Tag Archives: Camaret

Eileen of Avoca is on her way to South America!

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Swedish training ship?

It took more than three months (don’t ask, it’s a sorry tale of bungling incompetence), let’s just say better late than never… Eileen is now officially on route for her trans-Atlantic voyage. Hurray!

Leaving the Solent at the first available weather window, Eileen raced for France. Stiff northeasterly winds over a spring tide made for a lively crossing but a Yarmouth23 in Force 5 conditions or above is in its element.

Arriving in Cherbourg, I spent the next few days carrying out some thorough boat checks, as this was effectively Eileen’s first sea trial after refit.

Small issues abound, but none are show stoppers, so I’ll spare you the details and just go about sorting them out on route. I’m late enough heading south as it is and can’t afford to stay any longer in these northern latitudes.

I said my goodbyes to family and friends, took a few obligatory tourist photos of statues, churches and interesting boats, before making haste for Camaret (some 170NM away).

On the subject of interesting boats, above is a picture of a Swedish tall ship that arrived before noon. Despite my best efforts (often claimed by others to be somewhat half-hearted), to track down the young crew for traditional Nordic offerings of raw herring and vodka, I had to settle for an evening dining alone. Pork stew, some local red wine and only my plastic nodding dog for conversation. Woe is me… 🙂

Keeping warm at sea

Things started to get a little more interesting on route to Camaret. With weakening Force 2 to 3 northwesterly winds, I motored from Cherbourg through moderate seas and on into the night.

Now you may wonder, what does one do, (from moment to moment) while sailing all alone for several days at a time.

Sailing blogs usually describe similar voyages as rough, uncomfortable, uneventful or with words to that effect, which really does little to shed light on what it’s really like out there, especially for an audience of landlubbers. Well, here is my attempt to demystify the going ons at sea during all those lonely hours.

We do nothing…

Well, as close to nothing as is feasible. There is lots of work leaving (or arriving at) port with ropes to tend to, sails to hoist, fenders to stow away and auto-pilots to set, but that takes all of ten to fifteen minutes if you really try hard to savor the tasks and move with sloth-like speed.

So, what happens next?

I may be giving away a trade secret here but I suspect that most skippers just try to look confidently busy…

My own strategy is to play around with my hand-held GPS making an indefinite series of unnecessary 3 degree course corrections at the tiller-pilot. I follow this up with occasional visits to the navigation table where I scribble brief log entries like so:

Time Order Steer Log Wind & Weather Baro Fix Remarks

01:30 230° 230° 81.8 NW F2 Choppy 1019 49°15′ – 003°30′ Warship!

Moving about from one seating arrangement to another is also a favourite pastime of mine. My behind can really only take so many hours in any one position, so having a short lie down below deck with occasional “Jack-in-the-box” style getting up to look outside, features prominently in my “things to do at sea” repertoire.

It's alive! Kill it....

If it’s not too rough, I have a go at cooking… On route this mostly involves adding more of whatever I have (rice, potatoes, broccoli, or anything else that might go off soon due to the lack of refrigeration), into yesterdays unfinished stew, then boiling it to kingdom come. Kills anything that was attempting to grow in there of its own accord and keeps me warm. After several days, if I still think it might spontaneously crawl out of the pot despite regular high temperature disinfection, I add lots of hot chili or Indian spices for good measure. Let’s see what can live through that!

Ah yes, keeping warm, another great sailing pastime up north. As it gets late, surprise surprise, it gets cold, and I have to keep adding layers of clothing if I am to stave off pneumonia. Usually by 4am I am twice the girth I was during daylight hours and layered like a babushka doll!

So apart from the other two necessities in life, the physical gymnastics involved being a subject I’d rather not elaborate on, that’s it. No mobile phone, no “I’m just ducking out to the shops for a moment”, and no taking the dog for walks. Exciting isn’t it? Now you know why nobody usually bothers to write about it…

Having said that…. odd things do happen on route breaking the monotony.

Take that extract from my logbook detailed above. It’s 1:30 in the morning. There is no evidence of any shipping on my radar detector or newly installed AIS receiver when suddenly I’m called up on the VHF radio and ordered to identify myself to a French warship! Peeking out of the companionway I see the ominous grey silhouette of an unlit vessel to starboard and check my position on the GPS to see if it really is me they wish to talk with. Apparently it is!

It turned out to be little more than a check to see where I had come from, where I was going, and if everything was well, but it did have me worried for a moment.

Water spout in The Channel

Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you about the tornado… Or should I say, waterspout (to be technically correct). That beast passed within a mile of Eileen earlier in the afternoon…

There I was, just three miles NW of Alderney, when a solitary dark cloud started producing twisters in what was until then, just a beautiful sunny day!

I didn’t think these things happened in the Channel. I had enough time to take a couple of snapshots, with my camera, but you will have to excuse me for not waiting for a better closeup. I had a few details to tend to before it reached me: Getting my sails set for storm winds and battening down the hatches for starters. Just when I was ready to go below and tell my newly dubbed plastic nodding dog “Toto” that we might not be in Kansas anymore, the monster unwound itself and disappeared. Freak weather anomaly and untold boating episode from “The wizard of OZ” over in a matter of minutes.

To my great relief I did nothing more than the “nothing” described above for the remainder of my trip to Camaret.

Sailing from Camaret sur Mer to Dartmouth

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Fog approaching, 'Le Four' France

Chasing a fresh supply of French wines had me running late for my planned 3pm departure from Camaret (to catch the appropriate tidal stream through the “Chenal du Four”), but I still managed to be the first of several yachts converging on “Pointe de St-Mathieu” for the turn of the tide. A few south bound stragglers rounded “Les Vieux Moines” as I approached, and surprisingly, one even stopped to say hello.

It was Damian from Dartmouth on his yacht Simba. I’d met Damian in La Coruna crewing for Riviera Magic, and here he was again sailing his own yacht to Camaret. Small world! I wonder who else I’ll chance upon at sea when sailing back to Portugal in July.

Despite Damian’s warnings of dense fog off Ouessant (also broadcast in a special bulletin on VHF 16), I decided to risk the poor visibility in order to reach England before even worse weather arrived.

My plan was to be well clear of the tidal stream in ‘le Four’ before a forecast breeze of 10 to 15kts veered north. Three other yachts apparently had the same idea as they quickly motor-sailed past Eileen despite my best efforts to maintain our top speed of 5 to 6kts. Shortly after overtaking us, the yachts disappeared into a broadening bank of gray mist to the north.

The forecast northerlies and the fog arrived early, making for an uncomfortably wet ride through mist on agitated seas, but fortunately the disagreeable conditions were short lived.

Curiously, (as the visibility improved), I found that the yachts that had previously overtaken us (off St. Mathew), were now behind us… In just 20 minutes, Eileen of Avoca had outdistanced the lot!

How we managed to pass everyone in the fog remains a complete mystery. I can only imagine that cloaked in heavy mist Eileen must have felt brazen enough to lift her seaweed ruffles and make a dash for the lead while nobody was looking. 🙂

Sunset at Start Point

Thirty hours later I found myself off Start Point enjoying the sunset on my approach to Dartmouth. With Eileen’s lackadaisical pace, I get to see a lot of sunsets, something I’m sure only other Yarmouth23 owners can truly appreciate.

‘Enjoy your sunsets at sea with a Yarmouth23’ ought to appear on the sales literature.

A synonym for ‘don’t count on getting to port before dark in a 23ft gaffer that weighs almost three tons!’ 😉

But at least I arrived in Dartmouth safely!

Crossing the Bay of Biscay in a small boat

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General weather situation for Bay of Biscay crossing

Crossing Biscay wasn’t something I was willing to take on without careful preparation. I spent hours sifting through my pilot books studying approaches to suitable bolt-holes and checking the tides for destinations as varied as Audierne to the north and La Rochelle to the northeast.

The prevailing weather conditions (winds with a northerly aspect and corresponding swell), would not make the passage trivial, and given the frequency of storms, it is not surprising that it took a week of sheltering in Gijon before a suitable three day weather window presented itself.

Gijon was my chosen jump-off point because it shortened my crossing by at least 24hrs (compared with La Coruna), and maximized options for changing my destination on route.

As a large high pressure system approached Biscay offering north westerly winds and settled conditions (see weather-fax) I committed Eileen of Avoca to the crossing.

The idea was to head north as quickly as possible and try to stay ahead of the high pressure system’s center. I was only partly successful.

After a marvelous 24hr run in steady Force 4 winds, covering more than 100NM under sail alone, I stalled in light variable winds. Apparently it was not fast or far enough to outrun the high. The next two days were spent motor sailing, maintaining 4 to 4.5kts, a speed necessary to avoid being caught by the cold front strengthening in the Atlantic.

That’s the official line. I’d like to embellish it further and add volumes on the discomforts endured and how only fine seamanship and the luck of the Irish (I’m figuring that Eileen of Avoca qualifies for this), saved us from a certain doom as we fought a savage sea against a lee shore. But I’ll save that version for my retirement.

The unofficial version (for your eyes only) goes something like this:

I spent hours pouring over my pilot books because there is nothing else in the way of reading material on Eileen, and I stayed in Gijon a week because I didn’t want to be rained upon on route.

The approaching high pressure system equated to an inconsequential swell,which suits me fine because I can keep my food down better when I’m not being violently shaken about.

Swallow visiting Eileen for the night

My marvelous run was spent deciding what to eat next (at sardine sandwich o’clock or half past cold roast chicken), and dozing, because heading directly north from Gijon allows you to miss most of the shipping traffic (my radar detector bleeped only once).

All I had to do was stay on the boat and amuse myself while Eileen did the rest. Hardly an epic journey.

Apart from a surreal “Hitchcock birds” moment or two as increasing numbers of exhausted swallows noisily settled both on and in Eileen each night (in the most unlikely of places), it was delightfully uneventful. Dull is always good when sailing.

As soon as I see the first item in NAVTEXT transmissions taken on route stating “No Warning”, I know I can relax into my semi-catatonic solo passage making stupor. Here is one that almost threatens to be moderately interesting with its mention of fog and rain, but upon closer examination doesn’t quite manage it:

ZCZC AE81

181200 UTC MAY 10

BAY OF BISCAY BULLETIN (METAREA 2)

METEO-FRANCE

TUE 18 MAY 2010 AT 09 UTC.

WIND IN BEAUFORT

1 : NO WARNING

2 : GENERAL SYNOPSIS, TUE 18 AT 00 UTC

LOW 983 48N45W, MOV SE, EXP 995 47N40W BY 19/00 UTC THEN 998 49N35W

BY 19/12UTC. ASSOCIATED DISTURBANCE OVER E FARADAY, ALTAIR, NW

ACORES AND W ROMEO. HIGH AREA 1030-1032 FM NE IRVING TO BRITANNY ,

WKN IN S, EXP 1033 IN BAY OF BISCAY BY 19/12UTC. LOW 1013 OVER

MORROCCO WITH LITTLE CHANGE.

3 : FCST TO WED 19 AT 12 UTC

IROISE, YEU :

N OR NW 2 TO 4, BECMG VRB OR NE 1 TO 3 LATER. SLGT OR MOD. RAIN

AT FIRST IN N. MOD.

ROCHEBONNE :

MAINLY N 2 OR 3 , TEMPO NW 4 IN E SOON, VEER NE LATER. SLGT OR

MOD. MOD.

CANTABRICO :

MAINLY N 2 TO 4 IN E, BUT E 3 OR 4 IN W. SLGT OR MOD.

FINISTERRE :

NE 4 TO 6. MOD. LOC MOD.

PAZENN :

IN NW: SW 4 OR 5, OCNL 6 AT FIRST, DECR 3 OR 4 LATER. ELSEWHERE :

VRB CLOCKWISE 2 OR 3. MOD. RAIN IN N AT FIRST. FOG PATCHES.

4 : TEND FOR NEXT 24 H

NO GALE EXP.

NNNN