Jacana
New member
Coming out of St Vaast on the day of the blown out Olympic trials at Weymouth to find a pair of waterspouts heading towards us having previously been unaware of their existence.
Memorable channel crossings
- Thread starter Twister_Ken
- Start date
mcframe
New member
The one where I'd the morning watch on the way back; I saw the light (not loom) of St Kats 5 mins before sunrise and turned on the (FM) radio to get R4's UK Theme, and confirmation of our SSW F4, good ;-)
Fergus
New member
Mine was 11 sept this year - f8 beam reach, took some greenies into the cockpit (enough to set the ljs off!) but great fun. Should have put a 2nd reef in though ..
pugwash94
Member
I don't think there is really ever a bad crossing. Or a bad passage. No matter what has happened I always find myself (no more than three days later) wishing I was back out there!
johnphilip
Well-known member
Ovver or under
Over 30crossings but only if I can count le shuttle and the Eurostar. Best was a delayed ferry crossing back to Portsmouth when the dinner was superb after waiting to know if we were getting back at all.
Yacht sailing, a few but it has been the North Sea crossings which I remember.
Over 30crossings but only if I can count le shuttle and the Eurostar. Best was a delayed ferry crossing back to Portsmouth when the dinner was superb after waiting to know if we were getting back at all.
Yacht sailing, a few but it has been the North Sea crossings which I remember.
Dockhead
Active member
Oh, I've only done 10 of them, so still remember every one vividly.
Three at night. One of those in a storm.
Two motoring. One of those was actually a joy -- it was a long one, nearly 100 miles from Salcombe to Perros Guierec. The sea was as smooth as glass and it was a dead calm. I throttled right back to about 1800 RPM and we just ghosted across at 8 knots. It was very pleasant.
The second Channel crossing was a rollicking beam reach in 20 to 25 knots of wind (yet with a smooth sea state as it had been calm for days beforehand), from St. Vaast to Studland Bay. Speed hardly dropped below 9 knots; got full use out of our staysail. From memory I think we did it in 8 hours and something.
The night crossings were all memorable. One of them dead upwind and in increasingly stormy weather, culminating in a gale. I got tired of tacking with increasingly unfavorable angles as we reefed the sails down, and speed ever decreasing as we were taken aback by the headseas, and put on the motor. The motor lost power (as it turns out, I had overfilled it with oil in Cherbourg), so off that went, and we diverted to Weymouth to get a better angle on the wind under staysail and deeply reefed main alone in 30 knots of wind gusting 35. Threaded the Shambles bank, and sailed into Weymouth about 03:00. Gratefully tied up and proceeded to get drunk in celebration.
Another night crossing hard on the wind although without tacking, as the wind was just free enough, and just the perfect force for our boat at about 18 knots steady. Romping along at 8 to 9 knots. A passenger got seasick so we had to heave to for an hour. But we pulled into Cherbourg before dawn, happy and tired.
Three at night. One of those in a storm.
Two motoring. One of those was actually a joy -- it was a long one, nearly 100 miles from Salcombe to Perros Guierec. The sea was as smooth as glass and it was a dead calm. I throttled right back to about 1800 RPM and we just ghosted across at 8 knots. It was very pleasant.
The second Channel crossing was a rollicking beam reach in 20 to 25 knots of wind (yet with a smooth sea state as it had been calm for days beforehand), from St. Vaast to Studland Bay. Speed hardly dropped below 9 knots; got full use out of our staysail. From memory I think we did it in 8 hours and something.
The night crossings were all memorable. One of them dead upwind and in increasingly stormy weather, culminating in a gale. I got tired of tacking with increasingly unfavorable angles as we reefed the sails down, and speed ever decreasing as we were taken aback by the headseas, and put on the motor. The motor lost power (as it turns out, I had overfilled it with oil in Cherbourg), so off that went, and we diverted to Weymouth to get a better angle on the wind under staysail and deeply reefed main alone in 30 knots of wind gusting 35. Threaded the Shambles bank, and sailed into Weymouth about 03:00. Gratefully tied up and proceeded to get drunk in celebration.
Another night crossing hard on the wind although without tacking, as the wind was just free enough, and just the perfect force for our boat at about 18 knots steady. Romping along at 8 to 9 knots. A passenger got seasick so we had to heave to for an hour. But we pulled into Cherbourg before dawn, happy and tired.
Fergus
New member
Funny isn't it? Feel glad to be home but the itch returns really quickly!