The start!
Trippwire
Sat 19 Sep 2009 17:25
Welcome to the
blog!
After a very busy
few weeks, we finally got the boat back into the water on 9th September, the
mast back in on the 10th of September and at the same time we loaded all our
gear and 9 months of basic supplies onto the boat.
From the River
Hamble, our first trip was to Beaulieu for the RCC meet......the outside of the
boat was looking relatively organised, however, the inside was a different
story, with boxes, cases, bags etc etc everywhere....now, I know that I don't
have a great reputation for tidiness, but this surpassed anything that
I have managed before in the untidiness stakes! (Dom, you would have
been horrified - the chart table not only had sets of keys on it - it was piled
high with books, spanners, computers etc etc etc!) In the end, we just put
whatever we could into the pilot berths and forward cabin and netted them off;
not quite out of sight out of mind, but as close as you can get on a boat, and
tried our best to avoid any interested visitors. Those that did come along were
very charitable, but I am sure must have left rather
horrified!
Beaulieu -
Falmouth
We got up early on
Monday 14th September and finally set sail for Dartmouth. We had a fantastic
sail, indeed one of the best ever, with winds from the North and did a steady 10
knots across Christchurch bay, hit the tide gate at Portland and were going so
well that we decided to continue onto Falmouth, arriving at midnight...pretty
good going for a 150 mile trip.
Our plan was to
spend a week or so in Falmouth doing some sorting, and I also had a couple more
days to do back in the office; however as I am beginning to understand, plans
and boats rarely seems to align themselves. On waking up the following morning
and going through the weather charts, we could see a continuation of the
North Easterlies, but a rather forbidding low pressure scudding across the
Atlantic and a further intense depression behind it. So we decided to go for it.
The only issue was that we had lined up a friend to help us across our first
major passage, but he could not make the changed timetable. My father, without
prompting offered to come along, which given that the last time he did Biscay
was in a force 9, was a very generous offer, which was very much
appreciated.
Falmouth - La
Corunna
Biscay was a bit of
a branding with fire. The force 5-7 that was forecast was there, was there in
spades and a bit of force 8, the first 36 hours we were more survival mode
than anything else. The most important occasion being Jennifer's first watch
alone...done in 40 knots and at night (I don't think that I want to ask whether
at that point she having second thoughts about coming on the trip with
me...let alone saying yes to getting married, but she was fantastic!)! The
only breakage being pulling out the kicker from the mast, and a very
uncomfortable downwind ride, but with 3 reefs in the main, a scrap of Genoa out,
the autohelm did an exceptional job with a peak surf registered at 14 knots, the
order of the day being to slow things down! The last 24 hours were rather more sedate,
with the wind on the quarter, and the motor having to push us
along.
After a pretty quick
2 1/2 day trip across Biscay, we arrived at La Corunna in time for a brunch of
Sangria.
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