Puffin's Return
Posted on the 23rd September at 12:00 a.m.
The wrong marina, the wrong boat, a chess set and a record-breaking hoist. All in a day's work for a skipper.
Navigational Errors
It wasn’t a good start. I’d forgotten whether it was Haslar Marina in Gosport or Gosport Marina, and I’d also got myself confused which of the two was the one to the left of the ferry terminal. Either way we visited both and left a very confused member of marina staff who couldn’t work out why our boat wasn’t on his system.
Eventually we found the right Marina, and, 5 boats down J pontoon, we found a Beneteau First 300 on J5. Oddly the boat was completely locked, including a new padlock that is never normally there. Confused as to where this new security had came from and a few calls to the committee left us none the wiser, so with a thunderstorm approaching we went off in search of bolt cutters and screw drivers to unscrew the lazerette lid.
15 minutes later with the rest of the crew off getting a takeaway, we picked up the Tesco shop from the marina office and set off to catch up with the marina staff who’d left a minute before with some bolt cutters. Onboard, he had the boat open and was confused why we couldn’t get in. Grateful, we put the shopping inside, only to panic when we realised our bags (all 13 of them) had been stolen! A little more confusion later, it emerged that there were two identical First 300s on J5 and J7 - more than a little embarrassing.
What to pack on a trip
One member of our crew who was new to sailing had diligently followed the kit list. Every item of kit was packed in a plastic bag, vacuum packed in another bag, placed in a plastic bag and then packed into a waterproof holdall. There was absolutely no chance of their stuff getting wet, but we were a bit concerned that it would never go back in the bag once the vacuum bags were released.
Simon (cruising officer) should have been experienced in knowing what to bring, but had failed to read the list it seems and was a sleeping bag short of a good night's sleep. Normally this might have been a problem; however, the above crew member, following the kit list tips, had brought a spare sleeping bag.
Between us we also had a wide selection of reading material in case we got bored. Oh, and of course a chess set, though we didn’t have enough crew to play; it takes at least 16 hands to keep all the pieces in place in heavy weather.
Friday - Portsmouth to Brighton
After some late night repairs to the hob and the depth sounder, we woke for an early departure at 5am.
It had been forecast 4-6 knots of wind and we weren’t to be disappointed. With 50+ miles to make up, we were heading straight to windward with not enough wind to make significant progress. We accepted it’d probably be a day of motor sailing, introduced Otto-van-Helm to the deck and left him to it until it was time for some mid-sea refuelling - Puffin’s 30l tank not being quite large enough to make it without a top-up provided by the jerry cans from the bottom of the lazarette. 12 hours later we pulled into Brighton marina (the largest in Europe, we were told).
The early finish gave us time to clean the boat, test out the bosun’s chair to fix the Windex and get some food at a reasonable hour. Returning from dinner at 7pm, a silent thunderstorm loomed on the horizon. Oddly confined to just one small cloud, lightning could be seen almost continuously, flashing every second or two and continuing for several hours. We’d never seen anything like it and many people were lined along the harbour to film it.
Saturday - Brighton to Boulogne-sur-Mer
The wind forecast hadn’t improved and with 20 miles more to travel than yesterday we weren’t optimistic, so we’d planned to leave early (midnight in fact) to give us a few more hours. We left the harbour at 00:15 and made it about a quarter of a mile out before the thunderstorm, which had quietened itself away, could be seen in the distance again - right where we were headed. Departure abandoned, we headed back into port for a 3 hour power nap before our second start at 3:30am.
Given our slow progress yesterday, our contingency was to travel late into Dover - not much closer but it’d make for a short day on Sunday. After 5 hours of motoring along the coast, the wind started to pick up, the patchy fog lifted and for the first time on the trip we were managing a consistent 5 knots under sail across the shipping lanes - making it to Boulogne in time for dinner.
Boulogne is a traditional fishing port, though the port has been scaled back in recent years with a now disused ferry terminal and a neglected sea front; so it wasn’t quite the quaint sea-side town we were hoping for, but instead a prime example of 1960s prefab architecture.
Sunday - Boulogne to Ramsgate
Today looked promising - the forecast was F4-5 increasing to F6 later and despite being yet another head wind at least we would be able to make some progress. Today was also Simon’s first day as skipper and we left the harbour with a conservative second reef.
Not more than 500m out to sea and the wind started to build, hitting a consistent F6 and then rising even more! We quickly (or as quickly as we could with a relatively novice crew) put in another reef. This process wasn’t made any quicker by us accidentally letting the halyard fly - something which was surprisingly hard to get back, as by now the wind had risen to a F7 - though Megan’s daring lunge for it saw it quickly re-attached.
Unfurling just a sixth of the foresail found us overpowered in a heavy sea, giving Matt’s boots a quick dip in the drink. While Matt dried his boots out, the rest of us set to work finding the storm jib.
A New World Record
With the storm jib in the cockpit, we carefully unpacked it, checked its orientation and carefully refolded it for a quick hoist. Aware of the novice crew, Simon carefully briefed everyone on what would happen next. We’d tie up the furling foresail, remove the sheets, take forward the spinnaker halyard, two people would take forward the storm jib, attach the foot, halyard and clew, then we’d hoist it.
It wasn’t quite that simple. Communication in what was now a F8 was almost testing, doing anything on the bow other than getting wet was similarly difficult and lashing down the foot of the storm jib was proving almost impossible (small cringle in the foot, small securing hole on the deck and pounding waves to the face).
After a full 30 minutes in what must be the longest time ever to hoist a sail (and Simon taking yet another thigh-high dunking in the sea) we finally had the storm jib up and were beginning to make some headway.
After many hours of battling the waves, we arrived in Ramsgate and it was a huge improvement from Boulogne and we got to stay in its award-winning 4 anchor, Royal Harbour.
Monday - Ramsgate to Ipswich
We awoke at a sociable hour for once and left for the final leg of our journey. The forecast F4-5 for today never appeared, though, with the initial F3 dropping to F1 by lunchtime. After I’d joked about the possibility of some canapes and wine in the afternoon, Simon surprised us all with a decadent selection of finger food and a bottle of Rioja.
Posted By crew dockLink on the 27th December at 4:28 p.m.
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