Our first Trip across the English Channel

Timeless
Tue 8 May 2012 17:25
Position:  50:45:41N  01:31:83W
Lymington, England
 

..a “tongue in cheek” recollection of our trip across the English Channel back to England

 

The distance is about 85 miles across the English Channel to Lymington on the south coast of England and we had to cross (or ‘transit’ as we ‘ol sea dogs like to say) the shipping lanes - one of the busiest in the world. In fact, I noticed 10-15 ships and tankers within range of our AIS most of the time ..and I can tell you they get REALLY REALLY big as you get within a few miles of them ..gulp!  

(‘thinks’ .. now then, what are you meant to do?  ..oh yes, ”give right of way and make clear and decisive action, I think”. They are bigger than us after all.   Les! Les! ?)

 

You have to take notice of the current in the English Channel as it goes from East to West and back with the tides at anything up to 4 knots. Oh no!  That means traveling over 80 miles at a comfortable 6 knots that’s about 12 hours x 3 knots = 39 miles we could drift off course! Best keep pointing ‘sort of’ towards the Caribbean I think so that end up going north.

 

To get to Lymington we decided to pass through the “Alderney Race” as you pass Cherbourg, France and the Isle of Alderney. This has huge currents at up to 7+ knots. Wow! We should have popped wakeboards on the boat.  Did the boat move fast!  ..was it the current or was it just the excellent sail trim?

 

The sail across was uneventful. We had to the raise a yellow ‘Q Flag’ as we entered UK waters to headed through the Needles Channel to reach our final destination of Lymington – Gosh! Excellent sail trim really made the boat fly again.

The tidal current was a detail, honest!

 

We approached Lymington via a high traffic, very narrow small channel used by car ferries bound to and from the Isle of Wight. At that time there was was actually a ferry departing. It was about this time that we were beginning to see how much larger our boat gets the nearer you get to other boats - and hard objects!

“Les? do you fancy take a turn on the helm?”

“Honest Les, our boat really isn’t 100 feet long and 25 feet wide and you might like a practice!”

 

We successfully negotiated our berth and reported in to British customs as a BVI flagged sailboat with nothing to declare, "honest Gov!"

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