Alderney
Tillymint.fortescue
Fri 24 Jul 2009 13:59
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Tilly Mint's first voyage outside the Solent: from
Lymington to Alderney & Beyond!!
There would be no narrative of a voyage in the
British Isles complete without a chapter or two on the weather and this is no exception. The week preceding our departure
was a tale of gales and more gales and repetitive low pressure systems hogging
the shipping forecasts. Not nice weather for a sail and we managed to
procrastinate upon the topic of departure with the assistance of a last minute
dash to London to acquire a new passport for Hugo. However by Tuesday 21 July we
had run out of excuses, the galley was fully stocked with
biscuits, the wind showed signs of calming (although it
would be blowing straight out of Braye Harbour which was a little unfortunate)
and it was forecast to be a dry day. The cunning plan was to cross the
Channel in convoy with our friends Christine & Stuart aboard the Jazzy
Herb, also making her maiden channel crossing, so there were lots of
reasons (not least the 5 children comprising our crews) why we all wanted
it to be plain sailing. The day mostly went according to plan in that we arrived
in Alderney by the end of it; however we got off a bit late and met up
with some very obstinate tides south of the shipping lanes which, combined with
wind on nose, meant the motors went on to prevent an unplanned extended
voyage via New York. And as for that forecast of a mostly dry day....enough
said, skipper spent a sodden day at the helm and was rather
underwhelmed with offers to relieve him of his watch. The rest of the crew
assumed customary positions under the sprayhood (aka pramhood) with fleece
blankets and biscuit tin and the skipper was heard to remark "remind me again
why I enjoy sailing?"
We arrived in Braye just as light was fading,
dropped anchor, poured wine, boiled pasta and wrang out the skipper. We had lost
contact with The Jazzy Herb mid channel and even wondered if she had turned
back, but much to our delight a call came in just after 11pm to say
that she was approaching the harbour and did we have any top tips about
parking in the dark? We offered to have them raft up alongside but Stuart had
concerns for our paintwork so confidently headed for a mooring based
on Christine's assertion that she was "good at picking up buoys in
harbours". I didn't want to doubt her talents but wondered how she'd get
on given that the pubs were now shut. That night we all slept and, because
this is a tale mostly about weather, woke the next morning to sunshine, then
cloud, then rain. We did go the beach and the younger members of the crew did go
in the sea and we ended the day once again cold and wet. The next day the
sun shone and the sight of the little people in the sea looked less eccentric
than it had the day before.
As all good narratives have a sub plot so shall
ours; it is on a theme of teething problems, or snagging, or things that don't
quite work right. Our boat is the first of her kind and we have departed for
foreign shores with a just a couple of aspects of the design and build not quite
"bedded in". Today (Friday) we had a visit from a very helpful chap who has
fined tuned our navigation system to remove a less than endearing
alarm that we couldn't turn off and we are expecting another visit to have our
saloon blinds fitted. In my extensive reading about the voyages of daring
single-handed circumnaviagtions there has been little or no mention of saloon
blinds so I am confident that our voyage could continue unhindered without them
although I do worry that the wood fading. Much more dramatic though is our
dinghy and the davits from which she is launched. It was wholly unexpected that,
as we launched the dinghy for the first time, she started to fill up with
water. Purposeful bailing commenced in the finest tradition of King
Canute until the words "she's sinking" were uttered and we set about
hauling the dinghy back up on the davits. Next crisis, the dinghy wouldn't
clear the transom; bang, crash and dinged paintwork
as 330kgs of dinghy and outboard wedged themselves underneath the
boat. Not good. The wind and choppy water didn't help, but the sea is like that
sometimes and our dinghy recovery system was
showing all the hallmarks of a guaranteed means by which to send a man
overboard. Eventually we persuaded the inflated
ego of the dinghy to dangle as nature intended but not before our favourite boat
hook was lost in action. It turned out that there was a bung missing from the
hull of the dinghy which explained the sinking feeling. The bung is now replaced
and we are awaiting the execution of a cunning plan from the boat builders
to prevent any further "dinghy wedgies".
Life aboard goes on around these little dramas - we
are all adjusting to that slighly soporific tippy rocky feeling that comes
with being at anchor, the children are grappling their way towards the goal of
harmony and friendship in confined spaces, the skipper is trying to passage plan
the Bay of Biscay between frets about the dinghy and I am writing my blog
without the aid of a spell check (so apologies for random arrangements of
letters that go undetected).
The sun is shining now and they said we'd have some
fun when it stopped raining..so time to head for the beach
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