The butter is still not soft

Summer off East Head Nr Wittering

It's been some time since I updated the blog and this is due to a lack of focus and plenty of diversions to deal with. Just like being at school when I was too late to complete my homework, the backlog has become a beast that needs taming!

 So Seascape is now in Brittany in a town called Redon living through the winter on board and being surprised by the rapid approach of Christmas so time to catch up and describe how I got here and perhaps why - so here goes...


 Chapter 1 Departure from the Hamble August 6th 2016

 The Autumn was approaching fast and I had spent a summer learning to teach both Shorebased and Practical yachting by way of a number of Day Skipper and Competent Crew courses in the Solent. Its fair to say that I learned as much as I had taught and it was a rewarding if tiring exercise intellectually and physically, teaching up to 9 days solid on a combined course of 4 days theory and 5 days practical. When I say solid we are talking at least 18 hours a day but that is a whole story in itself. So lets stick with the great people I met throughout the summer and the laughter we shared that will last for a long while. So having finished my last contracted course in August I finally got to focus on departure and with the plan to head south to Cherbourg as the first leg of the voyage I contacted a few mates and erstwhile students who had expressed an interest in joining me at some point. It was Charlie a dinghy instructor and now qualified Day Skipper, who answered the siren call, luckily for me. Charlie was able to extricate himself from a myriad of other exciting commitments to offer me a week of his time and drove down from Sheffield via a number of other towns where he had compelling reasons to pop in.

Charlie arrived in the Hamble on Sunday night just before midnight and loaded Seascape for an early start the next morning.

Seascape sailing under Genoa, Staysail and Main

Tides were well timed for an "east about" the island departure with a South Westerly wind (naturally) so with newly scrubbed bottom and victuals stowed, at 06:00 we sailed up the Eastern Solent on a Monday morning early with all our white canvas aloft - that is Main, Genoa and Staysail. We certainly looked the part and romped up to Ryde in double quick time. After fiddling around with the log impeller for a few minutes off Wootton.

The speed was registering well in excess of 7 Knots and the tide was giving us an extra tow so we made Bembridge without delay and decided to tack up the Eastern shores of the Island to clear southwards for Cherbourg. The wind over the island cliffs was playing interference though making the wind direction more southerly than we would have liked so we had to motor sail to get clear of the island.

East via Bembridge

We quickly left the shores of the Island behind and enjoyed a close hauled sail towards Cherbourg working hard to use every opportunity to squeeze up on Starboard tack as the wind veered back to South Westerly. This is where the Autopilot earns its passage. Using the wind pilot mode we set a course to stay at 35 to 40 degrees to the wind and as the wind frees we squeeze up. We started at 200 degrees and managed to eke out another 20deg. to 180M which kept us near enough to Cherbourg with a contingency to St Vaast if all went the wrong way. The wind remained in this quarter for the remainder of the voyage but weakened when about 15 miles North of the French coast and so we had to motor the last couple of hours into the marina allowing for the tide to change and keeping us up on the right side of it. We arrived at 20:00 BST and the log read 28604 (94 miles logged) and enjoyable sail for most of the way despite the wind direction and the drop at the end. Engine hours 5.