A Very Brief Pit-Stop in Cherbourg

Heading south from the Needles at the western end of the Solent on Monday 20 August we found we were hard on the wind. Not great for our aspiration to head southwest but we were sailing and there was more wind than the very light wind forecast. As we crossed the shipping lanes the new AIS proved to be really useful. A ship was going to get very close to us; we had right of way as a sailing vessel but it never seems worth pushing your luck with these ocean-crossing monsters so we tend to try to keep clear. With the AIS information I was able to call the ship directly and ask the officer of the watch what his intentions were. Brilliant, especially when he said he was coming left by a few degrees to avoid us. Far easier than trying to call a “ship in approximate position…” as we would have had to have done before.

As we finished crossing the shipping lanes the wind died so, with the engine on and a strong tide flowing, Cherbourg was the logical destination. We arrived at 2 am and, after a glass of wine to celebrate our arrival, we got a few hours’ sleep. Then we were up early for a run, to help wake up, followed by a shopping trip and a settle up with the Harbour Master’s office for mooring fees. The shopping was very successful. We managed to buy some of all of the important food groups: wine, cheese, pain au chocolate, garlic snails and lots of seafood (crab, large prawns and mussels). The mooring fees were less successful as they insisted on charging for a full 24 hour stay even though we would only spend 10 hours in Cherbourg. No point grumbling, or staying longer with a west going tide to catch as we have visited Cherbourg often, so we slipped at midday and headed west towards Alderney.

Blue Velvet photographed (by a friend on the Yarmouth ferry)
leaving Lymington after we had refuelled
just before setting off cross-Channel

Freedom!

There are 2 great reasons for us to pop a champagne cork and celebrate. The first is that Nicky had her last formal day at work on Friday and so we can both now concentrate full time on the final preparations, both at home and on BV, before we set off long-term. The second reason to celebrate is that we have slipped our lines for a 5 week cruise; a longer time than we have ever had before to sail because we have always been restricted by work commitments. This new freedom feels great! We are aiming to visit the northern areas of the Bay of Biscay, whilst also hoping for some warmer weather, but who knows where we will end up with the unsettled weather we are experiencing in northern Europe at the moment. We are both keeping our fingers crossed that, after the pretty ropey weather so far this year, things will settle down for these last few weeks of the summer.  An Indian Summer would be perfect.

Some people have asked why we don't just set off for the Mediterranean now. A very good question, and it is a very tempting idea. However, Nicky still has a few loose ends to tie down at work before she is fully off the hook, we ideally would like to move house in the Autumn so that is all sorted before we set off, plus we need to spend some time properly loading up BV. Packing her for moving onboard full-time will be a bit more involved than it has been for our previous holidays. But for now... the sun is shining and BV is pretty much ready to go, so ignoring all of that boring admin and escaping for a 5 week shake-down cruise (which will allow us to test out all of the improvements we have made to BV) seems like the very best thing that we can do with out time.  It's going to be awesome!

The new Bimini has been fitted

My daughter, son and his partner came to stay for a few days and we had a good blast up the Solent.

Great fun, however, I have my suspicions that they really came to stay so that they could size up the new teenager in the family.








The outboard started first pull and we successfully transported five adults at once without getting any wet bums - a success!  It seemed to get the approval of the offspring as they couldn't wait to steal the dinghy and use it to explore the upper reaches of the Beaulieu River.

My son testing out the new Bimini

For Nicky and me though, the real news from the weekend was arriving at BV to discover that the Bimini had been fitted during the week.

We will have looked a bit strange sailing up the Solent with the Bimini raised in pleasant but not very sunny weather, but it gave us the chance to try it out in a stiff breeze.

It's brilliant.  Exactly as we specified with enough headroom for us to stand on the seat when steering so that we can see clearly when manoeuvring in harbour, really solid bracing, and no forward straps to conflict with the main sheet.  Plus it is curved enough to match the lines and thus look good and, on a practical level, stay taut to easily shed any rain water.  It's got an extra sunscreen which can be lowered to protect the helmsman's back and it also has a little window which can be uncovered so that it is easy to see the sails and the wind indicators for top sail trim in those 'racing' moments when you get two or more cruising yachts in close company.  Perfectly matches what we were after.

Just the new sprayhood to go to complete the transition to beige.  That should happen this week in time for our summer cruise.  Can't wait to explore further afield than just our normal stomping ground of the Solent!

Straps and Chains

This week's new beige covers photo no 1...

Watching the amazing opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics meant we had a late start on Saturday so again only a short sail in the Solent this weekend. Before setting off we were able to finish fitting the pad eyes and securing straps to the deck for the new dinghy. Definitely a two person job with me wiggling the nuts and washers into position from underneath whilst Nicky tightened the bolts from above. Yes, we did get gooey sealant everywhere!

As well as buying a padlock and a length of heavy-duty chain this week, I also made a beige cover for the new dinghy. It is therefore tied down, covered and locked to the deck ready for us to try out properly during our summer holiday cruise starting in a few weeks. Both the new dinghy and outboard are much heavier than our old kit so it will take a bit of experimentation to work out the best place on deck to inflate the dinghy, lift it overboard and then attach the outboard engine.

... and no 2

We were also able to check out the new AIS which is now 'talking' to the notebook so we can see a picture of all of the ships and AIS equipped craft that it is detecting.

We had a good beat west into both wind and tide.  As we came abeam the southern end of the Beaulieu we decided to stop so that we could watch some of the Olympics events.  It is a peaceful spot and fantastic place to wake up to in the morning.

On Sunday the wind built to a force 5-6 so we elected to sail with just the genoa raised.  Very easy sailing and big grins all round as we took it in turns to steer.

There was the usual maelstrom of racing yachts to dodge as we passed Cowes plus a square rigger training ship and a Thames Barge to add variety.  It was great to get out on the water again for a short sail but we are both itching to travel further afield.  We're also hoping for a phone call this week to say that the Bimini and sprayhood are ready to be fitted.

More Reading

Reading the pilot books for where we are planning to go is really exciting.  Great pictures of beautiful anchorages and warm, clear sea.  Can't wait to get there!

It's not just about dreaming though.  There is also a lot to learn about the local weather conditions, immigration rules and other regulations.  It might sound like a chore but researching it all beats working through an in-tray at work by a long way!

One of the things we will need to narrow down is a shortlist of locations where we could overwinter at the end of 2013 and into 2014.  The pilot books help there but there also a lot of good information on the Web.  Interestingly it seems that if you spend more than about 3 months in an EU country then you should register as living there for tax reasons.  That might have some significant implications so we'll need to properly understand those EU rules.

I'm also reading up on fishing - watch out Tunas, here I come!

Teamwork

I solved the problem of potentially having to get all scrunched up in the lazarette laying the long GPS cable for the AIS... Nicky volunteered for the task. On account of her superior sailing qualifications (and flexibility) it was one of those "never look a gift horse in the mouth" moments!  Joking aside, it does highlight the teamwork.

We regularly see yachts sailing with just male crews onboard, usually made up of the owner plus friends moving the yacht to somewhere nice where 'Mrs' flys in and embarks.  It is unusual for a gentleman to be sailing with a lady who is more qualified in sailing matters - I definitely feel privileged.


When asked I generally sum the balance of workload up as, "Nicky prefers to do the tricky navigation and I prefer to steer in the rain and fix things" - potentially a perfect division of labour.  But, as fitting the AIS illustrates, we regularly get amongst each others 'areas of expertise' to maintain the balance.

This is me securing and wiring in the AIS as well as tidying up the NMEA network wiring.

The AIS fitting went very well and the AIS unit now shows the all important green light demonstrating that it is very happy; properly configured, transmitting and receiving okay and that its GPS is working.  Proper geeky stuff, but a result!

However, the ship's computer wasn't talking to the AIS apparently because some 'drivers' that hadn't loaded properly.  I'd configured the AIS with the MMSI number and BV's dimensions using my Mac at home.  Simply plugged it in and it worked; Macs are good like that.  The PC onboard, however, seems to be more temperamental.  I do remember seeing a Tech Note from the manufacturer that might help so will work on that at home and hopefully all will be well on our next visit to BV with a picture of what the AIS is 'seeing' displayed on the computer screen.

Cowes Revisited

Mai-Cha III

Athos

Saturday morning was an early start with just a short hop across to Cowes on the agenda.  It also gave us the chance to take another look at the spectacular yachts we saw the previous evening; the 147 foot long Mai-Cha III and the 201 foot long Athos.

I love the style of the Van de Hoek Classic yachts so for me Athos stole the limelight, and hence there are more photos of her.

Friday Night Out

Nicky had an appointment in Cowes on Saturday so as soon as she had escaped from work on Friday night we were able to get down to the south coast and head west on BV.  There was no wind but it was a fantastic evening... and there were some amazing yachts off Cowes.















We avoided the bright lights of Cowes and anchored for the night at the bottom end of the Beaulieu River, arriving at the entrance to the river with the very last of the light from a beautiful sunset.

Covers and New Toys

Despite several distractions, including some work loose ends, I have still managed to be a busy-bee with the sewing machine.  It has taken several hours over 3 days but the outboard motor now has a new beige cover.  Making a cover for such an obscure shape takes time and is a bit fiddly but having a close fit stops the cover from flapping about in the wind when the engine is stored on the pushpit.  It's good to have finally finished the cover.  We will now be able to take the outboard down to BV this weekend and  I'm hoping the cover will protect the engine for several years so I won't have to make another one too soon.

Next task is the cover for the dinghy itself but I'll need to get hold of some more canvas before I tackle that so probably a job for next week.  We can then fix the pad-eyes onto the deck to lash the dinghy down and that will complete the changeover to the new dinghy and outboard.

A nice parcel arrived yesterday which was the AIS transponder.  This will both tell us the position, heading, speed and callsigns of any large ships near us, and it will also transmit the same data about us. That should stop us from being run over by mistake by a big ship!

The AIS comes with its own GPS aerial so fitting that will mean threading another long cable.  That means I'll have to spend some more time scrunched up in lockers... joy!  This AIS also acts an NMEA0183 Multiplexer so it can feed all of the various instruments data through a USB cable to a computer. As part of wiring it in I'll take the opportunity to trace all of the NMEA0183 cables and get rid of the existing legacy computer serial port cable which we don't use; essentially a bit of wire housekeeping.  If I can get all of the different bits of electronics 'talking to each other' properly it should be a very useful bit of equipment to have onboard, particularly when we are crossing shipping lanes.

"Daddy's Going Hippy!"

The Pulses Bible?

Much to the amusement of my kids I have started to experiment with some vegetarian recipes using pulses.  Rose Elliot's The Bean Book appears to have been the reference document for many people since it was first published in 1979.  I've got hold of the latest edition reprinted in 2000 and, as a non-vegetarian, I am actually really impressed with how tasty the recipes are.

However, this whole bit of cookery experimenting with lentils and other pulses is not as my grown-up kids have been teasing me, "Because Daddy's going Hippy!".  It's actually with a view to eating well on long passages.  We know that when we eventually get around to doing it, crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean will take us around 3 weeks.  We don't want either the expense, the loss of storage space or the power drain of a freezer onboard, so after a couple of weeks the fresh rations will have run out.  Living off tinned food is the normal option (bland?) but I'm also looking to find some really good recipes that can be made with dried pulses and other long shelf life foods.  We should then be able to eat really well with a lot of interesting variety which is important to boost quality of life onboard.

I am also hoping that if I brush up my fishing skills and catch the odd tuna or two then life will be very pleasant with seared tuna steaks and the freshest sushi to keep body and soul together.  Failing that I'm convinced that somewhere out there has to be the recipe for the ultimate lentil curry!