Biscay Crossing 2012

So D Day had arrived, the weather had been checked, boat tidied, and there was nothing left to do but say our goodbyes to William and Helen and go out into the Bay of Biscay and just hope the weather forecast was correct!

The last we saw of Spain

Out on the Blue behind us they made it to England in 72 hours! 

Which it was and it wasn’t.  We knew we would have to motor for about 20 miles to get into the weather system that was causing the westerlies winds we could see on the forecasts and then we thought we would have a pretty windy first Fight F5-6 and next day with 3-4m swells but this was supposed to reduce so the wind would be F3,4,5 and the waves would reduce to 2-3m swell (or less we hoped but this is Biscay!)  What we got was right for the first night but the wind and the waves just stayed up at F6-7 occasionally reducing to F5 for fun and the waves stayed at around 3m and 4m for the rest of the way until we were about 40 miles from Ireland and even then we were still rolling in on 2m swell!  The good thing was that the wind direction did what we thought it was going to do which was stay in a West or South West direction the wholeway so it was a down wind rollercoaster ride. 

Strangely even for me it wasn’t that bad although only Ali found it in anyway pleasurable!  As long as we didn’t have what I considered to be too much a sail up then I was fine and we hardly ever did.  Not many will believe me when I say it was Ali who suggested taking the main down again both times we did.  If the seas had been flatter we would have kept it up, it was just when a gust coincided with a large wave there was too much power in the sail and we would go right over.  As we could still make 6 knots with just the jib then we thought it might be safer to do just that.  The first time we took the main down it was in the pitch black so it was a little exciting Ali does all the on deck stuff whilst I man the wheel and the ropes whilst we are doing that kind of manoeuvre.  We are always well strapped onto the boat too so we can’t get swept overboard so it is OK if you can call banging about in the dark getting soaked in the rain OK that is. 

The weather apart from the wind was a mixed bag, the first few hours were lovely sunshine and we all had our shorts on a few hours later me and Ali were digging out the heavy weather gear and this stayed on although sometimes with a lightweight jacket the whole way across.  The chances of getting wet came either from rain showers or water coming over the deck so the girls had their rain suits on too. 

There was sickness.

And then craziness. 

Alsiha stuffing her face with freshly baked baguette a great sea sickness cure!

The full moon coincided with our trip – when it came out from behind the clouds.

There were only two ‘incidents’ on the trip, one was a reefing block broke which meant Ali had to go to the mast for any reefing that took place.  The other incident was probably lucky it wasn’t worse; I was woken after my early morning shift with a big bang and presumed it was a big wave but Ali and Kaylee were up on deck and saw a big fin behind the boat.  It was either a big shark or a whale, Ali couldn’t tell which and it was out of sight in the swell before I got on deck but thankfully though it was big it wasn’t big enough to do any damage or it just gave us a glancing blow.  We did worry when we went to turn the engine on 5 miles off the coast of Ireland that the whale had done some damage as it took a few tries and usually starts first time........  Anyway since it didn’t do us much damage we sincerely hope we didn’t do the poor creature any lasting damage either. 

broken reefing point

Round Up

The trip took 91hours from Muxia to the mouth of the river Barrow in Southern Ireland.  It is about 560 miles so we averaged over 6 knots the whole way as usual (strange when the speedometer always seemed to be up over 7 or 8!)  We only used the engine for the first five hours and the last 1 hour and that was so Ali could make water so as you can imagine he was delighted and so were we to see Ireland!  It certainly was better than the last time when we motored for 3 and a half days in 2-3m side swell.  It hasn’t put us off a long trip in the future as we have been assured (Shirlee) that Biscay is the worst but we will just have to wait and see!

Entrance to the river Barrow - thank goodness for that!

 We had intended to go up the west coast of Ireland but the wind and the waves didn’t want us to go and maybe they knew something we didn’t as when we finally tied up in Waterford and heard lots of live music and saw hundreds of people we found out the ‘Waterford Spraoi’ Sproai is pronounced spree – divine providence or what?!