Bsa Sept 2019 6

Bsa Sept 2019 6

BRISTOL SAILING ASSOCIATION

Newsletter October 2019

Contacts:Kath Liddiard (Commodore)01443 227928

Jock Playle (Secretary)0117 973 8855

Becky Goddard (Treasurer) 01749 346818

Future Trips

1.1A weekend trip from Plymouth was proposed for November 15 - 17, with Ian Collins and Jerzy Wieczorek available as skippers. Jerzy has had to drop out after an accident left him with a broken thumb, so it is now on one boat skippered by Ian, the Hanse 385 ‘Miranda’ from Liberty at QAB, Plymouth. It is fully booked and paid. Now that it is dark by late afternoon, Liberty have asked for handover to be soon after midday on Friday November 15th.

1.2Gordon Ogden is skippering a midweek sail on PYC’s ‘Quartette’ on Monday – Wednesday November 18 – 20. There is one place still available for those members who are PYC Associate Members.

1.3Looking ahead to next year, our boat handling trips led by Alan Howells and Jeff Birkin have proved so successful that it has been suggested that those who wish to go on future ones should fix dates for the coming year. This will be discussed at the next meeting.

2.News

2.1Membership renewal. Membership renewal for 2019/20 is now due. A renewal form has been sent to all members. Please renew promptly, following the instructions on the form, and advise us of any change in contact details or passport number. You may renew at the next meeting on November 11th.

2.2Christmas Dinner. As agreed at the September meeting, our 2019 Christmas Dinner has been booked at last year’s venue, Aqua, Welsh Back, Bristol. This will be on Tuesday December 17th, at 8.00 pm for 8.30 (last year we ate at 7.30, but this year Aqua are offering two fixed times, and a 6 pm start seemed rather early, and with the later start we can stay as long as we like). The list of those going with their menu choices was given to Aqua as required by October 26th, so booking is now closed.

3.Recent trips

Trip reports A reminder that Chris Wallace has asked for all members who provide trip reports to include the type and name of the boat, and the names of all crew, so that the reports can be completely listed and referenced on the website. Photographs sent to webmaster@bristolsailing.org.uk would also be very welcome.

At the October meeting we had reports from Gordon Ogden and Chris Watts on the two-boat charter from La Trinité. There were also reports from Ian Gamble on Jeff Birkin’s boat handling trip, Phil Steele on a weekend from Plymouth, and from Taylor Mowat on a delivery passage from Pwllheli to Ardrossan. .

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Trip on Polgan4, skippered by Chris Watts

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Trip on Men Goe, skippered by Gordon Ogden

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Trip on Pantalaimon, skippered by Jeff Birkin

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Trip on Sea Shanty, skippered by Phil Steele

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Pwllheli to Ardrossan, August 18 – 21 2019 – report by Taylor Mowat

Back in August, 18th-21st, I completed a delivery passage from Pwllheli in Wales to my home town of Ardrossan in Scotland, via Bangor and Campbelltown. In total, 226 nautical miles sailed over four days with 8 of those hours being overnight.

The yacht, a Beneteau First 35 called Triple Elf, is a cruiser-racer owned by a family who I was told are more interested in racing than cruising. She was well kitted out for racing, with several sets of sails and lots of carbon fibre to shed as much weight as possible but seemed to be light on the cruising essentials such as bottle openers.

Elf was moored at Pwllheli Marina in Wales, having taken part in the “Spinlock IRC Welsh National Champs”, in which I understand they did very well, finishing overall second for the IRC 1. She needed to get home to Ardrossan in order to take part in the Largs Regatta Festival the next week. Crewed by myself and two of the boat’s regular crew, my friend as skipper, we intended to have her back in Ardrossan for the Thursday afternoon (leaving Pwllheli on the Sunday evening).

After collecting my skipper from a train station en route from Cheltenham to Pwllheli, we arrived at the marina at about 3pm and immediately started preparing the boat and went on a provisioning run. The skipper planned to leave with the tide at approximately 9pm that evening, and have the tide behind us as we made our way around the tip of Wales and across to Bangor in Ireland.

At this point we were motoring directly into about 25knts of wind, with swell of approx. 3 or 4 metres, making it a force 7 (near-gale). Unfortunately, these would be the conditions until the mid-afternoon of the next day when we reached South Rock Buoy off the south east tip of Northern Ireland. The conditions made for an uncomfortable crossing and had all three of us feeling a little sickly, battered and bruised.

A few hours into our journey, we had come around the tip of Wales and passed through the Bardsey Sound with 5kn of tide behind us, pushing us through the straight. With no sails up and only under engine, heading directly into a 25kn wind, we managed to do 9kn SOG through the Sound. After clearing the sound, we had to adjust course slightly for Bangor, allowing us to get a headsail up to smoothen out the ride a little. With the autohelm set and a course drilled in for South Rock Buoy, we attempted to settle into our watch rotation. With me being the rookie, I was to buddy up for watch. The idea was to do 3 hours on, followed by 3 hours off, however I didn’t feel up to saying down below for more than 5 minutes at a time, so I ended up staying in the cockpit for most of the passage – I did manage to get one 3 hour rest in though when the conditions didn’t seem as bad.

Once we reached South Rock Buoy and adjusted course, the weather calmed down and we didn’t have the wind on our nose anymore, so the journey became a lot more enjoyable. We turned the autohelm off and steered manually for a while and enjoyed some snacks and beer in the afternoon sun which had come out to join us.

We had noticed the smell of diesel during the rougher part of our passage and couldn’t track down the source of the leak. Now that the conditions were calmer, the skipper decided to do a more thorough investigation and sponged out the split diesel that wasn’t removed by the bilge pumps. He still couldn’t track down any source for the leak though, and it wasn’t until we got to Bangor marina when we found an overturned diesel jerry can in the aft locker that had a loose air valve.

We arrived in Bangor and had a great meal and night’s sleep, sheltered by Bangor’s brilliantly engineered breakwaters. The wind was still forecast at 25kn outside the harbour walls, but was barely noticeable inside the breakwater.

The next day, we set off for Campbelltown around noon after going for breakfast in town and getting some more provisions. Conditions were calm with only 7-10kn of wind as we left Bangor, which increased in the afternoon to between 14 and 17kn. We attempted turning the engine off and just sailing a few times, and even went so far as to put up a kite (an A2), but with unreliable and shifting wind, this turned out to be more hassle than it was worth. The wind shifted too often and we ended up getting the kite wrapped around the forestay which took about 20 mins to untangle before stowing it back below.

We arrived in Campbelltown that evening at around 7pm and once we got moored, we went for steak and scallops at the Royal hotel which was excellent and would highly recommend.

On the last day we left Campbelltown after a long lie and some breakfast and set course for Ardrossan at about 11:30am. The wind and swell had picked back up again overnight and as we left the shelter of Campbelltown, we again encountered 25kn wind and 3-4m swell. This time though, the wind and swell were coming from aft and this made for much comfier sailing conditions. It wasn’t long before the sails were up, and the engine was off. We turned the corner at the bottom of the isle of Arran and the wind picked up to 28kn, gusting 30kn.

The boat was equipped with carbon sails which did not have reefing points and a large headsail, which didn’t help matters when a gust came. The boat was definitely over-powered in these conditions and had the tendency to broach/ditch upwind when a large wave and a gust of wind hit simultaneously. I also got to experience what it felt like to have the rudder ‘stall’ under these conditions.

I am assured that we set new records for SOG during this passage as we averaged about 9.5kn, and for some brief moments when we were surfing the waves and the wind was gusting, we recorded 16.7kn.

We arrived in Ardrossan 4 hours later to find the storm gate closed. With heavy rain now pouring down and the thought of having to sail another few hours to another marina, the skipper made a few calls and managed to get the marina to open the storm gate to let us in. We were met by Emma as we docked who had brought a hot lasagne for us all to share whilst we discussed the passage.

We sailed for a total of 226nm over 4 days and spent 8 hours sailing at night, arriving safely in Ardrossan at approx. 4pm on Thursday.