Passage planning, and timing tides to/from Carlingford
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18-05-2023 9:26pm#1
I was thinking about a trip up to Carlingford over the June bank holiday weekend. And since I’ve only sailed there 2-3 times many many years ago as a kid, I want to be sure of my thinking with regards planning the arrival at the mouth of the lough where the general consensus is to arrive at low water to avoid the very turbulent flows in and out of the lough, as well as then going up the lough to the marina on the flood (and not trying to push into 2-4kts of ebb tide). I take it also with arriving at low tide you want to be hugging the channel as close as possible on the way into and up the lough to avoid the many banks and hazards…
So on the day in question low tide at Cranfield Point is at 17:17, so I’m guessing that would be a good time to be arriving at the entrance to the channel/lough?
then if I work backwards from Malahide with an average speed of 5kts, I’d want to be setting off at about ~10am, giving me a 7 hour run to up to the lough.. not really having to worry about tides that much as I’d be leaving Malahide about 90 minutes before high water, and once I passed Skerries the tides would be fairly slack anyway the rest of the way up. I should be able to easily average 5kts on the way up.
Is my logic sound?
The next issue I’d have would be the trip back to Malahide on the Monday. Low tide in Malahide is 19:05, so I’ve have to either get in before 5pm, or after 9pm (and I’d much rather it be before 5pm), which would mean leaving Carlingford about 8-9 hours before 5pm, which would be fine, except it would be right in the middle of the flood tide into Carlingford!!
On a trip like that would I just have to accept a very slow slog down the lough to open water? Just to make it back to Malahide before the tide locks me out for 4 hours? Even if I could make 3kts down the lough it could take 2 hours to get clear..
The trip up seems easy enough, but the trip back could be a bit of a slog…
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