Welcome

These are the voyages of the sailing vessel Pétillant. Her original eight-month mission: to sail from Baltimore to France via Florida and the Bahamas, to successfully navigate the shoals of the French douane, to boldly go where few Maine Coon cats have gone before was completed in 2008. Now she is berthed in Port Medoc and sails costal Spain, France, and the UK during the summer months.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Heading South



Howth


We left Ardglass on the 14th, heading south.  It was clear that Tuesday would be the only day that would be even possibly passable to head to Dublin, so we went for it.  The boat that we had been rafted to,in Ardglass, was supposed to leave at 3AM, to make a tide window into Peel on the Isle of Man, but they decided to stay in port, so we left first.  The trip was not too bad – Force 4-5, occasionally 6, with the seas starting out light, but eventually turning moderate.  The wind was on the nose, so we motored the whole way, but did some motor-sailing at times to take advantage of some slight variations in wind direction.


This leg gave Phil and Joan a better idea of what it is like to sail up here, at least this year.  No one got sick, and we made it to Howth around 5PM.  We had originally planned to go into Malahide, but the forecasts have gotten more and more unpleasant, and it seemed like Howth would be better protected.  It has high stone breakwaters, while Malahide is all floating docks with a floating breakwater.  Malahide also has a strong tidal flow thru the marina, and we did not fancy dealing with high winds and strong currents in a relatively exposed marina.  So, Howth it was, and it was a good choice.

Dante Again


The trip was not without drama, however.  At the entrance to Howth we furled the main and got out the bumpers and lines, and generally prepared to enter port, and as we did this, the four people busily working in the cockpit caused Dante’s Maine Coon Killer alarm to go off, and he “disappeared”.  One moment he was there, and the next minute, he wasn’t.  Joan was sure that she had seen him head below, but he was nowhere to be found.  We milled-about-smartly in the Howth entrance for about 15 minutes while we searched the boat, and then gave up and said that he would turn up. No one had seen him fall overboard, and no one could figure out how he could have done so unseen.  So in we went.

Once the boat was tied up, the search began in earnest, and lasted 30 minutes before we gave up and really started to worry.  He was not in his regular hole, we opened up a bunch of panels on the theory that he had found someplace new, but no red cat could be found.  Time to expand the search.  We dropped the dinghy and headed back out to the entrance to scout the walls of the port for a wet cat, while Phil went for a walk along the walls to see what he could find.  Joanie stayed on board, in case he re-materialized.

The search lasted about 20 minutes, motoring all across the face of the harbor, up-wind and down, all the way to the beach to the west,  before we got a call from Joan that he had reappeared on-board.  She had not seen where he had come from, but it did seem to be in the bow.  So we all came back, had a stiff drink, and tried to calm down.  It was a stressful evening.

Racing in Howth

We stayed in Howth for 6 nights.  It is a great location, with fantastic restaurants, a commuter rail connection into Dublin, and a first-class marina that is dedicated to sailboats and sailboat racing.  The clubhouse is setup with large changing rooms for both men and women that can handle large crowds, and we got to see the operation in action during the weekend of Aug 18-19.  The national championships for the RS class of sailing dinghies was held in Howth, and the place was crammed with adolescent boys and girls setting up boats and sailing races, and partying every night.  At the same time, a lot of other class racing was going on, and the marina still ran its normal weekend schedule of club races.  All-in-all, quite impressive.

Crew Change

Phil and Joan left on the 16th, and Musetta showed up one hour later.  She is not a sailor, and she had a flight to make out of Dublin to Portugal on the 20th, so we decided to turn the boat into a hotel for a few nights.  We met with Patsy and Ray, and their friends Pat and Noel, for breakfast and dinner, and got the grand tour of Dublin and its environs.  Quite a nice meal at the King Sitric restaurant.  The next day we went back to Dublin and got haircuts from the eastern European place (now including South Asian stylists, as well), and walked till we nearly dropped, with a brief break for a  local pub meals.  The weather was gorgeous, with great sun.  We also looked at the sea-state from the breakwater, and were not convinced that it was benign…

South to Arklow

After Musetta left on the 20th, we looked at the weather and the tides again, and decided to make a dash for Arklow.  It was only about 35 miles S of Howth, and the forecasts were not challenging, and if we left around noon we should have a good current, so we went for it.  We did a good bit of sailing, past the mouth of Dublin harbor and almost all the way to Wicklow, before the winds headed us again, and we pounded into short, square 1-2 m waves for about an hour before we eventually made it into Arklow.  We were here last year, so we knew the peculiarities and were prepared when we found the marina basin was full.  Luckily, there was a spot on the pontoon in the river, and with some help from the guys upstream we did a nice side-slip parking maneuver and were set. 

We also saw one of the tall ships that will be partying in Dublin this weekend.  They seemed to be having engine trouble, which was confusing, because the wind was great for a downwind sail up the Irish sea, but we head later that they had been neaten up in the Bay of Biscay, racing from La Corona.  Even large sailing ships sometimes find it rough.

We stayed in Arklow for 2 nights, debating where to go next.  We found another good  butcher shop that cut us a nice T-bone, re-stocked our favorite Irish whiskey, and discovered a very useful shopping center that we missed last year.  It was also time to fill up with diesel, and with a price of 1.05/liter, we filled to the brim.  The option we eventually settled on, before we went to bed on the evening of the 21st, was to get up at 4AM, listen to the weather, and then head towards Milford Haven with a favorable wind and tide. There we could look at the weather again and decide whether to hug the coast or make a dash for the Scillies.

Kilmore Quay

Well, at 4AM, we tried to listen to the weather, but there seemed to be some sort of radio interference, and we could not find a good weather forecast from any of the Irish or English transmitters, so we diced to go back to bed, get some rest, and re-evaluate.  At 9AM, the wind had definitely gone to the west (a good thing), and the weather was clear, so the plan was revised to: (1) fill up with diesel, (2) leave at noon, with the tide, (3) aim for Rosslare, with the intention of spending a night at anchor there before (4) passing on to Kilmore Quay the next day.  We really did not want to slog our way along the west coast of Cornwall, trying to time our entry into Padstow, and then bashing back to the SW to round Land End.  An overnight straight shot to the Scillies would be infinitely preferable. And, if we stayed in Ireland we could keep the “weather eye” on our target, by staying west, and upwind(theoretically!) of our goal (the Scillies).

We executed the plan pretty well, except that we improvised as we closed on Rosslare and decided to go all the way to Kilmore Quay.  We were getting a good push, sailing well, with moderate, but not difficult seas, so a few more hours to make the real objective seemed to be a good idea.  Unfortunately, the wind turned against us, the current finally gave out, and the sea-state turned nasty, so the last 3 hours were spent bashing to windward.  We eventually made it into Kilmore Quay at 9PM, just before dark.

Current (revised, modified, updated) plan

We are now in Kilmore Quay, and the wind is blowing, and it is raining.  The forecasts do not appear to be good for a passage to the Scillies for the foreseeable future.  The UK Met office surface charts are showing a string of low pressure systems rolling out of Canada, with nasty winds and sea states for at least a week.  It might be possible for us to take advantage of short weather windows and hop over to Milford Haven, and then to Padstow, and then down around Lands End back to Penzance, just like we came up last year.  There are no 2-day windows apparent, much less 3-day windows, which is what we would prefer.  Maybe we will just stay here and rent a car to do some touring for a week.  At least we have good shelter, a quaint town, and good connectivity.  The kitties really want to get back to France….

No comments: