Plymouth (UK) to Brest (France)
Oldnick
Fri 5 Jul 2002 12:00
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95 miles
in 12 hours!
Phew! We made it safely to Brest but what a trip...
The 'Force 6' WNW wind most of the way made for a bit of a lumpy old sea.
It was this first half of the trip that we averaged 8
knots.
Our original plan was to leave Plymouth on the
Sunday and drop in to the Scilly Isles for a couple of nights before heading to
Brest. But due to a few technical glitches and the glorious English summer
weather which had been nothing but strong winds and rain, we ended up
being stuck in Plymouth for longer than we planned (just the vagaries of
sailing I guess). Once the problems with the self-steering and battery charging
system (fairly important systems!) were fixed it was just down to the weather.
Craig realised we had a small weather window where the winds were NorthWesterly,
which happened to occur minutes after the self-steering was fixed. So off we
sailed, with some help from Richard and Andy in extracting ourselves from the
windy marina (thanks guys!).
And didn't we need the self-steering! With just
Craig and I (Karyn!) on a 2 hour up 2 hour down watch system it was an absolute
god-send. It was my little ray of sunshine out there in the rough
seas, rain and freezing wind. Under the comfort of the sprayhood
I would think "if it wasn't for Lucy (as we call the self-steering) I would have
to be out there right now". Craig said he'd never seen so much water being
dumped in the cockpit, which is normally a very dry place. There were no gourmet
meals on this trip, only pot noodles - which amazingly were spotted several
hours later on the sidedeck...
We'll be here in Brest for a couple of days, then
for the trip to Spain we're hoping for a North Westerly Force 4. Yeah right -
just seen the forecast and the winds are coming in from the South for the next
few days!
Yachty
Details:
Departed (Plymouth): 1400 BST Wednesday
July 3, 2002
Arrived (Brest): 1200 BST Thursday July 4,
2002
Total Distance: 140 miles
Total Time: 22 hours
Total Avg Speed: 6.4 knots, (reduced by plugging
the tide through the Chenal du Four)
Conditions: WNW 6, moderate-rough seas (1.5-2.5m),
3m swell. Reducing to W 4, slight seas (1m) nearing France.
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