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July 18, 2005
Santander – The Route home
On Friday the 8th of July my son Theo and sensible yachtsman Eric arrived in Santander. Our plan was to leave Santander on Saturday the 9th of July and do a non stop passage back to the river Crouch.
During the early hours of Saturday morning we left Santander and headed out into Biscay. For some considerable time there was very little wind at all. As the wind speed improved a little the wind direction worsened and we found ourselves beating to cross Biscay.
We were visited by lots of Dolphins and even saw a couple of Basking sharks.
Our route home took us through the “Raz de Sein” and the “Chenal du four”. While the raz was like a mill pond the four was very bumpy. Our 1st attempt at beating through it saw us turn around 180 degrees and retreat to a safe place while we changed our sail plan before trying again. The reduced sail plan worked well and we save ourselves some considerable time.
Whenever the wind dropped to nothing we drove forwards using the engine. We thought it would be wise to take on more fuel and chose Yarmouth as an easy place we could stop for an hour before cracking on. Having promised us all fish and chips my father rushed off to find a chippy while we remained to re-fuel.
As we headed out of Yarmouth and into the Solent we unwrapped our chips and were unhappy. The chippy my father visited in Yarmouth was not good.
On Friday the 15th of July at 0500 we arrived at the Crouch.
Posted by ninjod at July 18, 2005 03:28 PM
Comments
Came across your site quite by chance Paul. Very good and good account of the Santander race. Glad to see you got back OK. Our boat stayed in Santanter in the marina and we are off tomorrow for a family holiday. Will be going to Hendaye in SW France wher she will stay for the winter. Beginning to think about the AZAB 07 if brother is wiling and boss alows. Keep in touch.
Posted by: Graham Howat at August 3, 2005 11:55 PM