Early Summer on the French Atlantic Coast” Cruising to La Rochelle and Back – May/June 2016
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“Early summer on the French Atlantic coast” Cruising to La Rochelle and back – May/June 2016 The original idea For several seasons I’d toyed with the idea of sailing across the Bay of Biscay to La Coruna, then turning round and coming back – just because it sounded like fun and the Biscay passage really appealed. In 2014 I’d considered it as a work-up cruise for our trip to the Azores, but there really wasn’t time to do everything all in one year. In 2015 the season was shaped around cruising to the Scottish west coast, so not the right direction for Biscay. Throughout that time the charts had been in a folio under a bed at home waiting to be used. So in 2016 I decided I must cruise to Galicia. The original idea was to have a brief stop in western Brittany before crossing directly to La Coruna; head straight down to the Portuguese border; cruise slowly north again, exploring the Rias Baixas, back to La Coruna; cross the Bay of Biscay to La Rochelle (another place that appealed); follow the French coast north west, then head home. I envisaged a cruise of about 6-7 weeks’ duration. However, as is so often the case, events conspired to prevent it all happening in one go. I launched Rosinis later than I’d hoped, having held on and on waiting for a bespoke solar panel to be delivered; a multitude of small things began to squeeze the time window; and I particularly wanted to be back for mid to late June for various family gatherings and birthdays. It was clear that some re-scheduling was required and it didn’t take long to come up with a plan to sail to La Rochelle and back via the French coast and offshore islands over the course of about a month. This would get me home again by mid-June. From mid-July I would then head directly to Galicia, spend some time there, and return by a similarly direct route. The additional attraction of the revised plan was that it opened up the opportunity for a few more people to join me in the second period who couldn’t make the dates of the first. Apart from my normal, fairly rigorous, winter maintenance programme and a number of general modifications and improvements, my main focus during the lay-up period had been on electrical systems and battery charging. Although the long-awaited solar panel wasn’t available for this cruise, I was looking forward to seeing the effect of a new Merlin alternator management system that promised to boost-charge the batteries at over 14v when necessary as part of a multi-stage charging programme, and being able to monitor battery state accurately by means of a Smartgauge, also produced by Merlin. I’d also replaced the engine mounts, installed a flexible shaft coupling and an earthing brush on the prop shaft, which were still causing some concern, with a slight ‘graunching’ noise at certain revs, as if the shaft were rubbing on metal. This log covers the trip to La Rochelle and back; the Galicia cruise is covered separately. The chart on the following page shows our outbound route and ports of call. Despite my best efforts to invite crew, the challenges of availability and shortage of airports close to potential crew change ports meant that I sailed to La Rochelle two-handed, accompanied by Steve Shergold, who knew Rosinis well having spent a week on board the previous year in Scotland. Rosinis on the Club pontoon ready to go 1 Outbound to La Rochelle (16th to 27th May 2016) By mid-May we were ready to go and on 16th Steve picked me up from home and we made our way to Marchwood where Rosinis was still on her mooring. By lunch time we were on board and moored on the Club pontoon. There was no particular hurry, as the ebb tide from the Solent didn’t start running until after 1900, so we stowed gear, sorted ourselves out, made a further adjustment to the prop shaft, and eventually cast off at 1650. It was a slow goose-winged run down to Calshot against the last of the flood and we then found ourselves unexpectedly beating down the western Solent, fortunately by now with a On our way 2 fair tide. By 2100, at last light, we were passing Yarmouth, and an hour later we cleared Bridge Buoy and SW Shingles and set off into the Channel. Sadly the wind gradually dropped and by midnight we were motoring, adjusting engine revs to minimise the shaft noise. Settling into a 3 hour watch system (with a few occasional variations) our motoring in a WSW direction continued until just after 0700 and included a few more attempts on my part to sort the shaft noise, but without success. By breakfast time we were able to sail again, initially motor sailing, and we gradually converged on the Casquets Traffic Separation Scheme. Soon we tacked onto port to keep clear of the TSS and we were almost immediately lifted on to an almost due west course, which held throughout the day until, around 1700, we could see land on our starboard bow from Berry Head down to Start Point. Someone must have been on our side! By now the tide was against us, so we tacked south onto a heading of 190M to avoid the stronger adverse stream off the headlands, but were still hit hard by the tide. The late afternoon forecast gave W-SW 4-5 occasionally 6-7, but by 2000 we were well to the west of the Casquets TSS and had cleared the west bound traffic lane, still beating with about 20 knots over the deck. By 2330 we were almost through the east bound lane when we had to tack between two large ships to avoid the second whose intentions were very unclear. Shortly after, we tacked back onto our southerly course and put in one reef all round as the wind began to rise. So it continued throughout a long night. At 0320 we tacked back to the west and made good progress parallel to the north Breton coast until daylight, still with one reef all round and the wind holding steady at F5, so possibly slightly over-canvassed. Visibility was not good overall and reduced considerably as heavy showers passed through from the south west, which we tacked to avoid when we could. Suddenly, at 0920, a massive squall hit us, announced by the noise of torrential rain beating on the deck, coach roof and sprayhood, followed almost immediately with a gust of almost 40 knots. Still with one reef all round we were pinned over on our port side and held there for what seemed like minutes but was probably no more than seconds. There was nothing we could do as reducing sail in that state was not a practical proposition, so we hovered in the companionway to avoid the worst of the downpour. Throughout, the sea was strangely smooth, beaten flat by the rain, and the port side cockpit seat was full of water to the coaming, submerging one of the cockpit speakers and the Autohelm control panel. The standard Rustler 36 has no means of draining the port cockpit seat (the starboard seat drains via the locker lid apertures which are angled downwards), so a few years previously I’d added a drain tube to duct water from the seat into the cockpit foot well. Despite this it took several minutes for the water to clear and my fingers were crossed in the hope that there had been no leakage or damage to the instruments (I later discovered that they’d survived without any issues). Despite the drama, it wasn’t long before we were on our way again, unscathed, but with a prudent and probably belated second reef in place. Into Roscoff Our intention when we set off was to get to western Brittany as quickly as we could and the outline plan was to head for Camaret, stopping at L’Aberwrac’h if necessary to take a fair tide through the Chenal du Four. Just after midday on 18th May the tide turned against us again. By now we were about 4 hours NE of Roscoff. We re-calculated our ETA at Bloscon marina, Roscoff L’Aberwrac’h and it became clear that, in the prevailing conditions, it was going to take a lot longer than we’d hoped. Also Steve was not feeling great and it quickly became clear that we should head to Roscoff, have a good night’s sleep and 3 continue the next morning. The decision made, we altered course and arrived in heavy seas at 1700 BST. The new Bloscon marina is some distance out of the town centre, but easily accessed in all conditions, and we made it just in time to pay our dues and gain access to showers. After a meal on board we settled down for a well-earned early night in a marina showing few signs of activity. Onwards to Camaret We were up early the next morning which was still rather grey with wind forecast from NW- SW 4-5 with occasional rain. So it would still be a beat along the coast, but perhaps in slightly better conditions. We slipped at 0630 and by 0700 we were sailing around the Île de Batz with one reef all round, bringing back memories of my first long solo cruise in 2012, when I’d returned this way.