we could hug the coast via Southend-on-Sea, the Thames Estuary and the Isle of Sheppey or straight-line it to Margate. The sea was relatively flat and we were enjoying a boyish buzz about heading to France, so we plotted a course straight to Margate.
The crossing was pretty uneventful. There wasn’t much to see, other than more wind farms, sandbanks and underwater obstructions to navigate. I was amazed by how shallow the water is in th
