La Hirondelle 116

 

Stargazer pauses, overnight, in her dash up Channel, to beat the incoming gale. Allowing her skipper to sleep, and the tide to turn in her favour. Before setting out into Saturday’s pyrotechnic dawn.

On Friday morning, we had hoisted the cruising chute, off Eastbourne. By the glow of Stargazer’s navigation lights. Broad reaching past a sparkling, but yet to awaken, Hastings. 

We watch silently as the sun rises. Feel it’s warming glow chase away the night chill. Dry the pearls of dew from the decks.

Paint the sandstone bluff a dreamy gauzy gold.

As the heat of the day builds, the wind veers. Stargazer beats gently toward Dungeness. Riding the inshore eddy, which presages the turn of the Channel tide. The brutally square silhouettes, of its nuclear reactors, our day mark.

Off the tip, of the tawny gravel spit, the east going tide gathers Stargazer in its arms. Sweeping her along the rhumb line.

Accelerating the apparent wind.

Stargazer gathers pace, as the tide quickens further, off Folkestone.

By the time I radio Dover Port Control, for permission to cross the ferry entrance, Stargazer is making seven knots over the ground. The incoming Pride of France, warned of our presence, is happy to cross astern. Leaving our wind clear, from its turbulent shadow.

The breeze is building. The tide at its peak flow. As Stargazer rounds the South Foreland. 

We are finally able to bear off, by ten or fifteen degrees. Onto a flying fetch. Making between eight and nine knots over the ground. A glint of rooftops now visible on the horizon.

Stargazer skims through the familiar Ramsgate pier heads. To tuck in, beneath the high granite walls, for the night. The forecasters still in disagreement about the timing, but not the imminence, of a change in the weather.

Saturday morning dawns fiery and fair. A light easterly ruffles the sea. With the certainty of a favourable tide awaiting us, off the North Foreland. There is the possibility, of a romping twelve to seventeen knots of fair breeze, forecast for tomorrow. But, doubts remain amongst the forecasters: this may turn out to be a strong westerly headwind. To my eyes, the dawn sky has a look of mischief about it.

Stargazer hugs the shallows. Staying out of the strongest of the south going tide.

As she works her way up to the North Foreland. There to greet the first of the flood, into the London River.

Stargazer turns her bows due west. In the lightest of airs. Riding the tide. Helped along by the engine and its ailing water pump.

Until we sight the Medway channel. Where a tug waits to shepherd an arriving merchantman. The afternoon sea breeze playfully rippling the waters around her.

Stargazer glides past the quays of Thamesport, saluted by its cranes; and on up river.

Carrying the last of the flood. The wooded banks rising around her. Home before the weather hits.

Stargazer secures beside an illustrious new berth companion: Lively Lady. The thirty six foot yawl, aboard which sixties solo sailing pioneer, Sir Alec Rose, circumnavigated the globe.

La Hirondelle 115

 

The cockle boats bustle busily in and out of Sovereign Harbour. Keeping the whelk stalls, on the Eastbourne promenade, supplied with traditional delicacies. Making the most of the settled summery conditions.

For the clarity of the view, across the bay, to the Hastings skyscrapers and the sandstone cliffs beyond (fully ten miles distant) suggests that strong winds are on their way. A suggestion with which the forecasters concur. Although the timing of their arrival, and their precise direction, remain the subject of debate.

The pontoons are slowly filling with boats, waiting for their weather window. Roxie, a Dover based X4o, which we we know well, has arrived today. Berthing across the fairway, on the ‘big-boat,’fingers.

Whilst Stargazer is secured in her usual spot, behind the lifeboat. (Bow just visible. With the blue stripe, one down from the green boat). Alongside her, Emile aboard Take Five, a homeward bound, Belgian flagged, Rival 34. Next down is the Moody 346 Zanzibar, owned by Glen and Keith. Formerly of Chatham. Returning from a cruise of the Baltic. Making for Portsmouth, to overwinter.

Stargazer and Take Five are favouring Friday, as the best opportunity on offer, for our onward passage. (Fair tide, marginal breeze). With the outside chance, for both of us, of then fitting in a final leg home, before a week of high winds hits. If luck is very much on our side.

La Hirondelle 114

 

Stargazer heels to the breeze. Striding toward the shipping lanes. A run of white water cascading along her rail. A straight wake streaming astern. Vibrant and alive. Dancing, rejoicing, to the tune of wind and wave once more.

Cleaving through a stately procession of merchantman. Bound east, for Rotterdam, Antwerp and Felixstowe. Threading the gaps. Before despatching those bound west, for the Atlantic ports of the United States, in the same manner. Stargazer’s speed (six to seven knots over the ground, with tidal assistance) lending her an artful dodger agility.

This morning Stargazer left a fog bound Dieppe in the predawn twilight. Under the radio supervision of port control. Who were juggling the return of the fishing fleet, the arrival of the overnight ferry and the departure of north and east bound yachts. Intent on making the most of a day of westerly winds. 

Good fortune smiles upon Stargazer. As is so often the case. The fog quickly retreating, at the sight of the rising sun.

Which soars imperiously skyward. Squinting at the new day through a bleary eye. As the breeze freshens. Breathing energy into a wide awake Stargazer.

The first breaths come from north of west. Combined with an east going tide, the effect is to set Stargazer thirty degrees off course. We sail on, in the hope of the breeze backing west, as forecast; and the certainty of the tide turning west at midday.

Luck is with Stargazer, once more. Through the day we are lifted. Our projected track swinging from Dungeness, to settle upon Beachy Head. The glow, of the mighty chalk buttress, visible ten miles out, across the tumbling grey waters of the Channel.

Colour and detail are revealed minute by minute, as Stargazer romps in. Sheets cracked. Reaching fast across the swell. Rock falls, wave-riven columns, shadowed caves and crevices. Creamy rock topped by green downs. The bijou red and white striped tower, of the lighthouse, beneath them.

La Hirondelle 113

 

Stargazer has a penchant for ports which are in the heart of town.

Surrounded by historic buildings and enticing side streets.

Pelagic cruising boats come and go. Flying the flags of many nations: Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Austrian and German.

That Dieppe is a ferry port, adds a further set of aquatic goings-on, to spectate. And means that the necessary officials are on hand, to book Stargazer out of Schengen.

For a light breeze today sets Stargazer’s flags aflutter. Tomorrow’s forecast is for it to reach the ten knot, (leisurely) passage making, threshold. From the west. A fair wind for England.

La Hirondelle 112

 

A smouldering cliffscape is lit ochre, in the breathless evening light. It stands above a sea, smooth as mercury.

Lit by a flame seared sunset.

Whilst definitely not a ‘Hazy Shade of Winter,’ today has been a spectrally smoky summers day. The sea stacks and caves, of the Cote d’Albatre, wearing a gauzy mantle throughout.

With only occasional cats paws of wind, to disturb the sultry stillness.

Motor-sailing is the order of the day. A phrase which you will not often hear Stargazer utter.

From the bustling pier heads of Le Havre.

To Pointe d’Ailly. At the doors of Dieppe. Stargazer’s arrival safe, if not scintillating.

La Hirondelle 111

 

Heavy laden container ships rumble out of Le Havre. Carrying trade goods across the seven seas. Powered by a single engine and a propeller. The same arrangement, albeit on a rather different scale, as that employed aboard Stargazer. A set up in common daily use, by seagoing vessels, throughout the world.

And yet. . . . .whilst I have no qualms, about Stargazer successfully reaching port under sail, the prospect of a long motor always fills me with a certain amount of unease. Beyond mourning the absence of the joy, of passage making under sail. Motoring always feels to me, but one step away from mishap.

However the high pressure system, which is bringing us this Indian Summer, contains only capricious zephyrs. With no prospect, of passage making breezes, to be seen in the forecasts. Motor then Stargazer must. Prompting me to give the engine a thorough check, before leaving St Vaast.

 In the process I discover witness marks, of a leak, on the raw water cooling pump. Simon, who services Stargazer’s engine, has instructed me not to worry. The leak means that the pump seals need replacement. But it’s scale (four drips, at time of inspection; none after motoring two thirds of the way from St Vaast to Le Havre) means that the need is not pressing.

Tomorrow, the tide, where it runs hardest (off Cap d’Antifer and on east, past Fecamp and Dieppe) is fair from mid afternoon until dusk. With the wind forecast ‘least-light,’ of those for the next four days. From the northeast. Giving a (perhaps optimistic) possibility of sufficient, tide assisted, apparent wind for Stargazer to sail. Eight knots will set Stargazer moving meaningfully. Ten to twelve knots will give us full speed. With the engine as a fallback. My preferred role for it.

La Hirondelle 110

 

I hoist Stargazer’s cruising chute, by moonlight. To harness the northerly ‘land breeze,’ which has set in overnight. Driven by warm air rising from a Normandy countryside, still perspiring from yesterday’s heat. Above us, a swirling canopy of stars.

Almost imperceptibly the sky brightens, into a pearlescent dawn. A pallid sun struggles upward, through billows of sea fog, which lurk in the Channel. Within an hour, its heat is enough to still the land breeze. As it warms the sea’s surface.

The true wind speed (TWS) drops to two knots. Stargazer needs six to eight, even with the help of the cruising chute. Motoring creates some apparent wind speed (AWS). But brings the apparent wind angle (AWA) forward to twenty three degrees. Sixty is the highest angle, at which the cruising chute will fly.

There is nothing for it, but to motor bare-headed. Putting what airflow we can across the mainsail, until a breeze returns. From whatever direction.

A tanker drops anchor, waiting for orders. Quickly able to rejoin the Channel shipping lanes (in either direction), when they arrive. She lies bows east. Indicating that the tide is running against Stargazer, for now.

The Caen ferry thunders in, on the port beam. The AIS predicts a closest point of approach (CPA) of two hundred metres. Stargazer throttles back and makes a thirty degree change of course. To show clearly that we intend to cross astern.

Fifteen miles out, I begin to prepare lines and fenders. By the time I have finished, our northerly breeze has returned. Ten to twelve knots true belly Stargazer’s main and jib. The engine falls silent. Leaving only the rush of water and the sigh of the wind.

With a fair tide under her, Stargazer skims effortlessly over a lightly ruffled sea, making a little over six knots.

An Arpege skips out, from the shore, for an afternoon sail. Waving merrily as she passes.

The high chalk cliffs come into a sharper focus, emerging through the heat haze.

Stargazer is broad reaching, at seven knots. Parallel to the Le Havre approach channel. Watching, by eye and AIS, for a gap in the shipping. In which to cross to the north side, and enter port.