I have documented the distances travelled on each leg in the table below. The total distance travelled was 1553 NM or 1787 miles.

Leg	Distance (NM)	Distance (miles)
Chatham to Woolverstone	57.1	65.7
Woolverstone to Wells	102.0	117.4
Wells to Scarborough	94.4	108.7
Scarborough to Hartlepool	41.9	48.2
Hartlepool to Amble	44.6	51.3
Amble to Holy Island	24.4	28.1
Holy Island to Arbroath	63.4	73.0
Arbroath to Peterhead	66.3	76.3
Peterhead to Whitehills	36.9	42.5
Whitehills to Inverness	59.5	68.5
Inverness to Caledonian Canal	2.4	2.8
Caledonian Canal	52.8	60.8
Corpach to Dunstaffnage	29.7	34.2
Dunstaffnage to Crinan	27.8	32.0
Crinan Canal	7.7	8.9
Ardrishaig to Portavadie	10.9	12.5
Portavadie to Campbeltown	31.1	35.8
Campbeltown to Bangor	49.5	57.0
Bangor to Strangford Lough	37.2	42.8
Strangford Lough to Howth	68.6	79.0
Howth to Arklow	40.2	46.3
Arklow to Dale Bay	82.5	95.0
Dale Bay to Padstow	71.6	82.4
Padstow to Penzance	64.0	73.7
Penzance to Fowey	49.3	56.7
Fowey to River Yealm	24.1	27.7
River Yealm to Brixham	40.2	46.3
Brixham to Studland Bay	67.0	77.1
Studland Bay to Hayling Island	46.5	53.5
Hayling Island to Eastbourne	55.9	64.3
Eastbourne to Ramsgate	60.8	70.0
Ramsgate to Chatham	42.8	49.3
Total	1553.1	1787.6

Thursday 18th July 2019

We left Ramsgate at 8 a.m.

Passed Broadstairs.

Then on to the North Foreland lighthouse and headland.

We knew that the tide would be against us for at least the first three miles to the North Foreland and made quite slow progress under sail, so had a bit of help from the “diesel sail”. We rounded the headland and passed Margate with a view of the Turner Gallery, the Ferris Wheel in what George remembers as the “Bembon Brothers” amusement park (now called “Dreamland”) and the hideous block of flats which some misguided planning officer gave permission for.

By this time we were sailing nicely and the course through the Gore Channel and the Copperas Channel was rather tricky, owing to sandbanks which had to be avoided, and the wind seeming to force us to hit them.

We were able to sail on with a short section of motoring through the trickiest shallows, then on towards Garrison Point, the Medway and home.

We have taken one hour stints at the wheel (or at the autohelm) throughout the trip and Christopher seemed to have missed out on some of the sailing time, so George, in a fit of generosity, offered to yield to him while we were sailing along nicely. This turned out to be a bit of a Greek gift, as after a few minutes a rain squall blew up and we had a brief period of torrential rain and winds of 27 knots (more than 30 m.p.h). Christopher remains convinced of George’s malice aforethought in handing over at that time, but your blogger assures you that his motives were pure!

On to Garrison Point at the entrance to the river Medway.

It was here that our track (a red line indicating the path of the boat on our navigation tablet) passed the track of our outward journey, so we had completed the Round Britain passage. The skipper was, appropriately, at the helm at this point.

On up the Medway – a trip we have done countless times before – and on to Chatham, where we entered the lock.

We tied up in our normal berth and persuaded a passing yachtsman to take a picture of the “Three Old Men in a Boat” at the end of their six week voyage.

The three are Christopher, Colin and George from left to right in the picture, in case you hadn’t been able to identify us.

A track of our journey is below. There is one small gap at Arbroath where the software stopped logging our progress and we didn’t need to navigate on the two canals, so they are omitted, otherwise this is a complete record.

One final picture after some of the cleaning up had been done,

and it was off home, Colin by car, Christopher and George by train.

And so the grand adventure ended with a final farewell from your blogger, George.

Wednesday 17th July 2019

Locked out (i.e. left the harbour by the lock) in the 7 a.m. lock, exiting at 7.15. Had our final view of the Sovereign Harbour and its associated buildings and travelled towards Dungeness.

On past Bexhill

and St. Leonards/Hastings (difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins). Past Rye (too small to photograph) towards Dungeness. Before Dungeness is the Lydd Firing Range. We were visited by the Firing Range Control vessel who asked us to change course to be out of the range as they were going to be firing later. He then visited a German boat “Charlotte”, coming round Dungeness point the other way. The following snippet of conversation was heard over the VHF: “Do you know what a military firing range means sir? People with guns shooting at you.”

We passed Dungeness with its power stations.

After passing Dungeness we spotted an enormous container vessel out at sea. This turned out to break our previous record as it was the Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container vessels at 400m long, 59m wide and with a draught (depth below the water) of 15.5 m!

On towards Dover with its white cliffs, but no bluebirds! There was a large cruise ship called Aidaaura in the special cruise ship dock and, of course, many cross-channel ferries going in and out, which we avioded skillfully!

We passed the South Foreland cliff with its lighthouse, windmill and old lighthouse.

On to Ramsgate with a following tide, so we made good time, arriving at 3.45 p.m. but moored on a short “finger” (right angled extension to a pontoon) which was difficult. On George’s first trip with Sansovino we moored on just such a finger, and he stepped off and pulled a calf muscle so badly that he had to abandon the trip to Boulogne. We were worried that something similar might happen again, so moved the boat to a longer finger which was so much more satisfactory.

A couple of beers to end the day, then off to the mad Greek woman’s restaurant (The Greek Arch Restaurant) at 7 o’clock.

Nearly done now. One day to go and we shall return triumphantly to Chatham!

Tuesday 16th July 2019

On the home stretch now. Left Sparkes at 7 a.m. and reversed our previous route to the West Pole without interference from small children in dinghies, but with a fisherman yelling at us to avoid his line as he had a big fish on. We couldn’t do anything for him as we were constrained by the depth of the channel, but we seemed to miss his line and he was still trying to land his fish when we lost sight of him. At the West Pole we turned to go to a half-mile wide channel marked by two large buoys called Boulder and Street.Boulder is green

Street is red

You will see that Street has a lot of disturbed water by it. There was a line from Boulder to Street where the sea changed from a glassy state to some disturbed waves. This is typical of “overfalls” (mentioned on a previous blog), though none are marked on the chart.

We motored on past the Rampion Windfarm, which is about five miles across and feeds a maze of cables into Shoreham.

On across what we now know to be called Sussex Bay where you could see Bognor Regis, Littlehampton, Worthing, Hove, Shoreham (with Lancing College Chapel on the hill to the west) Hove, Brighton and Newhaven. The white cliffs of the seven sisters came into view and Beachy Head at the end of the line of cliffs.

The video gives you some idea of the panorama.

On round Beachy Head,

and the old lighthouse at Belle Tout

past Eastbourne

and on through the lock at Sovereign Harbour to our stopping place for the night, East of Eastbourne.

Evening meal, then our penultimate night aboard. Christopher was awake when there was a partial lunar eclipse, but Colin and George missed it.

Monday 15th July 2019

We rose at 6 a.m. and weighed anchor 20 minutes later!

Sailed across Poole Bay towards Saint Catherine’s Point on the Isle of Wight, having decided to round it to the south, rather than going up the Solent. The wind again pushed us off course to the south, so we had to motor for the second half of our journey round the Island. We passed close by Saint Catherine’s lighthouse and had a good view back of the cliffs on the south west of the Isle of Wight.

We passed a town clearly marked with its name

and the imaginatively named Whitecliff Bay.

By this time the tide was strongly against us and we were down to about three knots, making the journey along the east of the Isle a long slog in disturbed seas.

On the way we spotted in the distance a very long cargo ship which our app identified as a 368metres long. This beat our previous record sighting of a tanker 333metres long.

The sun began to shine, the wind dropped and we approached the entrance to Chichester Harbour in pleasant weather, but with little wind and very strong tides against us. We passed Chichester West Pole and Chichester Bar Beacon which mark the narrow channel into the Harbour.

Then on to the channel leading to Sparkes Marina. Unfortunately this was blocked by a sailing school with about 20 boats with small children in them all over the place. We managed to stop to avoid them, but went briefly aground in the process. We got off and the instructors had by this time organised their flock out of the way and we continued our slow progress to the marina fuel berth to refuel, then on to our berth for the night.

Sansovino, when newly delivered, had her first home in Sparkes Marina where Christopher kept her for a number of years, so she returned to her roots.

To the restaurant at the Marina and to bed, ready for a fairly early start on the next day.

Sunday 14th July 2019

Left Brixham early, expecting a sail, but were met with a heavy 2m swell in Torbay. This eased gradually as we went out into Lyme Bay and we raised sail. The wind was unfortunately in slightly the wrong direction and drove us south of our desired course

Lyme Bay was singularly devoid of interest for the majority of its 40 mile width. Often we have seen a pod of dolphins there, but they must have been on holiday, or knew we had already had seen a dolphin extravaganza in the Bristol Channel, so didn’t deserve any more.

We approached Portland Bill, which can have a serious race (fast current) round it and some very dangerous rough water, but we found it in most benign mood, having timed our arrival carefully, and the weather being kind.

We took the inshore route which passes within a few tens of metres of the rocky shore.

A

Before our arrival at the Bill we discussed whether we should stop at Weymouth or go on to Studland Bay. The latter option would allow us a shorter day the following day, but involved anchoring and providing our food on board. As it was still quite early we decided to miss Weymouth and went on past Saint Alban’s Head where there is another notorious race with “overfalls” – disturbed and often very rough water which develops where currents meet off headlands or where there is a sudden depth change. There did not seem to be any, as we had seen other boats go straight through the danger area, so we went on. The overfalls were developing as we arrived, but were not dangerous, in fact the swell was less than at our start in Torbay, so we went on through them.

There were boats involved in a race with their spinnakers up, but in hardly any wind, so we motored past them.

Round Anvil Point with its lighthouse

. . . and on up past Swanage to the Old Harry rocks which are full of interesting holes.

We anchored in Studland Bay on a balmy evening with some stunning evening views of the distant Isle of Wight and Old Harry in the evening sun.

A meal of soup and tuna and salad and another day was done.

Saturday 13th July 2019

Exited the River Yealm through the narrow channel indicated by leading marks and two red buoys. Rounded Yealm Head with its coloured rock faces.

. . . and raised the sails in a brisk but variable northerly breeze. Sadly the wind did not last and the engine was called for after half an hour.

We crossed Bigbury bay with a view (too distant to photograph) of Burgh Island with its hotel, which can be visited by a strange vehicle on stilts.

On past Bolt Tail and Bolt Head (twin headlands) to a view of Salcombe (distant) where we all sailed dinghies and small keel boats in the ria (estuary without a river) in the past when the Island Cruising Club allowed us to use Egremont, the moored Mersey ferry, as a clubhouse and sailing centre. This is now sadly no longer in existence.

On past Start Point to Dartmouth.

. . . then round Berry head to Torbay where we got fuel in Brixham Marina and a berth there for the night. Christopher’s daughter and family live in Paignton, so he left us to visit them for the evening, and Colin and George went into town, after showering, for some shopping and an evening meal.

Back to the boat, Christopher rejoined us and we briefly discussed the next day’s plan and retired.

Friday 12th July 2019

Left the pontoon at Fowey at mid-day and exited the harbour.

Turned east and raised the sails! We were able to sail almost all day to the river Yealm, past Looe with a distant view of the Eddystone light. Past Rame Head and a distant view of Plymouth harbour and the Hoe, and on to the beautiful river Yealm

where we moored on the visitors’ pontoon, and were visited by the harbour master on his boat.

and then went ashore in the dinghy to shower and to visit the Yealm Yacht Club where they serve excellent meals with a superb view of the causeway and the town of Newton Ferrers.

Then back to the boat and to bed.

Thursday 11th July 2019

We slipped our mooring after breakfast and motored down Penzance Bay in bright sunshine, with good views of Penzance, St Michael’s Mount, Newlyn and Mousehole. We also had a close encounter with a Fisheries Patrol boat and saw the Scillonian coming out of Penzance harbour on its way to the Isles of Scilly.We sailed for a short while, but the wind died and we had to motor round the Lizard.The tide was running hard with us round the Lizard and the sea was relatively calm, so we made good time. At half past three we had a close encounter with a tanker, which was coming directly into our path as it headed for the “pilot area’ prior to entering Falmouth harbour.The wind increased and was directly behind us on our route to Fowey, so the sails were deployed and we “goosewinged” (one sail on each side of the mast) on towards Fowey. We each had an hour on the helm in this session – a major bonus after days of light winds.We reached the approach to Fowey Harbour, took the sails down, and motored up the river in search of a mooring. We were lucky to occupy the last pontoon berth next to Daphne du Maurier’s house.A trip ashore in the dinghy for refreshment where a Morris dancing side were entertaining. The three young girls dancing with them were the best bit.

And so we returned on the dinghy where we retired to bed.

Wednesday 10th July 2019

Left the harbour when the gate opened at 11 a.m. and went on to the fuel berth to fill up after a few days of motoring. We left the Camel estuary at 11.50 and motored past Trevose Head.

We reached Newquay at about quarter to two moving inshore to get out of the tide, which was running against us. The cloud cover increased and we went on past St Ives, sheltering behind its island.

On to Pendeen Head and the numerous old mine workings near the coast.

We passed dangerous rocks “The Brisons” and the Longships lighthouse.

We went on round Land’s End and into Penzance Bay, passing Mousehole, Newlyn and finding a mooring buoy just outside Penzance harbour. Christopher and George moored up while Colin made a delicious supper for us on board. Another day over.