Interruption in transmission
Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Thu 26 Oct 2017 16:02
They got off to a reasonable start 100 plus boats but the wind died as they headed north to Sicily the route we had just come and many of them struggled to get through the Straits of Messina but once round the corner and heading for the Aeolian Islands around Stromboli things changed and owing to The Mistral a northerly wind they had huge gales ( jolly glad I wasn’t out sailing !) and many of the boats retired however the big boys - Rambler, Hugo Boss and Leopard plus several others made it round in 2.5 days or Just over , others followed and today Wednesday the last boat was heading home plus several of the retired boats who didn’t make it round Sicily and some didn’t even get through the Straits owing to no wind. How quickly it can change as we have discovered on this trip
The strong northerly wind was due to cold air rushing down from the Alps down the Rhône Valley and out into the Med - The Mistral. Below is the snow I saw on the Alps flying back Tuesday .
We shall be setting sail back to Sicily this coming Sunday hoping this is a period of calm before more windy weather however it would seem there might be quite a swell out there so potentially not the quiet crossing we had coming over.
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