MV Ocean Dawn

Sea Trial to Beachy Head by Sandy Robertson

After a good tidy up (making everything shipshape) and the tying up of all our dinghies and with a good weather forecast for the day, we decided to have our first day’s sea trial with the ‘Ocean Dawn’. We had spent many months preparing for this, although our living conditions were still fairly Spartan the time had come to test all the newly installed equipment.We had become very comfortable with our little space on the quayside, next to ‘Henny’ a similar sized boat tied up in front of us, with our friend Geoff from Birmingham living aboard.  

“Let go” came the order from the bridge window on the 4th of July as the ‘Ocean Dawn’ slipped her mooring lines for the first time since we arrived here, and headed west down the canal to the lock gates of Shoreham Harbour, to the open sea.  

This was the day of my mother’s birthday our crew was very thin on the ground with our friend Geoff declining the trip, so Mike the young one took on the challenge with the Robertson family.  

Once out of the harbour we headed west towards Beachy Head ; enroute we celebrated Mums birthday by heaving a bucket over the side, as she always complained about having no buckets, the kids always loosing them.

The sea state was calm and the modifications to ‘Ocean Dawn’ were all ok.  With quite a few hours gone into the journey our sea trial was interrupted with the VHF crackling with the sound of our ‘boatie’ friend in his native brummie tongue, ”Ocean dawn, Ocean dawn, this is the Henny over.” “Henny this is Ocean Dawn over”, “ Yes Ocean Dawn Channel 8 over.” Channel 8 I issued over the VHF, turning the buttons on our old sailor machine. On turning to channel 8 came the unmistakable noise of Geoff. “ Sandy where are you?”, (This was the time of pulling some ones leg! big time),

“ Dover I replied”, the machine went silent, “ Brighton pier more like it in that old crate, no seriously, where are you?” Knowing Geoff would not have a chart in front of him I gave out our longitude and latitude and ended our conversation with “Over”. Silence, no reply came from him. I now had this picture of him scrambling through his chart work looking, soon came the reply

“ Beachy Head , over”, “That’s right Geoff, over,” “Ok just wondering is everything ok, over”, “Yes no problems here, over” I said “Ok Sandy we will see you back along side, over” “Ok Geoff in about 5 hours over”, “There is something here I want to show you, over” “And what’s that then Geoff, over” “Oh nothing much you will see when you get back, over” “Ok Geoff we will see you later this is the Ocean Dawn Out.” “Henny out” and back to 16 came the reply.  

Our trip was quiet and smooth giving the kids time to relax and watch TV on their first voyage on the open sea.

“The picture is better out here than along side Dad” said Cameron, but he didn’t want to stay their for ever he said. So back to Shoreham harbour our afternoon sea trial over. We had no problems with any of our equipment, the engine was all ok. The generators were running well, navigation equipment was working well. A successful sea trial all round!  

On returning to the quayside at Shoreham we discovered our friend standing there waiting for us on the dock looking down at our ‘Mirror’ sailing dinghy which looked ever so slightly crushed. ‘Ocean Dawn’ must have clipped it when leaving in the morning, this was and still is of great amusement to Geoff who never forgets to remind us of our new ‘Mirror’ fenders. Poor old dinghy! not much of a chance against a 200 ton boat.

  Along side we laughed and joked, trip over beer and cups of tea all round.

Crew List

Sandy, Debbie, Kieran, Mike, Alex, Charlotte, & Cameron.