Sumara of Weymouth

June 2025

Reading Time: 15 minutes

This is the first leg of the “expedition” to Greenland. We had taken Sumara for a little test sail to Pin Mill on the River Orwell a couple of weeks earlier and managed to cover the entire boat, the dinghy and the dog in East Coast mud. Nevertheless, everything on board worked fine, and we felt ready to set sail to Lowestoft a couple of days earlier than originally planned.

We had wintered the boat once again in Titchmarsh Marina, yes, the one with hoops instead of cleats! We actually like the place (despite the hoops). Kelvin and his son look after the yard very efficiently. I believe they once launched 13 boats in one day! The yard is concreted over so it is ideal for varnishing whilst the boat is outside without fear of a dust storm every time a car drives through the yard. The new restaurant provides a decent meal, albeit at about £20 for fish and chips, it needs to be used selectively. The chandler is well stocked. The place is basically friendly and most importantly no hassle. And it is cheap, but don’t tell them that!

We waited a few hours for enough water to leave the Backwaters and had a lovely sail with a south easterly force 4 up the coast. When the wind clocked to a southerly our boat speed dropped to 3 knots and fearful of slipping off the tide, we started the engine and ran it on tick-over until we neared the harbour entrance on our predicted time of about 20:45. No dramas!

We spotted a fine Tradewind 33 just inside the entrance. As the visitor’s pontoon was full, we decided to moor up alongside. The owners, Ian and Kate, were very friendly, and we began to chat. When they mentioned that they bought the boat from an aristocratic lady in North Wales, I soon realized it must have been Denise Evans’ old boat. I had just finished reading her book “Reaching Beyond” about her amazing Tilman-esque adventures.

Lowestoft is a difficult place to love. It seems a bit of a struggle to find the nice spots. A walk out to Oulton Broad consists of a long hike past ASDA and a miserable derelict industrial landscape. Sadly, the famous Boatbuilding College closed down last year. However, if you persist, you can find little gems. The Broads have a nice holiday atmosphere and there is a nature reserve out that way. If you walk northwards past the massive Birds Eye factory you will come across the little maritime museum in a pleasant park with a café and a lighthouse.

The Grit Community Centre and the Flint House Restaurant were our two hot spots from our visit a few years back but sadly both have now closed down.

The Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club is a friendly place with decent showers and a posh club house (no dogs). It also has a very fine set of rather famous urinals.

Lowestoft is the port which is furthest east in Britain, so it is often the first landing port for Dutch visitors. I often wonder what they must think of the place. “Bit of a dump but lovely urinals?”. I have a bit of a soft spot for the place.

There was a strong wind warning in place for Wednesday but a swift glance at the Windy App showed (incorrectly) that the wind would be south of west giving a good cut for a sail towards Scarborough. The threat of a force 6 added a frisson of adventure, somehow it looked too good to miss, so we took our chances and set off early on Wednesday morning for the 140 nm sail to Scarborough. Ian and Kate had also decided to leave, and we saw them head off as we took Tilman for an early morning walk. The sail along the Norfolk coast was pleasant enough making 6-7 knots SOG with the tide behind us. Once we cleared the Norfolk coast we were surprised to find that there was no south in the wind at all and we were on a close reach and eventually ended up close hauled into a slight sea with an awkward wave frequency. It was no problem, but just rather tiring. We couldn’t clear the wind farm to starboard as planned so left them to port, taking a more northerly slalom route. Eventually the wind did back, and we eased off the sheets. The boat speed picked up and everything was much more pleasant and relaxing. At dawn I began to realise that if we maintained our speed we would arrive at Scarborough with no water. I put in a second reef to slow down the boat but it had no effect, so I dropped the stay sail. We were still trundling along at 6 knots with a force 5 on the beam. I then put a reef in the Yankee and triple reefed the main, but all to no avail.

Eventually we decided to hove-to in Filey Bay to wait for the tide to rise before progressing to Scarborough just before high water. Anchoring in Filey Bay would be another option, and one used by Dunlin.

Scarborough was great! We found it the most dog-friendly place we have ever visited. Almost everywhere had “Dogs Welcome” stickers on the door, including restaurants, art galleries and museums.

Tilman loves a nice art gallery.  Talking of which, we visited the gallery in the hope of seeing some of Albert Strange’s paintings. Although he is well known nowadays for the yachts that he designed, including Leo Gooldens “Tally Ho”, Albert Strange was actually the Headmaster of Scarborough Art School. Yacht design was just his hobby. We were a tiny bit disappointed when the museum staff hadn’t heard of him, but we enjoyed looking at the fine collection of Atkinson Grimshaw’s nocturnal paintings and the Open Exhibition. Afterwards we strolled down to the Rotunda museum in its rather splendid building.

It is a museum specializing in geology with loads of fossils and mineral samples. Sadly, I am not excited by these things, probably due to a lack of knowledge on my part. However, it had a great set of steps which caught my attention. We carried on to the Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre in still search of viewing Albert Strange’s artwork but it wasn’t until we visited the welcoming Scarborough Yacht Club that we eventually found an original Albert Strange painting hanging in the far corner. He was a founder member of the club.

We enjoyed Scarborough but wanted to move up the Whitby in the hope of catching up with Dunlin before they headed off north.

Using almanac information, the short 17 nm sail up the coast to Whitby causes a bit of a head scratch. In theory, according to Reeds, you can only enter or leave Scarborough two hours either side of high water. The bridge in Whitby only swings two hours either side of high water. If you leave two hours before HW the tide is against you and the locals say it runs stronger than the almanac says. So the little dilemma is how can you leave Scarborough and get to Whitby in four hours against the tide. Easy, just leave much earlier. There is actually loads of depth in Scarborough save for a stretch alongside the visitor’s berths. We swung Sumara around by hand then toddled off keeping the pontoon close to starboard and never saw less than 3.6 m even four hours before HW (neeps)

We arrived in Whitby in plenty of time for a bridge swing. If we had missed it we would need to moor on a small pontoon with a very long slippery ladder to the shore which is not very easy with a dog!

Whitby is a destination port and a thriving tourist location. After 11:00 the streets heave with visitors enjoying the small shops and cafes. We met up with Ian and Kate and had a beer in the Whitby Brewery on the cliff top near the abbey.

Whitby was the home to the two of the greatest Arctic navigators – the Scoresby’s. Scoresby Sund in East Greenland is of course the final destination of this voyage north and was named after Willian Scoresby Senior

William Scoresby Senior is credited with inventing the crow’s nest to provide some protection to the crew stationed up the mast looking for leads in the ice. He sailed his whaling ship further north than any sailor had ever been. His son, at the age of ten, stowed away on one of his voyages and thus begun on of the greatest Arctic sailing and scientific careers.

He mapped a great part of the Arctic region and kept detailed and accurate logs which have been of use to climatologists to this day. He conducted much research into magnetism, trying to resolve some of the problems the high latitude sailors have with their compasses. In my opinion, if he was chosen to lead the search to find the North West Passage then he might have succeeded.

We stayed for a few days in Whitby before needing to head back to London and then onwards to Germany in the camper van. We enjoyed take away fish and chips from Trenchards at £13.50 which I can no longer say whether that is cheap or expensive.

We rowed up the river Esk to Ruswarp, visited the museum, swam in the sea, ate ice cream and we will finally take a heritage train across the North York Moors before heading south. Sadly I don’t think we will be lucky enough to be pulled by steam.

This first leg of this Scoresby Sund Expedition has been very relaxing indeed. Maybe this expedition will actually succeed while the other three attempts failed.

Next leg is Whitby to Inverness with my long standing sailing companion Ray!