For once the weather gods seemed favourable to crossing and coming back, promising perfect sailing conditions, so it seemed only right to be off to France again, to continue preparations for June (and do the shopping!).
A westerly steadily increasing to around 12 knots provided perfect spinnaker conditions for some hours, until the need to haul up across the tide a bit off the coast meant it had to come down – by this time I was making a steady 7 knots with a neap flood towards the Passe de l’Ouest. A phone call to Thierry and Anne resulted in a invitation to a family barbecue at Urville, as long as I was quick to moor up and catch a lift with Anne’s brother François!
After a late night, breakfast aboard Saskia VII was a pleasant treat, with Mark and Rima well pleased with the quick crossing (ten hours) they had made, though interestingly they had met with a southerly tendency in the wind which Windfinder had forecast, but which I must just have missed. After a day spent shopping, we met up for dinner aboard Aliya, wondering how the first trophy race of the new series had gone – we had had gusts of over thirty knots in the marina in Cherbourg!
Another perfect day’s sailing across a more or less empty Channel provided time for trying to make a sort of ‘ready reckoner’ for dealing with cargo ships, which I felt I had made some progress with by the time I had crossed the ‘lanes’. After lunch the wind followed the forecast and backed sufficiently for the kite to go up again, and Aliya started doing what she likes best, tucking her lee rail down a bit and surging forwards driven by her blue, turquoise and white cruising chute - which I managed to trawl with for a moment or two launching, but it dried quickly enough in the warm sunshine. The end of an ideal crossing came at last, with a rather more controlled drop off the Stone Pier, and a quiet motor up the harbour..
We will be running a couple of Wednesday ‘drop-in’ evenings before the event in June, to deal with the kind of things people might want to discuss before going, and there will be a briefing on the Thursday evening before leaving on the Friday. If you have any questions about your preparation for going, do contact me or Jez beforehand.
Steve Fraser
Cruiser Class Captain
