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The Bay of Biscay - 1999: Page 4

Single Handed Sailing
Single-Handed Sailing by Frank Mulville
is an excellent book that taught me a great deal about long-distance cruising long before I was ready to learn half of it. When I first read it my life afloat was dogged by sea-sickness and there always seemed to be more wind and waves than I wanted to see in the English Channel during my crossings. There was one passage I found especially baffling:
"Prolonged calm may have as devastating a result on the mental state of a man alone as storm conditions... In some cases it is more difficult to bear... When the sails are set the gear crashes from side to side as the yacht rolls, the mainsail chafing and wrenching at the bolt ropes all to no purpose. When the sails are down the sun beats on the deck without pity. Nothing he can do or think or say or threaten makes any difference." I now have a new definition of 'becalmed'. While you can carefully trim sails to catch the slightest ghost of a breeze in a calm bay, when a swell the size of sand-dunes is running under you even 5 or 6 knots of wind (Force 2) may not be enough to give the sails shape for long enough for them to begin to drive the boat.

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CHART
BOX

Non-java chartlet - see biscay1.html for full interactive java version
Sketch Maps and Chartlets (not to be used for navigation!)
© Copyright 1999 Nigel Jones/MistWeb Software

Under way

Our sailing on Tuesday 27th July began at 1100 when we had about 7 knots of wind on the nose and began to make progress under full genoa, stays'l and full mainsail. We tacked carefully into this for the rest of the day as it sometimes fell away and sometimes returned, slowly backing.

Buzzed

Between 1500 and 1525 we were 'buzzed' at less than mast-top height, no less than three times, by a French light aircraft registration F-ZBES. The first time this made us jump out of our skins. The second time we wondered if he thought he'd seen somebody sunbathing nude in the cockpit (he would have been wrong, this time). The third time it was getting wearing, but I suppose he had to get back onto his course having doubled back.

Whales

Half an our later we were much happier to see two huge whales blowing on the surface perhaps half-a-mile off our beam. By late afternoon the wind had brought itself around onto our beam and we were starting to make decent progress again. During the evening the wind increased to about 13 knots and with the huge genoa full we were seeing boat speeds of 6½ knots - even towing Gilbert, as we had come to call our fishing net around the prop.
Moonrise
Moonrise on a warm, gentle night in South Biscay

Watch system

At midnight I rolled away the genoa to ease the strain on the rig, slow us down and give us a bit of peace. Wednesday was a perfect day. We had settled on a watch system where we both sat and read books, listening to BBC Radio 4 on 198 kHz and took it in turns to take a look around the horizon every 15 minutes. This time was calculated so that even the fastest cruise-liner could not make it from hidden beyond the horizon to our position without us seeing it. The genoa and full sail heaved us and Gilbert along at about 6 knots all day and our angle of heel never exceeded 20°. With only one trip to the hatch needed every half hour there was plenty of time to read, to think, to dream and to write.
Whale
A whale on the surface some distance off

Effortless

I wrote, "Crossing Biscay. In one sense, when you look at the sails and the instruments, it's just like sailing across St Aubin's Bay (except the sea is bluer and we do it every day - all day - and all night). In another sense when we sit on our bunks reading books, it's just like sitting wasting a hot day on board in the harbour. In fact very often, in the gurgles and noises of the water in the sinks and under the hull, I think I hear the voices of our friends and passers by on the pontoon alongside.

"Finally... this boat is doing what it was designed for... and doing it so effortlessly."
Whale
In this photo you can clearly see the whale's dorsal fin

Breathing

Thursday 29th July began with the wind deserting us just after midnight. I tried different combinations of sail but everything just slatted and banged back and forth in the swell. The windvane steering was hopeless so I tried the electric Autohelm which ground in and out from lock to lock, wearing itself, me and our batteries out.

Trips up to the cockpit were not uneventful, however. It was a beautiful, full-moon, gentle night. Quite a few times, before dawn, I had been stopped in my tracks and the hairs on my neck made to stand up by strange, human-sounding noises around and under the boat. Like breathing or sighing or a sudden splash where there should be no waves.
Whales
A group of them getting bolder

Dawn's early light showed that we were surrounded, at a distance of about a mile, by whales. Big ones. Big, black ones whose breathing was clearly audible and was on a vast scale. We were, once again, on the edge of the continental shelf, this time the sea-bed was rising up to meet us as we approached the Spanish coast. As daylight returned and the sun came out, the whales became bolder - or maybe we just sailed closer to them. Soon individuals and pairs and small groups had passed us no further away than 20 m. Their breathing at that distance is spectacular and their bulk incredible. These animals, too, were accompanied by their own type of sea-bird, black and white in colour and a little bigger than a herring gull.

Menagerie

Around this time I noticed a small blue fish skimming along just below the surface under our quarter. He was so well camouflaged that it is difficult to see him in the photos I took, even though he escorted us for hours. He is mainly visible due to his dorsal fin cutting a wake into the surface ripples. I wonder if he normally makes a living escorting whales and mistook us for a new host.
becalmed
This blue fish escorted us for hours. Apart from his wake in the surface, his shade of blue made him completely invisible at times.

By mid-day our menagerie was joined by tiny black-and-white dolphins, only about a meter long jumping and playing between us and the whales. They did not seem interested in us, I think we just happened to sail through their playground and they didn't mind.

Spanish lights

At tea-time we saw a Spanish trawler working the continental shelf ahead. Our 2000 position fix was close enough to our destination that we were able to re-plot it on a chart of North-West Spain. As it got dark Nicky was staring ahead, looking for lights on the Spanish coast.

This wild tale of derring-do continues. Please click here for the next gripping instalment.