My wife, Catherine, and I were sailing home from our holiday in Brittany
in "Morrigan", our Legend 340 yacht and, as usual, we found ourselves sailing to a deadline. We had promised the grandchildren
a few days afloat the next week and we were in Cherbourg on Friday 18th August 2006, having to make the decision to go or,
as the forecasts suggested, stay in port until the following Monday or Tuesday, and hence really disappoint them.
The forward NAVTEXT broadcast the night before had included a strong
wind warning for Sunday and Monday. The Met Office forecast for sea area 'Wight' suggested we should expect a force
(F) 4-5 SE'ly wind and this was confirmed by the Bulletin Météo Marine at the Capitainerie, whose inshore forecast
gave F4 SSE'ly wind with squalls to F6. Closer examination of the pressure charts for that day and the next showed the
depression centred near Brest was deepening and that high pressure over the North Sea was increasing.
We knew from our sail from Guernsey (in the Channel Islands) the day before
that the predictions we had of F4-5, coupled with a 'strong wind' warning from Jersey Radio had been realistic and
that we had coped ok (including crossing the Alderney Race). We looked at each other - and knew we had to leave and that,
whilst the crossing would be energetic, we could cope with it.
We set out at 0900 and soon were motoring; we put up the mainsail with a moderate
reef only. The wind indicator said we had between 15 and 20kts over the deck (an indicative rather than absolute value) and
we were on a run with a course of 20 deg. Magnetic making the expected 7-8kts over the ground helped by about 1.5kts of tide
in our favour. As we cleared the wind shadow of Cherbourg and the Contentin peninsula we started to feel the full effects
of the weather.
We had learnt long ago that in a significant following sea it was wise to
keep motoring and to use the extra way to help with directional control as we accelerated down the face of the waves. The
squalls were getting stronger and by early afternoon we saw deck wind speeds of up to 25kts (nearly 30mph), quite regularly.
By now handling the boat had become much heavier so we had unfurled about half our jib and reefed the main to about a quarter
of its full area -and we were continuing to rocket through the water. My wife and I were careful to take turns at the helm
so as not to get too tired as every now and then (say after 5-7 waves) a rogue would catch us out, and we were being slewed
as must as 30 degrees off course as we slid inelegantly sideways into the troughs. We were in no real danger as our faithful
engine (or "iron sail" as the French call it) was able to pull us out of trouble.
We noted that the overall wave structure was very dependent on the squalls,
which in turn were dictated by cloud structures. I formed the opinion that we were having the greatest difficulty when there
was a significant change in the wind direction and that it did seem that we were experiencing the impact of merging wave trains
from each of the squall cells.
As we closed on the English coast conditions improved and by the time we were
at the eastern end of the Isle of Wight it was merely a matter of keeping going in 12-16kts of wind - a mere nothing in comparison
to our experiences earlier.
Our VHF radio kept on springing to life with MAYDAY calls and it seemed that
many vessels closer inshore were having serious difficulties with the weather. We made Chichester Harbour by 1930 - a record crossing time for us of ten and a half hours for the 72 nautical
miles - and were soon safely moored and having a well earned rest.
Upon our return home I decided to review our passage and to see what I could
learn for the future. I wanted to check the wind speeds we had experienced . Further investigation showed that the wind had been F5 gusting F6 at the Channel light vessel and that, more interestingly,
that the recorded wave heights had not been very large - some 2ft - a figure we found hard to believe, given the way we had
been rolling and pitching!
Nick Madinaveitia
