Sunday 9th June 2019
We should have started 3 days ago, but problems with Lily’s rigging and a small matter of storm Miguel has delayed us until today, not really too much to say so far. Lily cast off 0745 from Woolverstone for the short journey to Levington so that Shades of blue could join me for the start of the adventure.
As any east coast sailor will know the journey to Ramsgate consists of sailing towards windmills, sailing through windmills and finally sailing away from windmills.
We had about 10 miles sailing to Black Deep, then the rest was motor sailing, in total 47 nm arriving at Ramsgate about 1600hrs to find everything is closed. Great start!
Shades motoring to Ramsgate
Escapade on the other hand had already left Holland and had spent some time in Ostend and then Dunkirk hiding from Miguel.
Monday 10th June 2019
The journey across the channel
When crossing the channel you always feel a slight bit of trepidation, sometimes its an absolute breeze, other times its a total nightmare. I can only describe it as trying to cross the M25 in the rush hour. Simply our boats don’t go fast but can steer, the ships do go fast but can’t steer, a constant watch is paramount and ship aviodance must be taken well in advance.
This year luckily was a good year, we slipped our moorings in Ramsgate at about 0820, motored out to a brisk northerly wind, so both decided genoa only for the Goodwin sands passage, with 12/15 kts apparent wind blowing over our shoulder it wasn’t long before we arrived at the South west Goodwin cardinal. A quick call on the radio from Shades of blue to confirm we were both happy with the conditions and we changed course and headed for Boulogne sur mer. I thought about setting the mainsail at this time but when I looked behind me and saw the growing waves decided that turning into the wind to unfurl the main considering I was travelling at 6/7 kts already wasn’t worth the effort. As the first TSS approached there were no ferries inbound to Dover ( unheard of really) and only one westbound ship to contend with. After leaving the first TSS the wind died and turned westerly a bit, for Shades this wasn’t a problem, she is a slippery boat and it doesn’t take a lot to move her, but for Lily this was a bit of an issue, with her lockers full of Suzanne’s clothes our speed dropped to 3.5 kts, not a speed you want to cross a motorway at.
Whilst crossing the central safety zone the wind had not only dropped but turned far enough forward for me to quickly have a go at unfurling the inmast mainsail, a quick pull on the lew line the wind caught the sail and to my surprise for the first time in ages it unfurled in one go, if you could have seen the smile on my face, not only did this solve my dilemma about crossing the TSS safety, Shades of blue had already entered the second TSS so there was no way they could set their main now, victory was surely mine. I sorted out the lines to set the sail and then to top it all the wind picked up, 7/8 kts through the water ( 9/10 kts speed over the ground) Lily pick up her skirt and gracefully flew all the way to Boulogne, a rare victory for the Bavaria.
There waiting on the pontoon was Erik who had sneekly left Dunkirk early to get to the fish market before us only to find out it was a bank holiday in France and nothing was open.
A couple of days in Boulogne was the plan to enjoy Boulogne’s fish market, but for tonight our now customary first Moules Frites in Brasserie Bar Hamiot.
Cruising to Brittany 