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.

Voyaging

 

A boat is for using and I would not wish you to think that I do nothing but renovate, renovate and renovate. As you may remember launch was in July which had delayed the big plan to head south for this year, so the revised plan was to shakedown by sailing locally and then increasing the distances as we resolved teething issues that might need some additional support. An early trip to Poole provided a very nice challenge with weather as we raced to get in before a summer gale and monsoon, we wanted to visit the Royal Motor Yacht Club at Poole and visit friends and so we did victualling and refuelling at the yacht haven at the RAFYC.      

Looking down from the PPYH

  We almost missed the heavy winds and rain but not quite as you can see Seascape performed admirably in conditions where the wind gusted over 30 knots she was forgiving and graceful just as we had hoped. We made it into the RMYC and enjoyed a lovely weekend of hospitality.

 

On to the Channel Immediately following the first trip we took some holiday and headed towards (Never "TO" which would be presumptive for the superstitious) The Channel Islands and Brittany. For those that think the travelling across the channel is an anxious trip take a look at the video where you can see we sailed across from Poole to Cherbourg in perfect sailing conditions. Seascape romped along in the conditions easily making in excess of 7 knots and providing an exceptionally comfortable and fast trip to France arriving relaxed and very rested which was very satisfying indeed.   Frances took the opportunity of hoisting the courtesy flags, first upside down (International sign of distress) and then the correct way up!    

From Cherbourg we replenished our wine stocks at Normandy Wine warehouse and Carrefour and headed off to Braye Harbour on Alderney.      

Rainbow over Braye

       

Storm coming

Sunset

  On Southwards After a lovely stay in Alderney where we walked around the port and had an early beer in the Divers pub (us still on French time - whoops!) they were relaxed so I doubt we were the earliest drinkers at just before 11am. Next morning we had an early start to catch the tide down the Swinge towards Lezardrieux in Brittany. It was a truly spectacular trip leaving in the early morning before sunrise and catching the most beautiful of sunrises off the coast of Alderney was very special indeed.      

Almost        

Morning

The Big Russell off Guernsey

Our voyage down to Lezardieux was productive, if not too exciting with quite a lot of motoring, but we arrived and decided to take a look at La Corderie a location which we had seen and would dearly have loved to anchor in.       

La Corderie

  Unfortunately many there had already blessed their presence and the last thing I felt comfortable doing was anchoring in a confined space with the risk of grounding on our first foreign trip so we headed off up the river to Lezardrieux and took a berth in the marina.      

Lezardrieux berth

After a restful evening we went up to see the market and take advantage of a lovely restaurant for lunch. The market had some lovely Breton musicians playing their pipes and trad music which entertained the crowds and we enjoyed as ever perusing the various stalls selling fish and seafood and beautiful fresh veg not forgetting of course the bread and patisserie. At the first opportunity we headed off to sit outside the restaurant on a lovely warm day and had a lunch that was truly divine. Lunch was extraordinary, starting with amuse bouche of tuna that was coated with a mix of salt and sugar followed by oysters and a fish stockpot to die for. The oysters were immaculately shucked and after the meal I went to ask the proprietor and chef what the secret was as well as to thank him for a truly memorable lunch. The secret to opening oysters , well now I am inducted I am not allowed to say !      

Lessons

The following day we decided to head for St Quai de Portrieux , as we were preparing to leave there was the sound of heavy footsteps on the pontoon and we observed almost a dozen douaniers Approaching with intent. We casually carried on shortening lines and the. I casually asked them if they wished us to stay. Luckily they were more interested in the Jersey bound yacht alongside us and bade us Bon voyages. Without hesitation we left and motored out of the beautiful river towards the east. Once offshore we enjoyed a sail which continued to exceed our expectations, on a broad reach the wind increased from a gentle force 2 towards a high end  5 and Seascape just picked up her skirts and flew faster and faster, without fuss or drama we were tramping along at speeds that we had not experienced on a yacht previously. In fact we kept checking the log against the GPS in case the instruments were cheating. From 7 knots we soon achieved 8.5 and then topped 9 with a whoop. It was like surfing a jumbo jet, soon we were topping 10 and unbelievably at some points we hit 13knots AMAZING If you don't believe me see the video below to experience what she feels like at speed.    

Froli 'King and bedding

It's been a while since I added any content and there is a backlog, so I thought I would provide an update on the quest for beds and comfort. I like my sleep and since I spend much of my life doing it, I cannot excuse an uncomfortable bed and neither can my back and hips both of which express their views with vigour when otherwise ignored. The bunk cushions on Seascape have been used to varying amounts and they all share the same issues, firstly they are made of closed cell foam which is only 4 inches thick and secondly they are arranged in a mosaic as they need to be removed for access to lockers underneath them. As a result of the mosaic they have *fiddles to keep them in place and stop them sliding all over the cabin.  *Fiddles are wooden edges to tables etc that stop your kit sliding off a table when it isn't level, they are attractive , functional and a right royal and real pain in the arse when you sit or lie on them.  So the quest was on for a comfortable (k)nights sleep. Trips around the boat shows proved that there boat bedding companies providing mattresses, of course marine pricing was the equivalent of purchasing the ground floor of a shopping mall - prices ranging from £300 plus to well over £1000 per cabin. We have 4 cabins worth and so we hesitated and pontificated for some time. In the meantime I looked for cost effective options that would give us a good night of sleep without having to lie awake because of the price! After much web browsing and looking at camping and caravan sites. I came across a German product called Froli Mobil, it provided an additional layer under the bedding rather than an expensive replacement and could be bought in modules that could be added as needed once we passed the testing phase. The U.K. seems to be a bit sparse on suppliers and so I emailed a German camping shop and they provided a product using Froli which they call Berger Sentina Mobil. A bed of 180cm x 90cm costs in the region of 120 euros as a boat does not have regular shaped rectangular beds there is the possibility to use  a one bed pack top make up a boat double with a bit of juggling. As it was I used three packs to do two double cabins with a few modules left over as spares. A picture paints a thousand words so let's look at it

Froli laid out in the aft cabin

Mattress back on top

  As you can see Froli is based on a matrix of plastic components which can be connected together on a base that clicks together in squares. The colours show the stronger more resilient petals (yellow), the regular petals grey and the little red elastic bands can be used to create even more resilience in the petals for areas such as hips, arse, shoulders where a little more support will be appreciated . The original cushions are laid back on top of the Froli matrix, you can see the fiddles and why lying on them is not a rewarding experience, the good news is that the Froli matrix lifts up the cushions like a mattress and let ventilation in underneath which boat owners and campers will know helps greatly in holding back condensation. Fiddling requires the gaps between the cushions to be filled with a little something and currently I am exploring solutions including using foam pipe insulation to cover the fiddles and provide some padding. I am also trying to source the half sized petals by communicating to the Germans as the importers in the UK seem not to know anything about them. Results so far have been excellent, at a cost of less than half of redoing one cabin the two double cabin beds have been totally rejuvenated providing a luxury way beyond expectations, no creaking, less condensation and warmer. Still left to do is to ventilate the plastic cushion cover bases which are not breathable and therefore do not assist ventilation from the foam cushion. So far we have had very comfortable nights of sleep and great satisfaction we have also recycled the bunk cushions and saved money too. I would rate Froli as a decent 9/10 so far.   Zzzzzzzz