Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race 1999 Delivery leg
Gosport to St. Malo Via all the Channel Islands
On Sunday 11/07/99 I went down to the ship to help get it ready for sea. On Monday 12/07/99, the rest of the crew joined us in Haslar Marina, Gosport. Once I had met the rest of the crew on The Discovery Sailing Project’s (Or formally Docklands Scout Project) offshore yacht “Storyline”, a 10.96 Metre Westerly Sloop built in 1979, my home for the next 1 ½ weeks. The vassal can sleep 12, but the 7 of us, on this leg found it cosy, wonder what it’s like with 12 on board??
13:30
BST we left the moorings, and headed out towards, Alum Bay (IoW), we got to Alum
bay at 15:00 BST, and were going to go ashore, but we had to fix the Dinghy! So
we spent a few Hrs. doing that, then weighed anchor, and headed back to
Yarmouth, the second port of call. The we went ashore, and headed for the
nearest PUB (This seem to be what happened where ever we stopped J)
At
22:00 we slipped our moorings, and set out on a night crossing, heading 270, for
Alderney. This meant we had to use a “Watch” system, which is normally 4Hrs
on, 4Hrs off. We decided 3 on, 3 off was a better idea. I was on the second
watch, so off I went to my berth. 01:00 I was rudely awakened, and the three on
us on “Starboard” Watch (The other Watch was called “Port” for some
reason!!)
I
found night OK to start with, until the engine decided to have a diesel leak on
a return pipe. We only found that out when the Mate went below to do an engine
check. Suddenly the air was filled with diesel fumes, and vapour. I promptly
went and fed the fish.
Time
for a quick 2Hrs kip, before another nighttime sail, this time we were heading
for Isle de Bréhat, just off the French Coast. The problem with this night sail
was every one was very tired; walking around Sark in 30ºC was not the best of
things to do before a night sail. Some how between seeing two compasses, and
Gurneys not seeming to go away! We reached Isle de Bréhat, at about 08:30, and
anchored. Isle de Bréhat was similar to Sark, in that it was small and had no
cars; we spent the day there, while we waited for the tide, so we could make the
6NM dash to Paimpol. This was a
lovely French fishing port, which because of the tidal flow, we had to lock in
and out.
We
left of a rising tide the following morning, not knowing where we were going
yet, just east!! We then decided to go to St. Helier, Jersey. Again we motored a
bit, until the mate found water poring in to his locker, engine off, leak found
to be the exhaust pipe, as used cooling water is expelled though the exhaust on
a marine engine. Luckily there was a steady 3-4 so we could get the sails up, we
even changed the jib to a Genoa, and we averaged 6.5Kn (Knots) on that trip to
St. Helier, a record! The sun was out so we managed to dry out the wet stuff and
fix the leaking pipe.
We
arrived in St. Helier at about 18:00, so it was going to be Curry for tea, but
we had moored up next to a French boat, which had caught some fresh Mackerel, so
a bit of bargaining later, and we dumped the curry idea, and had fish instead. I
have to say there is nothing like the taste of fresh Mackerel. As we had been
tiring to catch so fish our selves, we wondered what we were doing wrong. A
wander around St. Helier, and we found the Pubs to be very quite…..Strange!!?
It
took all of 20Mins to walk around the whole of island; there was 1 bar, 1 shop
and 1 heads (Yachting terms for the toilet) Back to the boat, weighed anchor,
and hosted the Genoa, heading out towards our next port of call, Granville, we
were not in a rush, and as it was a run all the way, we did not bother to up the
main, just have a lazy cruse the 9NM to Granville, OK so we had to play with the
sheets a bit, but we could not get in until the water level was over 3.0Metres,
as the keel on the boat is 2.0Metres. Why? I hear you ask, well to get in the
marina at Granville, we had to sail over a bar, which was at 2Metres above Chart
datum.
While
we were in this town, we invested in a new fishing line, as we seemed not to
have caught anythingL
we entered Granville at 21:00 (23:00 French time) on Sunday, could we find a bar
that was open, no, but after ¾ Hrs looking we did, just managed to get a beer
before we got kicked out. Anyway, in the morning we managed to get a fishing
line, which we let out over the stern of the boat, when we were just off
Granville, heading for a final destination, St. Malo 20NM away. Almost instantly
we started getting Mackerel, and lots of them (Guess what was for dinner that
night) Any way when we got to St. Malo some Tall Ships (by that I mean Square
Riggers) were already gathering and we raised our Tall Ships flag (Being a scout
boat, we could put up the ensign with has the Royal Charter on it) We had to
lock in to the docks.
That
evening was spent walking round the docks, looking at the ships, and I watched
Sir Winston Churchill, followed by her sister ship, sir Malcolm miller.
Tuesday
(20/07/99) the morning was spent cleaning the ship and making her look
presentable, we then went to find a supermarché, 5Km later we found one. On the
way back we saw the sign for the one 400 Metres from our berth….Doh!!
Daniel
Allen 22/07/1999