Sailing to Dun Laoghaire Ireland

Looking back through the passage at East Gap Rock

After our fantastic morning ashore exploring Tresco and the Abbey Gardens it was time to catch the tide and start heading north.  The most direct route out of St Helen’s Pool was through the passage to the north but our pilot book said that it should be used with caution due to the rocks.  On our way back from being ashore we had taken a look from the dinghy and so long as we avoided the shallow weedy bank on the left-hand side it seemed perfectly safe to depart that way.

Looking back through the passage at East Gap Rock

We raised the anchor at 1410hrs and found that the route out between West and East Gap Rocks was no drama at all in the conditions.  The water was so clear that we could see down and pick out the deeper water and any rocks even without using the transit that we had identified.  Fairly quickly we were clear of the Isles of Scilly and heading north.  The tide was favourable but the wind was still very light so, as expected, the passage north started with a few hours of motoring.

Our standard downwind sailing setup

By 6pm the southwesterly wind had built enough for us to start sailing so we poled out the genoa and braced the mainsail boom with a preventer, our standard downwind sailing setup.  We were heading north up the Irish Sea and the plan was to keep going as far north towards Scotland as we could whilst the wind was favourable. 

Sailing overnight 29-30 July all went well.  The wind was a steady 15 knots and BV made good progress sailing herself at 7 knots with the Hydrovane steering.  Visibility was down to about 3nm in drizzle but our AIS was still functioning so any ships out there could see us and we always had one of us on watch looking out.

At dawn the wind started picking up a bit so we reefed down.  Even with the smaller sail area we were sailed faster at 8½ knots.  Perhaps as a result of the extra motion because of the sea state, the GPS aerial on the AIS system failed again and this time no amount of wiggling and tightening seemed to bring it back online.  We could still pick up any vessels transmitting an AIS position but they would not see an AIS signal from us. 

Aside from that it was routine passagemaking.  We dodged the odd ship, increased sail as the wind dropped and ran the watermaker to fill up the fresh water tanks.

At midday a standard voltage check whilst writing the log confirmed that there was a problem with our DuoGen towed power generator and that it had stopped producing 12V power (it later transpired that it had blown a fuse).  It wasn’t a major problem but it was irritating because when we are sailing the DuoGen covers all of our normal power usage.  We’d now need to run the generator every so often to keep the batteries topped up which is not a very efficient way of doing things because the generator is massively overpowered for that task.  But I did think that I had the parts on board to fix the problem so the question was whether or not to start doing that whilst we sailed along.

A mid-afternoon update on the weather helped with the decision making.  Overnight our helpful southerly wind was going to veer to be an unhelpful north-northwesterly.  We could still progress north but it would be much slower as we zigzagged up the Irish Sea beating into a 15 knot wind.  Nicky studied the options and Dun Laoghaire, just east of Dublin, was the logical choice.  We’d be able to get in there at any state of tide (or weather conditions), it has an excellent marina and good shops. Reed’s confirmed that there was a chandlery so we might also be able to get a replacement GPS aerial for the AIS as well as fixing the DuoGen and restocking the fridge.  At 1450hrs we set course for Dun Laoghaire expecting to arrive there in the middle of the night.

Motoring into Dublin Bay.  The red lighthouse just east of Dun Laoghaire visible ahead

Late afternoon we got a mobile phone signal so Nicky called the marina at Dun Laoghaire to let them know that we would be arriving and agreed where we could moor up.  Sadly the chandlery would be closed because Monday was a Bank Holiday in Ireland.  We pressed on and progress was good sailing at 6½-7knots.  A bit north of Wicklow the wind backed to the south [Ed:  !!] and dropped away so we motored the last 10 miles or so to the marina, with the wind filling in from the north, as advertised shortly before our arrival.  With heavy rain showers coming through, the visibility was down to less than 2nm.

Nicky’s phone call earlier to the marina had given us loads of mooring options; most of them in the centre of the marina.  However, there was also a space on an outside pontoon heading north.  Perfect for us to moor to in the dark of the middle of the night.  We tied up at 2305hrs, put the covers on BV and went to bed quite excited about what this unexpected stop in Dun Laoghaire would turn out to be like in the morning.

Dun Laoghaire, Ireland