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West Country under Sail - 1996

1. Nature's light-show

Click here to see chartlets of the journeys mentioned.

Late July 1996, school holidays were upon us, the weather was clear and settled and the boat was in fine shape. We already had the Isle of Wight and Solent trip behind us from May of that year, all we needed was some fuel in the tank and more fine weather...

Re-fuel: Once a year whether we need it or not

"When we get to the fuel berth, try and grab us a bow rope, we can hang from that, the wind will hold us in place."

A light Southerly breeze up St Helier's main harbour made our approach easy. Rusalka Mist, our Vancouver 28, has a large diesel tank at 28 gallons (127 litres) compared to the 18hp engine at about 375cc. We are not averse to a bit of motorsailing when necessary but we still don't have to fill that tank every year!

It was no problem to top it up that sunny Monday morning, and it gives you a warm glow of preparedness when you do. The weather forecast was

A thundery low over Biscay will bring north-west air tomorrow. The next 24 hours:

Nicky as we cross St Aubin's Bay on Jersey's south coastWe were on our way to Brixham in Devon on the South coast of England for a cruise toward the West, to take in some of the famous sailing 'Meccas' of England: Salcombe, Falmouth, Plymouth to name just a few. Cowes had been a bit of a disappointment in May. It had seemed a bit of a run-down dumping ground with very high prices. Maybe it picked up come the Summer... maybe they all did.

By midday we had rounded Corbière lighthouse on Jersey's Southwest corner and were making 5½ knots, goose-winged dead before 9 knots of south-easterly breeze. An easy life. What's for lunch?

Preventer better than cure

I always rig a preventer on the main boom when running. Automatic steering is never good enough to trust your life to, and a crack on the head from an unexpectedly gybing boom can easily kill. Our preventers are rigged all the way from the tip of the boom to turning blocks at the bow then back to the cockpit. This minimises strains on line and gear, especially should the boom touch the sea or a wave break into the mainsail.

There was no chance of either of those eventualities today, only a very slight sea was following us towards open English Channel beyond Guernsey's SW tip.

By 14:00 the wind had shifted enough to put us unto a beam reach (90 degrees change). Our speed was down to 4.2 knots so we put the engine on to get back to over 5 knots. Three-quarters of an hour later the wind was back up to 9 knots again and the motor went off.

At 16:00, the wind died to 3 knots for quarter of an hour then came back again. At 17:00 we were clear of Guernsey and hardened the sheets to lay our final course for Brixham the next morning. We were now on a close reach and seeing a nice 13 knots over the deck.

Fast film captures Nicky on night watch

Stranger than Friction

It was not to last. As it got dark at about 22:00 the log records "Strange wind shifts!". Our speed was down to 2.5 knots, then it dropped to nothing. There was not a breath of wind from any direction and we were still in an eerie calm. We dropped sail and settled down to motorsail under main alone. This decision was partly out of exasperation with the flukes and shifts, but partly out of a respectful awareness of what it might do next.

I have sailed into a thunderstorm before. I recall this warm, gentle peace which was shattered by 30-knot gusts from every direction. The hailstones hurt my face and eyes so much that I dare not look up. But I had to see the sails which I was desperately trying to lower and control... The forecast had mentioned a thundery low.

A privilege to be allowed to watch

It was not going to be like that. What we were treated to, for hours that night as we crossed the shipping-lanes, was a light show. Nature's light fantastic was in three acts for us.

  1. There was a thunder and lightning storm but it was maybe 20 miles up-channel from our position. To us it was silent. We could see the whole storm over the sea. The whole cloud formation was lit up by one flash after another. Some were deep inside and illuminated the clouds themselves, marking out the puffs and anvils in clear light. Some lightning strokes were between the cloud and the sea. These were jagged and angry, but very short. Possibly this was due to the curvature of the earth hiding half of them from us, but the effect was still stunning, both in its scale and in it containedness. A storm as a thing, over there. I bet it felt different to those underneath it.
  2. Guernsey appeared twice behind us, one above the other, under a red moon. Hundreds of orange, sodium street lights were clearly visible in each image. The island is flat-topped, about 200 ft above sea level and the images appeared about 200 ft apart, one on one invisible horizon, one on another. I'm glad we were not relying on sextant sights bought down to the horizon - which one would you choose?
  3. Looking beneath the sea behind our stern it appeared that we had caught miles of green rope or net in our prop. You could see the snaky mass of it trailing behind, half a meter down. I stopped the engine to check it in the darkness. There was nothing there. As I put the engine back into gear a cloud of green blossomed out behind us then trailed away in its rope-like way. It was phosphorescence, or more correctly bio-luminescence. Millions of microscopic plankton were being stimulated by our thrashing propeller and were giving off a moody, green light as we left them, disturbed, behind. As we watched we realised that this green line was flanked on either side by thousands of sharp white flashes. A check at the bow confirmed that a different breed of plankton was getting upset by our curling bow-waves on the surface. They were giving white warning flashes after our bow had tumbled them from their peaceful slumbers.

The wind came back and peaked at 18 knots at about 3 a.m. The sun rose and ended our light-shows at about 05:00. We arrived and tied up in Brixham Marina at 11:00.

Our West-Country Adventure continues. Please click here for the next instalment.