We'd had some doubts about today's plans overnight. The weather forecast wasn't great especially going through the next few days to the weekend for starters
And I'd struggled to get my head around the navigation for the cross channel passage too. Fatigue played a part for sure and I'd decided to leave it until this morning.
And lo, this morning everything looked much different. The weather was fine, the forecast was fine and the nav worked out neatly without the angst of the previous evening
A leisurely departure from Ramsgate heading out to the NE Goodwin to clear the sands once known as "Ye Shippe Swallower" thence to the nautical equivalent of the M1 motorway, then head straight for the French port of Gravelines
The timings worked nicely to put us off Gravelines, which is a tidal harbour, about an hour before high water.
We set off at bang on ten as planned and motored out of Ramsgate. There was very little wind and a brief attempt at sailing was abandoned. We motor sailed, or to be honest really just motored all the way across to within sight of the French coast
The breeze was picking up at last and we got her sailing beautifully. The only problem we had was that our Eta off Gravelines was a good hour too early.
A reef in the genoa hardly slowed us at all, the breeze got up a bit more to negate our attempt to slow down!
We reefed down further and further ending up with barely half the genoa set and two reefs in the main and still she wouldn't slow down!
Short of taking a Stanley knife to the sails we tried everything but she was still making over five knots through the water! By now the breeze was up around the 20 knot mark and staying there
We arrived within half a mile of the entrance to Gravelines at exactly half tide. The passage pilot had urged no sooner than two hours before high water but Reeds reckoned HW-3 would go so in we went
With the sails down, we motored in cautiously with a strong tide setting across the entrance one way and a stiff breeze blowing across the entrance the other. It was interesting to say the least
Once in the channel all became calm and we gently motored through the town and around the corner to the basin
There was no answer to our VHF calls to the marina but a boat was clearly waiting to go in and as I jilled about wondering what to do the basin gates opened
In we went to tie up to the visitor pontoon although we only just got onto the end, there wasn't enough water further along.
Jane and I went looking for someone to book in with. A friendly French motorboater pointed us in the direction of the office but there was nobody there
Back to the boat, we tidied up and put a harbour stow on everything and then Rik took a turn ashore to seek milk and bread.
That too was an unsuccessful expedition so we ate on board and raided the No1 Beer Hold
Tomorrow we'll definitely stay here and explore
(Unfortunately, the tracking bug failed to track, the backup phone app didn't work either and Boatbeacon decided to turfn itself off half way across. So we won't have a track log of our first cross channel passage)
Some photos...
Rik has loads more when we can copy them
And I'd struggled to get my head around the navigation for the cross channel passage too. Fatigue played a part for sure and I'd decided to leave it until this morning.
And lo, this morning everything looked much different. The weather was fine, the forecast was fine and the nav worked out neatly without the angst of the previous evening
A leisurely departure from Ramsgate heading out to the NE Goodwin to clear the sands once known as "Ye Shippe Swallower" thence to the nautical equivalent of the M1 motorway, then head straight for the French port of Gravelines
The timings worked nicely to put us off Gravelines, which is a tidal harbour, about an hour before high water.
We set off at bang on ten as planned and motored out of Ramsgate. There was very little wind and a brief attempt at sailing was abandoned. We motor sailed, or to be honest really just motored all the way across to within sight of the French coast
The breeze was picking up at last and we got her sailing beautifully. The only problem we had was that our Eta off Gravelines was a good hour too early.
A reef in the genoa hardly slowed us at all, the breeze got up a bit more to negate our attempt to slow down!
We reefed down further and further ending up with barely half the genoa set and two reefs in the main and still she wouldn't slow down!
Short of taking a Stanley knife to the sails we tried everything but she was still making over five knots through the water! By now the breeze was up around the 20 knot mark and staying there
We arrived within half a mile of the entrance to Gravelines at exactly half tide. The passage pilot had urged no sooner than two hours before high water but Reeds reckoned HW-3 would go so in we went
With the sails down, we motored in cautiously with a strong tide setting across the entrance one way and a stiff breeze blowing across the entrance the other. It was interesting to say the least
Once in the channel all became calm and we gently motored through the town and around the corner to the basin
There was no answer to our VHF calls to the marina but a boat was clearly waiting to go in and as I jilled about wondering what to do the basin gates opened
In we went to tie up to the visitor pontoon although we only just got onto the end, there wasn't enough water further along.
Jane and I went looking for someone to book in with. A friendly French motorboater pointed us in the direction of the office but there was nobody there
Back to the boat, we tidied up and put a harbour stow on everything and then Rik took a turn ashore to seek milk and bread.
That too was an unsuccessful expedition so we ate on board and raided the No1 Beer Hold
Tomorrow we'll definitely stay here and explore
(Unfortunately, the tracking bug failed to track, the backup phone app didn't work either and Boatbeacon decided to turfn itself off half way across. So we won't have a track log of our first cross channel passage)
Some photos...
Rik has loads more when we can copy them
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