Plan B

Just had a call from Misty Lady, asking if we made it to Cardiff and, if so, would we like to come out for supper.

They sailed on Friday, so made it to Swansea Saturday via an uncomfortable stop-over at anchor in Barry to wait out the tide, and dropped into Cardiff today on the way home. We'd hoped to sail over today and meet up with them there, but with 20 knot winds out of the south west all through the day, scuppered the idea and stayed at home.

Tess of Misty Lady tells me they've had a fantastic weekend's sailing. I'm envious, but it was a great gig last night, so glad I didn't cancel it to sail. I very nearly did.

F3 from the south forecast for tomorrow. We're going to make an attempt on the Holms. Lock out booked for 0830, which gives us about 12 hours to get there and back, with about 36nm to cover. Should be great sailing down, but might be a bit light heading back once the tide turns.

Hope to do it in somewhat less than 12 hours. Need to make it around Flatholm by about 1300, and if we manage that, the rest should be easy. High Water is around 1430.

Of course, the down channel leg will be a beat. Which is good, as we need the practice sailing to windward.

Can't wait. All I've got to do is make sure I get up in the morning. Seem to manage it most days though, so should be fine.

Of mice and men

Best laid plans and all

Dad and I are planning to sail over to Cardiff tomorrow morning, overnight there and head back on Monday.

Forecast for the morning is looking grim though.

Seriously contemplating scratching tomorrow and settling for an simple out and return down channel on Monday instead. Currently enduring a battle of what I suspect is sound common-sense against dissapointment though.

Have been really looking forward to the trip all week.

Overpressed

Torn canvas aside, I think we've had a pretty steep introduction to some relatively heavy weather sailing since bringing Calstar up from Swansea in February.

I say relatively. I'm continually reminded that worse things happen at sea, but I guess when it hits you out there a) you've got no choice but to weather it and b) you've got lots of sea-room to weather it with. So "heavy weather" is context driven by who you are and what you're doing, and I appreciate we're really still paddling in the shallow end of the pool as far as yachting is concerned.

Probably just as well. And I am enjoying it. Actually, that's an understatement. I'm loving it. But I'm finding myself continually outside of my comfort zone. Which, of course, is part of the charm.

I suspect the wind we had on Sunday would be champaign sailing conditions for most experienced cruising sailors. About 11 knots, gusting to no more than 18 at the extreme. Wind over tide, but it was a neap, so pretty tame compared to how it can get out there. Compared to how it was coming back from Cardiff in March, for example.

But my anxiety levels shoot through the roof as the boat heels. Especially when we're beating up wind.

The thing is, with a dinghy, I quickly work out the limits of the boat, and how its going to behave when I push it beyond those limits. I effectively take the thing out and sail her in a blow. We capsize, we recover, rinse and repeat, and pretty soon we know each other pretty well.

I don't really understand Calstar's limits yet, and obviously can't just take her out in a blow and tip her over to find out.

So when, after unhooking myself from the fisherman, we hauled up sail yesterday and the first gust hit, she heeled through 25 degrees and beyond and there was an immediate up-welling of panic and intimidation, a fear the boat was going to fall over on top of us. We reefed down the genoa (all though in hindsight, I should've put the second reef into the main before reefing the genoa), and as the gusts hit, Dad would feather the helm up into the wind to manage the heel.

Thing is, I think the boat and conditions are currently mastering us, especially whenever we try to sail close hauled in more than a slight breeze. I think that lost us the race the other week. I'm not sure we're sailing her anywhere near as efficiently as we should or she could be, especially when close hauled. I don't think it's a case of an appropriate level of reefing, but rather a lack of experience and confidence. The boat is still handling us, not the other way around.

A good example; when a gust hits on a boat like Calstar, should you spill wind by playing the main, as I would in a dinghy? I don't think I know the answer to that; I bet we probably should, but I suspect we haven't been. We've been a bit overawed by the size and power of that huge great genoa out in front, and the mainsail seems to shrink into insignificance by comparison. So when the gust hits, we try to minimise the heeling by keeping her just on the edge of the no-go zone, even feathering up into it a little if we have to. The mainsail stays cleated in.

Not very efficient, and I suspect it sees us sag horribly to leeward.

But none of this should be read as a complaint or frustration. There are no regrets.

I'm just thinking out loud and reflecting on recent experiences. There was never really any question of whether or not we'd go out last Sunday once the forecast stabilised into a nice, cosy F4, and the real horror of ripping the sail was the fear it would leave us unable to sail next weekend. I love heavy weather and an interesting sea. It scares me, and so it should, but there is a balance between appropriate anxiety and the confidence and calm to manage the conditions.

I've got the calm sorted. Mainly for the benefit of the crew. But I'm a bit like a duck gliding up stream, all poise and grace topsides but paddling like buggery just under the surface.

All this anxiety and trepidation I'm presently experiencing with Calstar, I felt with Ondine in her turn, very much so at first. A different scale, perhaps, but she was another boat I had to "learn" without simply taking her out and tipping her over. So I know this is just a part of the process. So is the questioning and review.

In other news, Dad passed his Day Skipper exam on re-taking it down in Portishead a couple of weeks ago. We've booked on to the Day Skipper Practical course later in the summer; Dad, myself and Ben for five days on a yacht out of Falmouth. With the three of us booked on the course, it's very likely it'll just be us and the instructor. Plenty of sailing between now and then, of couse, but it'll be great fun spending five days with Dad and Ben away on the Cornish coast in a bigger boat.

Of course, we could've spent the money on a new genoa instead.

An unfortunate series of events

It was a perilous weekend.

Great gig Saturday night, but three songs from the end the fire alarm went off and the entire buildings was evacuated to the car-park. Although I was certain it was a false alarm, the DJ had been over enthusiastic with his smoke machine, there was still a degree of trepidation at leaving my guitar in the building. I very nearly took it with me, but the last time a fire alarm went off at a gig, I did just that as we evacuated out the back fire escape, only to find it wasn't a fire, but a small scale riot happening in the pub car-park. Small scale, but enthusiastic, complete with riot vans and irate policemen and a very large number of drunken Foresters, it being Cinderford in the Forest of Dean.

Having our guitars with us was a definite disadvantage, so they were passed back over the heads of the folks crowding out behind us until they were safe back on stage, then the band fought and scrabbled our way back into the building through the squabbling masses. It's never a dull life.

Sunday morning, first in the catalogue of calamity that was to follow was the chart plotting app on my Sony Xperia tablet. It had automatically updated, and in doing so, an apparent "change in privileges" had caused it to eat my charts. I found fix instructions for it on the Internet, but didn't have the time to follow them to their (hopefully, though yet to be determined) happy conclusion before I had to leave to pick up Dad on the way to the Marina if we were to make the tide.

So I activated a trial copy of Navionics, which is a vector based plotting app that Dad favours. It did the job of telling me where I was, but I've decided I'm definitely not a fan of vector charts. I hate that when you zoom out to get a picture of where you are in relation to everything, you loose the detail of what you're potentially running into.

On getting to the Marina, we walked out to the sea wall and looked at the waters beyond. A northerly F4 was blowing, and we could see white caps out in the Kings Road along wiht a couple of large vessels being maneouvored about by tugs out of Portbury as well. We debated whether or not to go out, and concluded we'd survived worse. At 1120 we slipped our berth and entered the lock with a couple of other outbound craft.

A short while later, we were motoring out past the breakwater. I was on the port side pulling in fenders as we passed the end of it when there was a thump of something heavy landing on the deck, something grabbed and jerked me then there was a twang. Too bemused to be startled, I stared in complete incomprehension at a large angler's fishing weight now sat mutely on the coach-house roof. Then followed the tangle of bright yellow fishing line now collected in a birdsnest around the fender in my hand, along the way passing my dispassionate eye over a nasty, inch long, barbed fishing hook that had caught me through the webbing of my life jacket harness.

I looked back, and could see a bemused angler on the end of the breakwater, his own couple of rods seemingly undisturbed. I don't know if he was the angler that had caught me, or if it had been somebody else. I don't know if the back-eddy had driven us unwittingly into an angler's fishing line, or if somebody had misjudged that we'd passed and accidently cast into us. I do know it could've been an awful lot worse. I cut the line, gathered it all up along with the weight, and went below to find some wire cutters to cut the vicious hook out of the webbing of my harness.

A lucky escape, I reckon.

Equilibrium restored, I returned to the deck, finished pulling in the fenders and stowing the mooring lines, then Dad put Calstar head to wind and we hauled up the sails. I left the first reef in the main, but let out the whole genoa to begin with. The little boat heeled hard in the gusts on her beam reach towards Denny Island, so I pulled a few turns of the genoa back in and she seemed to settle well enough, Dad still on the helm so that I could concentrate on the management of the boat.

An hour later we tore through the leach of the headsail.

So it was a perilous weekend. But it had been great fun sailing up until then, regardless.

R&J Sails, Clevedon; a stitch in time

Following a suggestion from another Bristol Channel sailor on a forum I follow, I rang R&J Sails this morning, who are just down the road from Portishead in Clevedon. Got through to a chap called Dick Hannaford at R&J, explained the damage and said we really wanted to get back out on the water next weekend, though I confess I wasn't at that point holding out much hope. 

He said that if I could get the sail to him by lunchtime and if it was fixable, he'd fix it whilst I waited.

He did a fantastic job, and at a very fair price. And for added bonus, it was a real pleasure to watch an undeniably skilled and talented craftsman at his work.

It's very evident we're going to need a new sail at some point later this year, the leach of the sail where the UV strip attaches is very ripe, although the rest of the body of the sail is still in reasonable shape for its age. But for now, we're back on the water.

Then suddenly....

....the fun was over.

Didn't see it go. Noticed a 'bulge' in the leech, climbed forward to get a better look and was horrified to find a blown seam.

Sucks. But worse things happen at sea.

Really worried we might not get it fixed by next weekend though. Was really hoping to sail over to Cardiff and back for the day.

Braced

Denny Island

He was clearly enjoying himself

A little later

The idea today was for Dad to keep the helm, and for me to mange the sails.

He did good. Think he found it surprisingly physical. I found I had to direct him an awful lot less than I'd expected to.

Dad's a boatman, but he's not a yachtsman. I think we might fix that over the coming year though.

Today was a good start.

Sunday

Locking out, 1130