Dandelion 114

 

A flotilla of boats flies past the squat turret, of the Brehon Tower. Northbound. Riding the rush of tide, as it funnels between Guernsey and Herm.

Stargazer is in hot pursuit of an aluminium, Ovni, centreboarder. Able to slip out, over the St Peter Port cill, an hour ahead of us. (Top right).

We are soon past. Reaching in a westerly breeze. Which gusts between fourteen and twenty knots. As it puffs and pants, after tumbling from the cliffs of Guernsey.

On we skim. Feeding ourselves into the Alderney Race. For added tidal assistance. The breeze down. But our speed over ground increased.

Stargazer soars up the south eastern shore of Alderney. Atop a conveyor belt of water, which is moving at four to six knots.

The Condor freight ferry, arriving at St Peter Port as Stargazer left, has the same idea. Churning past, off the Cap de la Hague.

Where the north going flow, from the Race, meets the East going Channel tide. Kicking up a shindig. The wind joins the fracas. Squeezed, and concentrated, by the jutting fingers of the Cotentin Peninsula and Portland Bill. Up to twenty two knots now. Stargazer puts her shoulder down and charges, north east. On the rhumb line. Making eight knots. Her maximum hull speed.

Stargazer romps into the night. Under double reefed main and full jib. Solid water vaulting the deck and flying aft. As her bow cleaves a path through the waves. In a rare move, after taking two unseen facefulls of cold brine, I erect the sprayhood for shelter.

By twenty two hundred, the Channel tide is on the turn. Bound west, for the next six hours. Stargazer's compass heading is steady. But her course, over the ground, describes a graceful arc. As the body of water beneath us reverses its direction of travel.

Stargazer makes her landfall, off Anvil Point, at zero three fifteen. Fully three hours ahead of my passage plan estimate. And two hours before the first glimmer of dawn twilight. Wind and seastate ease, in the lee of the long promotry. I leave the reefs in. Stargazer glides past Old Harry, making no more than three to four knots. Giving her skipper the time, to sift the occulting lights of the channel buoys, from shorelights.

Stargazer tip toes up harbour. Past the parked chain ferry, the theatrically lit Brownsea Castle, the sparkle of car headlights on the shore road, the dark silhouettes of moored craft. Toward a blaze of light, which is the ferry terminal. which provides the illumination, which her skipper needs, to rig lines and fenders.

A predawn glow (providing clearer vision for me than my camera - apologies for the blur) softens the velvet black of night, to mauve. As Stargazer arrives off Poole Quay. On time for the five thirty bridge lift. The first opening of the day.

Picture Credits

Stargazer track screenshots courtesy of MarineTraffic App.