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 03:28 PM | Comments (1)

Solent -> Santander

As I write this I am sitting aboard NINJOD on a mooring outside of our host yacht club at Santander. Yes, phew what a relief… We have finally finished one although it was not without incident.

At our 10 minute warning the spinlock tiller arm extension broke off at its rubber flexible hinge thingy. Now in fairness to my wife, who confesses not to know that much about boats (or so I thought) , she saw its condition before our departure and was sure it was going to break, she politely suggested that we replace it. We ( my father and I) assured her that it would not and that if it did it would be engineered with a wire through the flexible hinge thingy thus ensuring functional use without flexible hinge thingy. Needless to say that there was no wire and arms like Popeye were required to manoeuvre NINJOD in the fresh winds.

With one issue on the issues list before the start and no more required NINJOD’s entire electronic instrument system crashed. The NKE topline bus just would not work. We had no depth, wind, log or anything useful information. The night before during the pre-race briefing we had been warned of the navigation perils of the Solent, the thought of tacking out of the Needles without depth information was thoroughly depressing.

We popped a reef in the main and headed off out of the Solent very slowly Fortunately for us we discovered Sleuth Hound and followed them through the final tricky exit into deeper waters.

Our strategy in the English channel was to beat down our rhumbline. It was a painful process but we were pleased to catch some boats up. On the 4th of July we saw Ushant.

The seas around Ushant were large. It was like someone had used a JCB to dig huge holes in the sea, many of which we fell into. At one point while on the helm I found myself an inch or 2 in the air as we fell off of the top of one wave into a hole. We called in at 11.15 on the 4th of July are reported that we were round Ushant.

While our 1st night in Biscay went well our 2nd night gave us a pretty fresh squall came through that left a long split in out mainsail. We reefed to reduce the likelihood of the problem getting worse and carried on, albeit slower.

We arrived in Santander on the 6th of July at 09.52. I was pretty pleased with our elapsed time of 94 hours 32 minutes and 48 seconds given all the issues we experienced and the awful beat out of the English Channel.

I am no longer a Biscay Virgin.. Hoorah.. and as was the case with the 1st shorthanded race I did ( The Triangle ) this event proved to be huge fun socially. I made some new sailing chums, met up with some old ones and, perhaps most important, I learnt a lot about me and NINJOD.

Posted by ninjod at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2005

On Route to RSYC - part 2

On Route to RSYC - part 2

I am sitting on a train heading towards Southend. We finally got to RSYC at around 0600 this morning. While the morning of the 24th remained as previously described the afternoon of the 24th turned into a bit of an ordeal.

I had just started to sleep when my father called me to assist in a sail plan change. The sky had taken on an odd colour and lightning could be seen hitting the sea in the distance. We popped in a reef, removed the light foresail and put up a small blade. As the frequency of the lighting increased we became concerned given we were the only large metal mast in a wide area. We headed off in a southerly direction in an attempt try and miss as much of the weather as possible. First the rain came and then shortly after, as if somebody switch on a huge fan, the wind arrived. At first we were fine and spilled the excess wind successfully but then we quickly found the boat on its shoulder, we had nothing else left to spill the wind with. Sheets flew and we started to drop the sails.

While we were clambering to gain control of the sails I glanced at the apparent wind speed and saw it log 46knots. On examining MAXSEA's electronic log it also captured conditions during the incident.

The whole thing could not have lasted for more than 30 or 40 minutes but resulted in damage to both the main and blade. A heavier No. 4 was put up and we started to make progress. Moments later it was time to drop the No.4 and go back to full main and genoa.

Our morning in Southampton was spent sorting out the damaged sails. Frank from DOYLES was on hand on a Saturday morning and assures me that the sails will be ready for Thursday afternoon.

All this action and we haven't started yet!

Posted by ninjod at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2005

On route to RSYC

My father and I are currently on our way to RSYC for the start of the Santander race. Having had NINJOD's hull cleaned we left yesterday afternoon. We were making good progress at a little over 9knots SOG when the wind left us last night. For most of the morning the windspeed has been 0 and as I write this it increased to 4 knots.

Image taken on 24/6/2005 8:49

Posted by ninjod at 08:57 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2005

Santander Qualification Cruise.

One of the entry requirements for the Solent -> Santander race is a QC (qualification cruise). Every mile my father and I had sailed together in my previous boat did not count as the QC needs to be undertaken in the yacht you propose to race in. For us this meant a sailed 150 nautical mile non stop passage.

During a passage planning session I came up with a 150nm course that would take us out towards an area called Noord Hinder.

1st Attempt - Fail

Our first attempt at the QC took place on the 29th of April. We managed to only log 12 nautical miles. There was very little wind and switching your engine on is not allowed.

2nd Attempt - Fail

Our second attempt was made on the 7th of May. We left a little before 23.00, as we headed out towards the mouth of the River Crouch the wind built. The wind direction meant we were sailing dead down wind on a run. We reefed our mainsail at 0132 UTC in the morning and we whizzing along at 10knots. Just before 0200 UTC we crash jibed and broke the main sheet block. We returned home having logged a whopping 30.49 nautical miles.

3rd Attempt - Fail

Our third attempt on the the 13th of May saw us log another 20.73 nautical miles. On this occasion we were sailing in strong winds with a very reduced sail plan. When we got out to the mouth of the River Crouch we were faced with 40knots of apparent wind. I reminded myself that it was meant to be fun and we turned around and surfed all the way home.

4th Attempt - Hoorah

On the 20th of May at 2110 UTC we headed out on another attempt at our Santander QC. The wind speed (15knots TWS) and direction, mainly Southerlies and South Westerlies meant we sped out of the River Crouch. At 2245 we logged our passage plan with Thames Coast Guard. Our sail plan remained conservative and comprised our No.4 and Mainsail with one reef in it. As we headed out towards Noord Hinder and a specific mark named South Inner Gabbard we fizzed along reaching speeds over the ground of 9 knots. We arrived at South Inner Gabbard at 03.00 UTC and then headed out to NHR SE, It took us 4 hours 40 minutes to travel the 30 nautical miles.

At NHR SE we headed South towards a cardinal mark called Birkenfels. The wind direction demanded that we beat towards the mark. We arrived at Birkenfels at 09.54UTC. From Birkenfels we headed back towards England. Our run back took us towards a mark called South Galloper. Between 1630 and 1700UTC we were hammered by a 30knot (TWS) squall. At the time our sail plan was to large and my father and I had one of those hairy moments when we saw the starboard side of Ninjod submarine while we both yelled "Sheets"!! We ran back towards the Crouch under No.4 alone for a while. Eventually, when the wind had sorted itself out we popped the main back up with a couple of reefs in. At this point we were beating towards Whitaker with 24knots true wind speed. We finally moored up at 0032 UTC on the 22/05/05.

The idea behind these QC's is that you:

a) Ensure that your boat is prepared
b) Ensure that you and your crew are prepared

Given our many failed attempts, gear failure and changeable weather I am now much more confident in Ninjod and our ability to get her to Santander.

Posted by ninjod at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2005

This Years Big Race.

This year my father and I have signed up for the Solent to Santander 2 handed race run by Royal Southampton Yacht club. My father and I are both Biscay Virgins and are looking forward to crossing the bay for the 1st time.

You can read more about the race, entries to date and the experiences had by some of the participants of the 2003 race here. ( follow the Santander links at the top of the page)

Posted by ninjod at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)