Whether the beaming smiles, of the trapezing crew, are due to their leading the fleet, by a country mile (see shadowy specs top right) ; or to the sheer exhilaration of the moment, it is hard to say. A fire cracker catamaran speeds out of the Teignouse Passage. Plumes of spray rising from the leeward bow. A rooster tail trailing astern.
Stargazer's Sunday started altogether more sedately. In Lorient, sipping coffee with Guillaume and Albert . Eric, their enterprising English teacher, had asked if they might come aboard, to practice spoken language skills.
Carefully scripted questions, about my life in Kent, quickly give way to a free form 'Franglais' discussion, of matters seafaring. Both are boat owners. Together we pore over local charts on the iPad. Pilotage advice, for Stargazer's passage, comes thick and fast.
Stargazer makes sail mid morning, as the breeze fills in. The relaxed timing, a delightful luxury, made possible by the (near) absence of tidal effects offshore.
Soon Stargazer is romping along. Broad reaching at six knots. Seven on the surfs.
Some are travelling appreciably quicker!
Through the morning, Stargazer sails south. Beneath the ruddy brown cliffs of Presqu' ile d' Quiberon.
The coastal shipping rumbles by. Squeezing to seaward, out of Lorient, between Belle Ile and the Quiberon's off-lying islands, Houat and Hoedic.
Stargazer gybes inshore. Taking the short cut through the Teignouse Passage. Its eponymous lighthouse marking the apex, of a dog leg through the reefs, which fringe the tip of the Quiberon peninsula.
A Sunday race fleet thunders across the bay. Inexorably Stargazer's course converges with that of the spinnaker toting speed merchants.
We are closing fast on the Port Navello narrows. Gateway to the Golfe de Morbihan. Stargazer has the Meaban south cardinal set as her approach waypoint. The presence, of a bright red committee boat, suggests that the racers have it set as their finish line.
I furl Stargazer's jib, to let the fleet through.
Stargazer saunters toward the buoyed approach channel, of Crouesty. (Pronounced 'Crusty,' with a slightly rolled 'r,' Albert and Guillaume advise).
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