How to Passage Plan: Clive Loughlin’s Cruising Tips

While things rarely go to plan at sea, passage planning and spending time on the theory are among Clive Loughlin’s top cruising tips.

Theory is for use in practice 

When teaching Day Skippers I will often set them a first-night pub quiz:  If A and B are 10 miles apart and we have a boat speed through the water of 5 knots – how long will it take us to go from A to B if we have a 2 knot tidal stream with us, and how long if we have 2 knots against? 

With zero tidal stream the journey would obviously take 2 hours, but going with the tide our speed over the ground is 7 knots so the 10nm would take a bit less than 1hr 30 mins; and with the tide against and an SOG of just 3 knots the same journey would take over 3 hours – more than twice as long. 

Of course everyone gets the correct answer, but this often triggers the recollection of nightmare passages that they have done as crew, when the skipper had them slogging into a foul tide for hours on end with the result that they finally arrived at their destination, tired, wet, demoralized, and too late for the restaurant they had booked. 

Time is precious, and everyone will have juggled all sorts of commitments to be able to get together with family and friends for a weekend’s sailing.   

Once on the boat everyone will be keen to get going straight away, and so a few hours passage planning in advance of a trip can easily make the difference between a horrendous endurance test, with everyone tired and grumpy and never wanting to go sailing with their skipper ever again; and a super chilled and relaxed weekend with everyone chatting enthusiastically about where to go next time. 

This issue includes a plan for a weekend’s sailing in the Solent, and my starting point for this was making multiple copies of the Almanac’s tidal stream chartlets for the area, and then marking them up with relevant times, so that I know what is flowing where for every hour of the trip. 

Once this is done it is then a relatively simple matter to see whether or not a passage from A to B makes sense at a particular time.  

With good planning we can make the very most of our time on the water and achieve far more, and have a much happier crew. It is also an enjoyable exercise in itself. 

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