En France 88

 

The sun beams from a sky as blue as a duck's egg. Taking the chill edge off the light breeze, which wafts Stargazer's washing dry.

The pavement cafes are thronged, in the laconic way of their kind.

They line the quayside, beneath stately four storey facades.

Dieppe's harbour is in the bustling heart of town. To one side lie the pleasure craft.

To the other, the fishing fleet.

The crews under strict injunction, to be on their best behaviour.

Whilst the port pilots and the lifeboat moor at the head of the harbour. Ready for sea.

En France 87

 

An iridescent scimitar of shimmering light soars from the waves, to carve a circle of luminescent cyan, in the grey mantle of cloud. 

The sea boils, in a wind whipped confusion. Goaded by the two day gale.

In a day it will calm, for the breeze has eased to twenty five knots. But by tomorrow only light zephyrs will be left. Stargazer sails, from Fecamp, at first light.

Punching out over the swell, hard on the wind. Seeking flatter, deeper water by gaining a two mile offing.

Stargazer eases sheets, onto a fine reach. Feeling the eastbound tide start to make beneath her.

Skimming across the waves, light as a feather. Making eight knots over the ground.

To starboard, the shadow shrouded cliffs. Their sheer white faces streaked with ochre and brown. Topped with vivid green. A restless furrowed sea writhing at their feet.

The thunder, of wind and wave, combine into one full-throated roar. Stargazer flies, free as a bird.

The bright IPTS (International Port Traffic Signals) are visible two miles out, its lights set to green. I ease Stargazer onto a dead run, furling the jib, and make for them. Ferry gliding across the sweeping tide. Adjusting Stargazer's heading one mile off, when eyes and plotter confirm that the set, which I can see, (there are two) are at the breakwater root. Not at its tip. We drop the main in the calm of Dieppe's inner harbour.

Soizic (Freeborn in the Breton tongue), our friends from Brest and sundry ports between, has ridden out the last blow here. On passage home to Dunkerque. Welcoming Stargazer by taking our lines.

En France 86

 

"Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore,

your fickle friends are leaving,

Ah, but then you know,

it's time for them to go. . . . .

So come the storms of winter,

and then the birds of spring again,

I have no fear of time."

(from 'Who Knows Where the Time Goes' by Sandy Denny, 1967)

The seas mound high, in Fecamp's entrance. Vaulting the close-set pier heads, in their eagerness to reach the shingle. Stargazer will not be leaving yet a while. The metronome, of wind and tide, must decide our timing. As they have done all summer.

Within the shelter of the harbour, we can only ponder our options, patiently. Stargazer must decide where to cross the Channel, to the English shore. That decision now bound up with the, post-Brexit, requirement to book out of France ; and the limited ports at which that is possible.

En France 85

Behind tall lock gates, Fecamp has an inner basin. Within it lies a nautical legend.

Plain Barracuda now. Once Barracuda of Tarrant. Star of the nineteen eighties TV sailing soap, Howard's Way. Nemesis of Sadler Yachts. Which was bankrupted by building her and her sisters.

An Ultra Light Displacement (ULDB) flyer, designed by Tony Castro. Forty five feet and displacing just seven tonnes (Stargazer is thirty one feet and displaces four and a half). At launch, considered extreme. Not only for her innovative twin rudders and meagre weight, but also for her beam. Both its extent (of three point eight metres) and how far aft it was carried.

To contemporary eyes she looks moderate. Her girth, on the slim side for a forty five footer, carried aft to a lesser extent than is Stargazer's (a conservative 2010 German Frers cruising design).

Barracuda was forerunner to today's JPK's, and others of her fast cruising persuasion. (See En France 16 and En France 20). Jean-Pierre Kelbert himself is pictured here, commissioning a JPK 39.(Displacement five point six tonnes, beam four metres - carried all the way aft. Twin rudders too). His only problem is a three year queue of impatient would-be owners. 

Barracuda was a boat launched twenty five years ahead of her time.

Stargazer is moored outside the lock gates, in the avant port. Riding out a Channel gale.

Wooded cliffs climb skyward, to take the edge off the wind.

Whilst the scrunching shingle beach, and bottleneck entrance, quell the worst of the swell. Reducing it to a residual scend, reminiscent of that in Ramsgate harbour.

Picture Credits

Barracuda of Tarrant, racing in the 1980's courtesy of  Patrick Roach (patrickroach.com).
 

En France 84

Glorious Gothic excess is never far away, in Fecamp.

The fine - boned fairy-tale tower, of the Benedictine monastery, stands high above the harbour front.

 Lancing theatrically skyward.

Above a playfully intricate masterclass, in the mediaeval stonemasons art.

 Well may those cavalier gargoyles smile, fuelled perhaps by a shot of the famous liqueur : 

For the season has been flexing its mercurial muscles, since Stargazer's arrival. Quick-fire thundery deluges loom. Their stair-rod rain rattles down.

Only for the wind squalls to abate and the black clouds to scurry away.

To be replaced by innocently smiling sunshine. Steaming soaked sightseers dry.

En France 83

 

We stumble upon each other, unawares. The trawler, intent on its catch, halts abruptly to haul nets. Leaving Stargazer heading directly for her. Only the cries, of its entourage of gulls, had alerted me to her presence, five minutes beforehand. For she was not transmitting on AIS ; and must have been lost, to my line of sight, behind Stargazer's jib.

I don my waterproof jacket. Ready beside me, as I con from the companionway steps. Snug beneath Stargazer's sprayhood. Fortunately we are now reaching under white sails. So it is easy enough to sheet in and duck around the trawler's stern. Unwilling to go ahead, because she could set off again at any minute.

Earlier, in a blue-tinged bleary dawn, Stargazer was riding the tide, off the Pointe de Barfleur. Cherbourg already fifteen miles astern.

Her cruising chute is aloft, whilst the south westerly wind builds. She is making seven knots over the ground. Constrained to a course of between sixty and one hundred and twenty degrees, to the apparent wind. Which suits the breeze, but not close quarters trawler dodging.

Today's tactic is to work the strong eastbound flows, off the Pointe de Barfleur and Cap d'Antifer (orange arrows). Taking the westbound tide at its weakest (blue triangle).

Predictably, progress slows, as the tide turns and Stargazer enters the 'blue triangle,' of the river Seine approaches. Ships steam purposefully, in and out of Le Havre. Following predictable tracks, and transmitting their positions on AIS.

The fisher folk, of the area, are more erratic in their motions ; and strangely forgetful, in the operation of their AIS equipment.

The long awaited south westerly breeze is a moist maritime airstream. As its force increases, the morning mizzle turns to a determined afternoon drizzle . Stargazer's stoic tiller pilot steers.

I keep watch from the companionway. With the comforts of the galley close at hand.

At eighteen thirty three, Stargazer crosses the Greenwich Meridian (black vertical line). Longitude zero. After her summer out West, Stargazer has arrived back in the East.

By dusk, Stargazer has a fair tide beneath her, once more. Sweeping up the Cote d'Albatre (Alabaster Coast), of caves and arches. Making seven knots. Running, under main only, in twenty knots of breeze.

 I rig lines and fenders, to be ready on deck, in anticipation of a night arrival. Half an hour after dark, Stargazer romps in, through the familiar pier heads of Fecamp. One lit white, one green, with a red transit behind it, on the waterfront. For it is a narrow, tide-swept, entrance.

En France 82

 "It is late September and I really should be back at” Chatham. To paraphrase Rod Stewart's, non-PC, lyric. Tempting though it is to tarry, amid these Indian Summer conditions.

The (end of season) Southampton Boat Show is already underway. Attended by 'Psi Paul,' who ensures Stargazer's electrical health. He calls with welcome news. He has secured discounts on a B&G Zeus plotter, plus the necessary Navionics cartography, with which to complete Stargazer's instrumentation update. Begun last winter.

Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox. Marking the meteorological start of a mercurial season, of calms and storms. Also the first day on which tides favour an east-bound crossing, of the Baie de Seine. Ten to fifteen knots of south westerly breeze are forecast, to speed Stargazer on her way. Three cheers, for a first sighting of the elusive south westerly wind!

Picture Credits

Southampton Boat Show courtesy of Classic Boat Magasine.