Terry's Report of the Biscay Crossing

Christine's Atlantic Circuit
Peter Lansdale
Fri 1 Jul 2016 21:05

Plymouth to La Coruna

We arrived at Plymouth Yacht Haven Marina on Saturday 25th June ; did the final boat prep, bent on the two foresails, did the final shopping and had a meal at the Clovelly Bay Inn. Good grub.

Dep 1130 Sun 26th.

The weather was set fair for a Sunday am departure, not too early, and we set sail mid morning.

The forecast was West SW 3/4 veering northerly the further west we went. The sea state was good and we made steady progress 6/7 knts with full main and genoa. The plan was to sail west to meet the northerlies and leave Ushant to port and carry on downwind to La Coruna. The watch system was implemented.

This was three hours on in the day and two hours on at night. The rotation was Peter L, Terry, Andy, Peter N. I took the afternoon watch 1600 to 1900.

We steered close hauled as high as we could without jeopardising speed but the forecasted northerlies never materialised and we were unable we could not make Ushant so we made for L'Aberwrach arriving off the coast at 0700 and entering the Marina at 0900 on the Monday.

 

A pleasant sunny day was spent in the marina, (with no charge!) as the forecast and tides were in our favour for an evening start so we set off at 1900 Mon evening. With little wind we motor sailed to Ushant. At 2200 I handed over to Andy, we were just off the north east of Ushant and retired to my bunk. The course was to sail south of Ushant and miss Chanel du Four I woke for my next watch at 0600 to find we were South of Ushant with still light winds but we were on course to cross Biscay. The winds started to fill in with SW 3 to start but gradually increased to 4/5. The sea state was smooth and the winds varied between 15 to 20 knots.

The hydrovane self steering worked well and we sailed with the jib and 1 reef; the wind came and went and we soon found that shaking the reef out and putting it back in every half hour became tedious and we had no real loss of boat speed, varying between 6 and 8 knots. The wind kept the same direction at 4/5 strength. We the northerlies never came and as we closed the Spanish coast we realised that we could not lay La Coruna. so after sailing for 2 days we sailed a course to Vivero. We arrived at 1200 Thursday morning 30th, having motored sailed the last hour as the wind died away as we approached the coast. We logged 404 miles averaging 6.3 knts. Vivero is a fishing port / village. The marina facilities ok but not startling, only 2 heads and 2 showers but clean.

We wandered around the town and discovered they were having a tapas festival. We had a beer and looked for a restaurant. Having found one that looked ok it was a bit of a disaster. No one spoke English and our Spanish was none existant. We would have been better eating from the many stalls in the square which were serving a variety of pizzas pies etc. We were to quickly find that the locals ordered main courses that were shared by all on the table, a bit like a Chinese banquet!

 

Terry