2013 Channel Islands – Cruise Report
A week is a long time in sailing….at least it’s a lot of text on this article. So we’ve broken it into bite-sized pieces for you:
Planning
The cruise to the Channel Islands started on shakey ground, with comments like:
“GXSA has never had a rally outside the Solent, before.”
“All of the cross-channel events I’ve been on have been called off due to bad weather”
“I don’t think many people will come.”
Well, we proved them all wrong (mostly), and we had a great time doing it!!
Because of the huge amount of doubt about the whole venture, and the fact that we were setting off in August (5 months after the GXSA lecture season finished), all the organisation for the trip happened on the internet, over email. The good thing about email is that it has quite a far reach, but the trouble is you can’t see the whites of their eyes. Who (if anybody) was reading the email messages that I was sending into the ether? Would anybody want to come? If we got a lot of people wanting to come, without berths, where would we find boats to put them in?
In the planning phase I carefully worked out the tides in the Channel Islands, and chose a week with HW around early afternoon, so that we could have fair tides and easy access to tidal ports. Naturally, the plan fell to pieces later on….but it all started out OK.
The rough plan was to combine a holiday with sailing, so it wasn’t full-on, by any stretch of the imagination. Sailing was planned for the morning, followed by 1½ days touristing, then onwards to another port.
The Plan was:
Home → Alderney → Guernsey → Jersey → France → Home
It didn’t quite work out that way, but was somewhere close !!
Departure Storms (Home → ??)
We had planned for a very pleasant Saturday morning day-sail in company across the channel, arriving in Alderney around 7pm, followed by dinner in a local pub in Braye, or “The Town” (as the locals call St Anne). This would have been ideal – especially for those people on their first cross-channel expedition.
Unfortunately, the Met-Office decided that the plan was far too easy, and they layed on a foul weather forecast for early Saturday evening. Hmm… How to change our plans? The rough situation turned out like this:
Coldplay panicked, and gathered the troops to depart Friday evening for an overnight crossing.
Gnutcracker panicked, and delayed their start to Sunday morning
Burnadebt was always going to be late (or so they said), so it didn’t really affect them.
Sunfleur and Beyond Belief were smug, because they had set out and arrived in Alderney on Friday. (However, Anne Gardener had flown from the UK to join “her men”, and the aircraft was diverted to Guernsey, before making the final hop to Alderney).
From Coldplay’s perspective the cross-channel trip was pretty uneventful (except for our fouled hull – see elsewhere). In fact we made too much good speed (because we were panicking about the weatther), as we motor-sailed whenever the wind dropped, and the navigation was a bit rusty, so we found ourselves on the French coast (off Honfleur lighthouse), 5 hours earlier than we had planned to arrive in Alderney. We could have soldiered on to Braye, but the concensus was that we wanted a break, so we put-in to Cherbourg. By now ir was 5pm, and frankly, we mucked around for a while before deciding to go out to dinner.
At this point, I”ll break from the story to extol the virtues of the only restaurant I’ve ever found that serves an exquisite moules bleu – Mussels in a Blue Cheese sauce. This is a fantastic dish, serverd in a homely setting….It’s wonderful, and I always love to go there – the problem is that I rarely succeed.
…and so it was this time, because we rolled up on their doorstep at 8:30pm….and found out that they shut at 9pm, and wouldn’t serve us!!!
So, we ended up at the other end of the spectrum, eating rice curried meat from a tin can on-board the boat. C’est la vie.
By this time, the Met-Office storm had not materialised, so we were feeling a little annoyed with the y quality of the British weather service. However, I received a phone call from John Gorrie, saying that the Gnutcracker crew were holed up in a restaurant, with the wind lashing the rain horizontally against the windows…..So we stopped worrying about the weather, and felt very smug about having set out the night before.
Onwards to Alderney
The storms that John Gorrie had reported finally hit Cherbourg overnight. Luckilly, we were all tucked up in bed, when they hit, and were just awoken by the driving rain on the topsides, and the wind whistling through the rigging. Bed was definitely the best place to be.
When the morning arrived, the sun was shining (a bit) and the winds were gentle (or ideal for sailing). After abluting we left the safety of Cherbourg and set out with a fair tide, for Alderney.
This was a delightful quick sail, with wind on the beam, and we found ourselves in Braye harbour early-afternoon. All was well, except that Coldplay has a very high freeboard, and the mooring lines on the buoys in Braye harbour are very short, so we ended up daisy chaining a warp onto the buoy.
On Sunday afternoon was spent wandering round St Annes, and we took a ride on the Alderney Railway – a faintly comical (but unforgettable) ride in a 1950’s London Underground carriage, pulled along the 2 mile track by a diesel shunter. Sue and I took a wallk back to “The Tows” via ??? in the brilliant Sunshine, and met up with the rest of the troop for tea and a cake in the local cook’s house – the cake was delicious.
Later we spent time in the company of the locals, at the Alderney Yacht Club, where we learnt that thy all make their money from gambling (or so they say). Very enjoyable..
That evening, we had a wonderful meal at the Braye Hotel. The Service, Wine, and Food couldn’t be beaten, so I recommend it to you.
Alderney to Guernsey
Monday morning saw a major depart from Braye, bound for St Peter Port. With a fair tide, fair wind, and sunny weather, we had a wonderful sail down to St Peter Port. After waiting for the tide to rise, we were allowed to go into the marina, and we waited for the other boats to arrive, which they duly did.
Gerry Knight dropped his engine keys over the side, which caused some consternation and amusement. Eventually, he bought a child’s fishing net to get them off the sea bed, so it all worked out fine, in the end.
Gnutcracker (remember them) had set out on Sunday morning, and stayed in Cherbourg overnight, before setting off for St Peter Port that morning.
Burnadebt had set off from Port Solent on Monday morning, and came directly to Guernsey – I guess you can do that in a 52 foot boat, with all that canvas.
Now were were all together, for the first time, and the party could really start…..and that is exactly what it did.
The Bring a Bottle Boat Party started on Coldplay, and everyone exchanged stories of their arrival on the Island, including how they had enjoyed the storm. Next we all de-camped to another excellent restaurant, immediately opposite the marina. Moya served up an excellent a la carte menu, that has to be recommended (again).
Tuesday – Sightseeing on Guernsey
A non-sailing day, when people went in different directions. Some took the bus tour round the island. Some took a walk along the coast. Some hung around in St Peter Port. Some went Shopping.
Tuesday made an excellent break, after the journey to get to Guernsey.
Wednedsay – Onwards to Jersey
“Where’s the wind?”. That was my overriding memory of Wednesday. If our hull had been clean, we could have sailed a little, but as it was we motored most of the way, until we arrived of the SW tip of the island, when we raised the genoa, for a bit of free power.
That was when Burnadebt caught us up (under sail, alone), and showed us what a clean hull and 2000 m2 of sail can do. It gave us the opportunity to take some nice pictures of Burnadebt under sail, though. Sadly, Coldplay wasn’t so photogenic, with just one sail flying.
Beyond Belief had a fantastic sail, because Gerry had just bought a nice new Cruising Chute (so much for the children’s inheritance), which flew wonderfully in the light winds, and they made excellent time to St Helier.
Naturally, the marina was crammed with boats, and we all ended up rafting alongside people who had been there for a few days.
I can’t remember what we did for dinner
Thursday
The two main events that I remember for Thursday were:
$1• Party 1 took a long walk to the “War Tunnels”, that the Germans used as a hospital during the war. This was very educational and sobering, posing questions about fraternisation and oppression during the war.
$1• Party 2 played Crazy Golf!
On our return, we had a walk around the shopping centre, then it was time for dinner, which John Gorrie had sussed out at St Helier Yacht Club. This turned out to be quite a way from the marina, but it gave us a chance to walk off the refreshments after the meal.
Return Journey: Friday, Saturday, Sunday
We had planned to go to Dielette, on the French mainland, then home through the Alderney Race, but (lack of) wind, time of day, and the distances involved in getting into the gated port suggested that a leisurely sail (motor) back to Guernsey would be a better option.
Coldplay and Beyond Belief took a direct route back to St Peter Port. Burnadebt went via a lovely bay that they were familiar with, Gnutcracker stayed in Jersey another day. Sunfleur carried on to cruise round Brittany.
Saturday saw big winds, big tides, and big sailing speeds. The three boats in St Peter Port set out at roughly the same time in the morning, and had a phenominal journey. The winds were F6 all the way, touching F7 occasionally, on a close reach, Coldplay (with the fouled hull) touched 10.5 knots over the ground. Burnadebt (bigger boat, clean hull) reported 14 knots OTG. On Coldplay, only the skipper was prepared to steer in these conditions (but I had a great time)!!!
Our journey back to Alderney was perfectly timed for a speedy trip throuth the Swinge Channel (NW of Alderney), and back to Braye. We had one comical moment as we emerged from the shelter of Brahou, and we received a single wave that was the size of a double decker bus, on the beam of the boat. This swamped the deck, and poured through the roof vent into the saloon, onto the seats, and chart table [note to self: must get a vent that can be closed, if ever I intend to sail offshore]. Much hilarity above and below deck (but we were glad it was a single wave. I doubt we would have thought it so amusing, if there had been 20, 30, or a full day of these waves. Anyway, we tucked ourselves up in Braye harbour for a good night’s sleep, before the early morning departure for home.
Meanwhile, Burnadebt had shor straight past Alderney, and arrived in Studland Bay that evening, then continued the journey back to Portsmouth on Sunday.
On Alderney, the wind backed, so it was now coming from the north, which made the night relatively uncomfortable. However, we did get some interesting photos of the waves breaking over the sea wall (whilst we sheltered behind it).
We weren’t sad to leave Braye on Sunday morning, but there was no wind to speak of, but what there was continued to come from “dead ahead”, so we ended up motoring pretty much all the way home, which turned out to be deadly boring…but that’s sailing, I guess.
Beyond Belief stayed on in Alderney for another few days, and they ended up with quite a nice sail home, arriving back in Chichester on Tuesday.
Postscript
This was the first time that GXSA had organised (I use the term loosely) a cross-channel event, and it turned out to be a great success. Everyone who went along had a great time, and got home safely. Two days later, people were asking me where we would be going in 2014 [it’s Normandy, by the way], so obviously they enjoyed themselves.
An even bigger testament is that my wife has changed her opinion of the English Channel from “Terrifying” to “Boring”.
The biggest boat in the fleet was a Jeaneau 52, interestingly, the smallest was a Jeaneau 25 18 people brought 6 boats, and we sailed approximately xxx miles.
I lost count of the food an drink that we consumed!
I hope you enjoyed reading this (long) account. Feel free to add your comments and corrections below, or email me on events@gxsa.org.uk.
Fair Winds
Stuart