Locked out of Venice flood gates in BIG seas!

I just pulled up the anchor it's kind of dark now been dragging my feet about going because it's really nice here I kind of want to stay in the day but we got good wind today and the waves are smaller like 4 feet tomorrow we're going to still have good wind but the waves are going to be 7 to 8 feet and it just seems nicer when the waves are not that big so I am going to leave now probably end up getting in tomorrow night there's like a Floodgate I guess maybe maybe it's not open operation yet I guess it's like to protect Venom from flooding and High Tides so hopefully this wind doesn't drive a bunch of water in and they close The Floodgate when I get there cuz otherwise I'll have to like be tacking Against the Wind uh waiting for them to open at low tide I guess uh that could happen got the autopilot steering for now but I'll switch to the wind vein once we get a little further offshore just trying to get around these Little Rock Islands we got a ship Ro there says it's exposed I think what I'm going to do is kind of head out once it out towards Italy a little bit so I'm like the middle here and then go over and then because if the wind kind of turns more from the west then they'll be I'll have a downwind more more downwind tomorrow that's the plan wind is doing a good job steering tonight got about 14 not so wind 10 knots apparent broad reach just the jib out and we're doing 4 and 1/2 knots that's pretty good I think I could probably probably wing and Wing get a little faster but this Ste is so nice like this with just just the chip as I got a little distance from the coast I set a geofencing alarm so I could take some short naps but then I ended up getting into the shipping lanes and I had to pay close attention [Applause] to mobile closure to Mal for isend keep distance of 500 me from Gateway so I think that announcement just said that the title gates at all of the entrances are closing in an hour and a half and I'm like 3 hours away maybe two and a half hours ah just missed it if I had just left earlier the other day or gone a little faster or something I think I would have made it and they don't open till I think 14 tomorrow I recorded the radio broadcast I'm we'll listen to a few more times it's hard to understand his accent so I just HOV two we've got 22 23 knots of wind and hoving two slowed us down to looks like two two and a half knots which might have to like once we get close to land maybe we'll I'll put the main sail up and we'll kind of sail away from land for a little bit and I I'm not sure maybe we can just he Tu about side to side when we run out of room we got about 15 miles before we hit the the beach or the entrance or whatever so it'll be like midnight maybe I got do next do something maybe we'll slow down more hopefully the wind will die down I don't I don't know I I just got to wait till daylight and figure this out I'm a little sketched that about coming to these entrances at night too and and these kind of waves that waves got up to about 3 m for a bit they're still still at least 2 m also like I'm right in the middle of the traffic separation scheme going the wrong way so don't really want to be here but like got limit options with the wave direction and wind and stuffs but I think we'll just drift up here if we can like maybe end up over here and we he to go back and forth and then then go back in there sometime at least I got my bunk on the low side so I could sleep okay tonight if I get any sleep with all these shifts around oh this guy just altered his course and he's bearing down on us real close do you see this and my water is boiling over all at the same time Jesus my gosh literally just P that guy what are you doing man that could have been a collision looking at that jeez oh man just had a massive wave wash over the whole boat and winds are picking up now 25 just used the uh garment in reach to get a forecast and uh looks like it's going to get windier now it say it's going to get up a 35 that's of wind tonight I'm really bummed I missed the gate by 1 hour now the winds the weather is going to deteriorate anym the one thing is that I don't think we're going to run out of room SE room cuz if the wind shifts to the South like it's supposed to then that should kind of blow us further north instead of into well there I guess we still can't drift forever that direction and then when we do that when when it does finally calm down then we're going to have to go upwind to get back in this is just lousy 29 knot so man it's pouring down rain out there now lightning and everything this went outside it got really wet okay so I put away a bit of the jib that slowed us down considerably and now I I switch so we're not H to we're beating kinding of beat up wind I'm trying to get away from the Lee Shore maybe it's working I don't know slow us down at least slow our drift all right next this the next morning got some sleep got some pretty big wav still out here we've gotten kind of far away from uh where we want to go cuz I've been ho to all night well actually I guess not really H to kind of H to I've got the r the the the jibs on the correct side it's a little bit of DB with the tiller lashed over to one side oh looks like the tiller came on lash so that's why we drifted faster than I wanted all right I'm going to try to Reef the sale oh not try to Reef the sale I'm going to try to put up the main sale normally I would be trying to re the sale on these conditions but well we're not really pointing up wind enough to make it into the the harbor there in Venice so let's try to put the main sail up on the third reef and see if it uh gets us pointing a little better I'll I'll set the camera out here let s this up hopefully the camera doesn't break off e is is I I that's kind of crazy out there a little bit all right got the boat sailing up with now kind of so now we're healed over real good now we're healed over about 45° and we're going to have SS running into our boat it's going to be wet oh W oh what few miles here I think we'll do we do three knots maybe we can get there about the time the gates open up at 2 p.m. thought it was one it's 2: p.m. now for low tide to get in there H so all that work put at the main sale and I don't think we're going we're going a few degrees higher but still not enough to make it so go a little further let just hope we hope we do as good as we can it's getting real crazy out here the waves are getting Steep and close together again cuz the wind had died off down to 15 knots for a little bit but now it's back up to the 20s um let say the waves are 10 12 ft Maybe just got cell signal and took a look at the forecast last night was not a great night to be uh locked out of the floodgates out there it's chaos down there chaos everything's on on the floor I think this little uh sale here is turning into one of the most intense sales of the Year actually I think I've had to beat up in the conditions beat up when into into conditions like this in a while maybe this is way rougher than I was sing to mayorca maybe baby was rougher going to Malta but that was downwind so no big deal this is brutal we're just taking a pounding everything is wet like the stuff on the floor is just soak there's about a inch of the water in the corner there have to clear out the drain holes and stuff and I'm not even trying to go anywhere I'm just waiting for these gosh darn uh Stupid floodgates to open 11 10 12 1 2 so three more hours but even then we still got to tack up wind CU we drifted so far downwind I think we'll make it probably by maybe 2:00 though or three 33 knots of wind now 34 all right a really picking up out here hope they C down today that's not the case getting almost raer storm you can't even see us see anything going oners are all over the side ta they hanging in there so so hope that riging holds up I'm going to be super pissed if I get dismasted on the last day of sing this season least I get an exciting exciting trip about 8 nautical miles away and and hopefully we can just pack straight on in there but I have a feeling I'll probably be another at least 15 miles attacking back and forth unless the wind calms down [Music] [Applause] water's coming in somewhere that was a big one a fair amount of water on the on the ground down there all right time to go back out the hardest thing is getting the uh the pants [Music] on it's crazy out there we're going to do another attack come on no let's go in between the waves here think we're going to do it this time on almost a so close no I'm not tack keep on trying look at it we drive won't attack yes I got it stuck [Music] it's crazy seven minutes seven minutes to get the about the tack I took like 10 tries this TCH is much more comfortable see the waves aren't aligned with the uh the wind right now so the waves are kind of hit us on the side instead of head on that's I prefer I'm going to take this witch handle inside cuz I like that one I want to lose that guy man my my shrouds look so freaking slack on the L side stretching them hard they like white noodles sun is about to set it looks like which means our little Adventure is taken by the time we actually get in there it will be an extra 24 hours those stupid floodgates uh may this take maybe maybe not not quite that maybe 22 hours or something but gosh gosh think I need to tighten up the little wiggler thing snug up that little line on there kind of making the back of the drip flap really wanted to go in with a little bit of sunlight we still got at least an hour to get to this gate and then maybe another 30 minutes to get through uh to the marina it's the way it is winds have really lightened up and actually the waves got pretty small pretty quick too also which is nice hopefully it just holds up so us to get into the entrance you can't even see it's really hard I think it's over there though so we might have to do another well we will have to do another attack or just motor the rest the way in there every time the wind shifts it's against our favor ah we're getting we're getting we're getting pretty close I said I'll just turn on the motor but now I think we're in a current because now we're only doing one one knot really like three miles to go to get to the barrier to three more hours it'll be real dark by the time I get there this this passage would have been so easy it was like straight down wind 20 20 knots of wind down wi would have been awesome we should have zoomed right through there this whole third day thing has just been D me frustrated and I lost my favorite fender I had this really big Fender I found in Sweden it was just floating in the in the river and I picked it up and I just came untied off the side of the boat I always tie them up really good so I don't know what what happened there oh you know I think we were moving them around in in havar so maybe they were just maybe I didn't tie it up as good or that guy didn't help me so I have to give a big thanks to Isaac I guess one of my followers saw us coming to this and he's like lives around here sent me up uh emailed like a bunch of marinas and found the best price for me for the winter and even like got a reservation so I'm all set I just got to go right to my slip here just like calm like glass right now what a difference so we just went into the channel and the gates are up here all right that's the barrier building and we're going over it cool another sci-fi looking building over there little anti-climatic that's what a $4 billion barrier looks like billion 4 billion dollar it's not done yet all right there we are I need to find Aon and move the boat or I do it tomorrow maybe but I'm going to go find it or at least now so I found my spot it's just over here right by the gate so that should be nice close to the bathrooms and showers and whatever here's our spot for the winter and I got all my clothes drying out cuz everything got wet on my trip over here so I've got to take off this head sail and get everything packed up for the win winter and add a bunch more lines and stuff if I could find some like chafe pads for that would be good [Music] too [Music] I just got scolded for sitting down so strict here [Music] oh I just uh went up to the office and settled up the bill at the Boatyard and uh for 6 months winter boat storage in Venice Italy uh ,300 which is just a amazingly good deal um I got to give a shout out to my friend Isaac here who uh he called around a bunch of marinas and got me a bunch of different quotes and stuff and just next door this marina maybe was a fancy one I'm not sure I I'm going to go check it out because they wanted €2,000 was a month and this is uh300 for the whole the whole winter so I I decided to keep it in the water it was even a little less if I wanted to have it out of the water but I just like to leave the boat in the water you know so it really pays to uh look around when you're uh finding a place for your boat I found the same like a lot of places you can find a marina that's I think it's like a boat club boat clubs seem to be sometimes less sometimes they can be a lot more too if they're like a fancy boat club that wants to be more expensive but prices can be all over the place for storing your boat and this is a really nice uh spot to keep it well Venice even has ambulance boats and a firebat and I've even seen a FedEx and a DHL boat then I went to the architectural Art Exhibit a bunch of weird and Arty Arty stuff here you know not sure not sure what to think of it looks a little like mold to me for that TI it also got me into the the Arsenal which was a pretty impressive building they were building so many shifts every day here at one point and of course a bunch of uh art stuff art stuff there too check out those arms man I'm preparing pickle hearing for the winter doing a bunch of jobs I got the the jib packed away taking everything out of the front I'm going to give the whole boat a scrub down with some vinegar and bleach and just try to avoid the mold situation like I had last year and I think I'll try to I'll leave one of the fans on on low just so it can just have some more air circulation I think the solar panel should be able to keep up with that in the winter we'll have both the anti filing electric so all all the the solar panels we need to power will be the fan the electric anti filing and the village pumps and uh I guess I do have a I think I might be able to monitor it with my vac crew and it's bad I both it gets too low I can have someone come over and turn off the fans maybe all right you can see these hatches I've seen better days I'm going to I think probably just cleaning the seals will make a pretty big difference what happens is you get like the salt kind of in here and that seems to leak yeah it's leaking over here maybe and just all the moles and stuff I never come up here so I never never really see it way up there pretty bad too all right at Le pickled hering for the winter now and I'm off to Norway thanks for sing along with me hope you enjoyed uh the trip through the Mediterranean last video of this season but we'll be more coming up so make sure you're subscribed and if you really got something out of the video want to buy me a drink there's links for how you can do that in the description too uh so I'll see you guys next time thanks for watching

Channel: Sam Holmes Sailing

Views: 109,786

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Id: m_JU57jMrP4

Length: 33min 35sec (2015 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2024