Across the Channel

Across the Channel
Thursday 9 / Friday 10 2010-09-15

OK most of you now know that we did get across the Channel. Although the ‘crow flies’ distance is 95 Miles or so, we sailed around 30 Miles further than that due to the strong tides, and a lack of a fresh breeze for a while. Our average moving speed was 4.8 Knots and our crossing time around 25 hours. Winds varied from F2-3 at the beginning of the trip to 5-6 at the end and we came into Falmouth on the # 3 jib (the smallest) and 2 reefs in the main, still making a decent speed. The weather for the last few days can only be described as ‘windy’. When you cross the Channel in these parts, with crossings of around 100 Miles, tide inevitably becomes an issue – especially when they run strongly at ‘Springs’ and most especially in Spring and Autumn when the largest tides of the year occur. We needed to decide what tide we would choose to leave on – East-going or West-going. No difference, you might think. Well, there is, in the sense that wind in the opposite direction from the tide can kick up and ugly sea – and the stronger the combined effect, the uglier it is. Since we knew that the tides run harder on the French side, and since we had already seen the ‘assiettes’ (plates) created by these conditions, we opted to begin with the prettier option, and left at around 1600 on Thursday. We put up the main and the working jib – our favourites given the forecast of 3-5 SW / W. Also motor running for the first hour or so to charge the batteries – important if we wanted to use the auto-pilot later.
The tide was certainly strong, and the tall lighthouse of La Vierge moved alarmingly to our right as we looked over the stern. Sure enough, the tide swept us equally back in an elegant curve in the night until we were pretty much back on course after 12 hours. But now the fun starts since the third tides takes us East of where common sense tells us we want to go. At 0700 I am taking a brief rest below. We have mainly steered through the night since the waves have been quite tricky – appearing several metres from crest to trough and quite close together so that Snork Maiden is climbing up and surfing down, like a corkscrew roller-coaster. In these conditions we don’t trust the autohelm!
Before we get to the dawn, though, I should say something about the ship traffic in the Channel. There’s quite a bit of it – first we meet the ships going East, later the ships going West. There are also fishing boats (absolute priority) and yachts (could turn up anywhere without much notice). There are well-established ‘give-way’ rules BUT in these disturbed seas it’s hard to distinguish lights from a great distance, since they are rising and dipping behind the waves, and also because the bucking and swaying of our own boat makes the Binoculars almost useless. Ships should give way to sail, and one or two do. The ones that appear not to be changing course may not have seen us, so we usually take evasive action by changing course ourselves to duck around their sterns. We both stay in the cockpit for the busiest part of the night and a couple of times I have to call Al back up from his corpse-like position in the aft berth to help me decide what’s going on out there. The second time it was an approaching yacht, and it seemed not to be playing by the same rules of the sea that we were. They were clearly nervous, flashing a torch at us. I politely flashed back to acknowledge that we had seen them, then ensued some sort of weird pursuit where it appeared that they were actually trying to run into us! (If you think about it, it’s actually quite hard for one yacht to run into another one, given that the sea is big, the yacht small, and the pursue-ee has not intention of being ‘it’. ) Well, the crazed yacht eventually passed by, we resumed our course and Al resumed his resting position, and the night sea swished and slurped by. This was effectively a moonless night (an early rising new moon we hadn’t caught sight of) and you really can’t see the waves – just sometimes glimpses of a creamy horizontal crest as they break under the stern. In these conditions Snork Maiden is polite in the extreme, with no stern slapping or crashing, just a twang of the rigging every now and again and the shush of the bow wave. Downstairs things are a bit crazy, and simple things like going to the loo are a bit of trial – how to keep your balance with your oilies around your ankles etc. Men are really safer sitting down to pee in these conditions, although some prefer to give their sailing trousers a soaking. (I’ll let Al answer any questions you might have on this topic.) Making tea is also a challenge when going downwind where the boat is rolling (of course crossing the Atlantic this may go on for days or weeks). Boiling the kettle is OK since the cooker is gimballed (stays level) and bars clamp the kettle in place). The tricky part is keeping the cups from going flying whilst the teabags are infusing (or mashing, or steeping depending on your regional preference). We have some handy cups that Al’s mother bought us, but although they have lids and insulation, they have narrow bases and wide tops. (Anyone lacking ideas for Christmas presents – we need well-fitting lids and wide bases.) Sensible people also put tea or coffee in thermoses. As for the Atlantic lot – well, that’s another story. Let’s get back to this one.
We are still on French time, so it’s barely light. The wind has freshened and belatedly I realise that we should take more advantage of the East going tide to put us in a good position for Falmouth. I go forward to change the sail (already out in the fore-peak, since we were expecting stronger winds by now) while Al holds the boat into the wind. We already reefed the main for the night, and I think we put in the second reef somewhere around here. Probably we have taken in too much sail, but in view of the fact that we want to make a course dead downwind, we put on the motor, drop the jib and motor downwind. The motion before had been a bit wild and woolly but now everything calms down, we feel less wind over the deck and we are making good progress. In hindsight, maybe we should have taken this course earlier, so we were then caught in the 4th West-going tide and had to do some tacking & gybing (zig-zagging our course) to get us into Falmouth whilst avoiding the clutches of the Manacles (rocks) and the mysterious ‘Wrigglers (marked on the chart without any real explanation. By now we are having a romping sail and bravely charge into the Carrick Roads with sails flying. We hastily decide where we are going and end up alongside a nice couple with a 39 foot Nicholson. We tie up. We go to the pub. I have a pint and Al a well-deserved grapefruit juice and soda. We eat fish and chips and mushy peas at the Harbour Lights café. (I don’t like my mushy peas and they take them off the bill.) The fish is ‘sustainable’ (which is good since just about everything else about the planet isn’t). We fall into a deep sleep and I wake up with a headache. We are back home.

Coming next: surviving Falmouth. We meet up with Sue & Pete, Al takes a train for Bristol and Jenny wants her friends to visit.