Leaving for Gijon
Lera(hen3ry)
Malcolm Cann
Sat 16 Jun 2007 23:05
On Wednesday 14th June at 1210 I left for Gijon North West Spain.
I had decided this because if I did it I would gain some 80 miles over
going via Santander while only having to do an extra 50 miles.
Santander was/is 202 miles Gijon is 258 miles
I believed that my fuel tank would not be sufficient for the distance
unless I made every effort to conserve fuel all the time at the cost of
time, so I decided to sail as much as possible.
When I left it was the middle of a thunder and lightening storm with
lots of rain and a wind of about 15 kts, the weather had predicted somewhere
about force 4 5 increasing to 6 or 7 towarrds the end of the period, it all
sounds good, so, to get me clear of the locals and put me in the correct
position for the wind I motored the first 11.4 miles at about 4.5 kts. In
doing this I motored myself into brilliant sunshine and ZERO wind, however
when I got to the appropriate point I set all the sails and turned off the
engine, fine , my log, which I had fixed?, show speed as 0.9 kts and the GPS
gave SOG as 1.1 kts, I had said at the cost of time.
This continued for about three hours when the wind vanished completely
and I had to start the engine just to move, I was running the engine below
1000 rpm to get max econmy and it was giving me about 0.9 kts on the log and
1.1 kts on the GPS. I continued doing this for 48 hrs, at the end of which I
had used sails alone for a grand total of 7.5 hrs, This was not a good
enough
economy so I changed my destination to Santander. By this time there was a
different problem the battery was going flat because at less than 1000 rpm
the engine doesn't charge but just maintains the voltage, so I turned every
unnecessary item, including the laptop and cooler and ran the engine a touch
faster. This allowed all the essentials to work while sailing. Prior to this
I had tried to start the engine on a flat battery and of course it had
tripped all the instruments so I lost some info, so what. The speed started
dropping off again about 2000 on Thursday evening, this time the engine on
low speed (1000) couldn't make headway so I opted to abandon, and head
somewhere totally different the choice was between Arcochon and Port Médoc:
To go to Arcochon meant having to cross the "Landes Range" whereas Port
Médoc was a clear run, I opted for Port Médoc some 53 miles, I headed off
running the engine at about 1000 rpm, still very cautious about the amount
of fuel I had. This was all very boring and I had everything running again
as the engine was now charging. Some 20 miles and 7 hrs later the wind
started up again. For a while now I had been watching this storm coming up
behind me, and this wind was obviously the edge of it so I did nothing with
the sails. After a short while of the wind, now about 17 kts and the sea not
flat anymore the ST2000 threw up its arms in disgust and stopped working, I
started to change over to my standby ST1000 when the rain started and even
more wind and more sea, as soon as I had the spare installed I retired to
the cabin and got things under control, but had to increase the engine power
quite considerably, putting my fuel at even more risk, so I thought.
The rain,thunder and lightening didn't last all that long but the sea it
left behind, persuaded me that I should be ready with the EPIRB and
liferaft. there wasn't much I could do except keep plodding on watching
these waves towering over me. When I finally arrived at the Gironde entrance
I found that it was low tide and that I couldn't get over the protecting
bank before 1400 and it was now about 1200, I couldn't just sit there so I
started towards the ship channel, by now some over the waves were actually
breaking over me, especially the one which came straight in the hatch, yeuk.
I was now pleased I had done the mods that my last survey had suggested of
locking the lower hatch panel in place and fixing down the engine cover and
batteries. Finally I got there and sneaked through as far off the side as I
dare, but still got roasted verbally by one ship, even so my depth gauge
read 1.77 metres, I need 1.4, and this made me believe that had I gone
straight across the waves would have grounded me. Other than the storm there
were a couple of incidents and imagined ones. One imagined was that I
hadn't got enough fuel, when I stopped my tank gauge was still reading half
full,
and when the wind speed was reading zero and I could see the flag fluttering
I
imagined the anemometer was hanging down the mast, it wasn't. The real
problems
were this ST2000+, Raymarine say return it but I would never see it again
and I
need it. The other problem was that the tiller-pin came out of the tiller
and could
have really been a disaster if I hadn't spotted it quickly. I intend to glue
it in place with
a well known glue and then put a screw through the tiller and the pin, I
hope that will
fix it! I arrived at Port Médoc at about 1600 and obeyed the instructions
to berth
on the "Accueil" pontoon, book in and be allocated a real berth, this took
about
an hour and I was surveying the mess at 1800, when all I wanted to do was
sleep I had to start tidying up, serves me right!