The cry of 'Land Ho!' went up at 10:16 GMT on the morning of the 26th October. Skipper, 1st mate and deck hand Niall had made the crossing of THE bay whiteout so much as a hint of it's reputation. This brings our voyage total mileage to 613 nautical miles. As we approached land we wondered how far ahead of Tormalind, an Estonian boat which left at the same time as us and who we kept pace with until the second night of the crossing when we suspect that they reduced sail for the night which we did not! We have an advantage in that we can reduce our fore sails without having to leave the safety and comfort of the cockpit whereas Tormalind have to venture out and manually remove one sail and bend on another. maybe they were just tired of us being in such close quarters!!? Thanks to the wonders of modern telecoms we were able to put out a request to the Tin Tin WhatsApp group and sure enough the answer came back that they were about 27nm astern.. Satisfying for us! (Photos wil...
So, we set off at last on Friday evening having said good bye to John, Asley, and Steve of Seatech who have resolutely soldiered on in the face of one adversary after another from what should have been a simple engine swap. Full marks for perseverance and a professional job done.
We motored out of go sport at 18:06 BST and headed to Newton creek on the Isle of Wight for a quiet anchorage, but found it pretty much full! An early rise next morning and we passed the Needles with the sun trying to burn through the mist surrounding them. Then on along the southern coast of England on a course to take us past the western edge of the traffic separation scheme so avoiding the requirement to cross at right angles to the ship traffic. This was all done in the night with the half moon illuminating us an closers ships and fishing vessels. We set up a 3 person watch programme of 4hrs on/4hrs off staggering Niall's watch so that he was never left alone (this being his 1st voyage). As the eve...
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