Channel Cruise: Part 1 - Southampton to Cherbourg

The crew assembled on Friday 27th July. Toucando had been victualled and prepared for the voyage. Roger of Southampton Sailing Club, and Colin who had sailed on Toucando recently both came to Shamrock Quay in the afternoon.

We set off shortly after 1700 towards Yarmouth, our chosen first night destination. Our voyage was to take us across the English Channel and to last nine days... Toucando's longest trip since her passage from Dublin last year. The cruise was in company with several other Southampton Sailing Club boats, led by Four Seasons.

We were able to sail some of the way down to Yarmouth, but needed the engine as well. We found a mooring buoy outside the harbour before darkness fell. We ate a Mediterranean chicken stew on board and got ready for an early start the following morning.

Our mooring buoy off Yarmouth

To get the best of the tide through the Needles Channel we aimed to leave at 0515 on Saturday 28th July. We actually slipped our mooring ten minutes later. We soon got the sails raised and were able to sail down the last few miles of the Solent, past the Needles before turning left and steering 185 degrees for Cherbourg.

We were on a pleasant starboard tack, with just the right amount of wind... an unusual experience. Toucando made a decent speed and we progressed steadily, making one (probably unnecessary) deviation for large shipping. As planned we arrived uptide of Cherbourg and were able to slide into the Western Entrance of the Grande Rade diagonally, to the astonishment of the crew who were slightly alarmed that we appeared to be heading straight for the harbour wall.

At 1703 we were the first to arrive, and had made an excellent time. It took slightly longer than we had expected to get the mainsail down. The wind had got a fair bit stronger in the final hours of the crossing. When we entered La Chantereyne Marina we had expected to be greeted by a lady in a red dory... but she was nowhere to be seen. We did a quick circuit before retreatring to the Petit Rade to await the arrival of Four Seasons. It seemed that the marina had not reserved places for us, so we wnded up distributed all over. Toucando finished up on the waiting pontoon... not connected to dry land (but we are used to that). We had a bolognese aboard.

Toucando in the sunset at Cherbourg

Sunday was a free day. We had established in a morning trip ashore that nothing much happens in Cherbourg on Sunday, and unfortunately the convenient Carrefour supermarket just by the harbour is being rebuilt, making any significant shopping difficult.

In the afternoon the skipper took advantage of visiting the Cite de la Mer, a major tourist attraction. Although it was only a frw hundred metres from where Toucando was moored it was a long (but not unpleasant) walk round the harbour to get there. It is based in the old liner terminal and one of the first rooms you go in is the baggage hall... quite impressive, I thought.

Liner baggage hall in cherbourg, now part of the Cite de la Mer museum

That room told the story of French emigration to America. Other parts of the museum were devoted to the Titanic (which stopped in Cherbourg for one and a half hours en route to Queenstown, and thence to its nemesis); diving and submarines (including a decommissioned nuclear sub), and a rather atmospheric aquarium.

Jellyfish

(I could post a few more like this.)

Nuclear submarine

I would recommend Cite de la Mer to anybody with a day to spare in Cherbourg. In the evening the whole Southampton Sailing Club part gathered in the Yacht Club restaurant where we enjoyed some French Cuisine... a duck and anchovy salad, a salmon steak, and creme caramel in my case. The following day we would be setting off towards St Peter Port Guernsey. (To be continued.)

Across Poole Bay

As previously noted, Toucando stayed in Poole on Sunday. Two of the Southampton Sailing Club boats which set off decided to turn back before getting out of the harbour, one of them having recorded 53 knots of wind over the deck - which is the high end of a storm force 10. We all enjoyed an evening together on Buccaneer having a Bolognese, trifle and various bottles we had discovered hidden away in our lockers. I had appointments to keep in the midlands and couldn't organise crew until Thursday, when Malcolm of SSC kindly offered to come back to Poole to help sail Toucando back home.
The morning started with two hours of rain lashing the deck... It didn't seem that much better than Sunday. But by 1030 the rain had stopped and things seemed a little better. Malcolm arrived for a lunch of bread and soup and at 1400 we reversed out of our berth (rather elegantly) and set off round Brownsea Island. The wind blowing off the Purbeck Hills was surprisingly fierce, throwing up choppy white topped waves. We unrolled the staysail and headed out to the open sea.
Once out in Poole Bay we were on a nice broad reach, with the wind somewhere between a force 5 and 6. A large swell was rolling up the channel and Toucando occasionally rolled this way and that. We kept the staysail up, and that was enough to give us an average of five knots through the water which equated to six to nine knots over the ground with the help of the tide. We stayed on a starboard tack for some twenty miles until we got to the Bramble Bank and had to gybe to turn towards Southampton Water. The wind decided to go up several levels at that point, and we enjoyed a near gale force seven for half an hour.
We noticed a tear had started in the staysail, so rolled it up near Netley. We passed close to a RSYC race and observed a large cruise being virtually knocked down as it struggled to bring down its spinnaker. Then we were turning into the Itchen... the industrial river which is Toucando's home. We made a near perfect arrival on her pontoon, the whole passage having taken seven hours.
Malcolm's attempt to catch mackerel was not successful. Fortunately I had acquired some from Mr Sainsbury, so we were able to have fish for high tea. Now back at home the next task is to get that sail repaired. Moral: look at the forecast for the whole weekend, and don't assume it will be any better than promised. Many thanks to Malcolm and other SSC fellow sailors.

Storm bound in Poole

We had a longish passage to Poole yesterday, starting with no wind whatever in Southampton rising to a force five occasionally six in Poole Bay in the afternoon. We berthed at the quay just by the harbourmaster's office. This morning four SSC boats set off. Two returned in less than an hour reporting gusts of 53 knots in the harbour (storm force ten). We're staying put until it gets better.