Sandhopper Class Cruising Trophy Winners 2005For the second year in a row the attendees at the annual Sandhopper Dinner at Thorpe Bay Yacht Club on February 25 th . 2006 saw the Cruising Trophy being awarded Peter Blomfield and John Evans for their 2005 exploits with a remarkable trip to Calais. Below is their report and attached files of the passage plan and outward and return logs. Plus some photos. TALITRUS S46 THORPE BAY TO CALAIS & RETURN 15TH – 17TH JUNE 2005 CREW: Peter Blomfield & John Evans Yes, open boat cruising is rather like mountaineering. You do it for no rational reason and for lots of the time you are wet and miserable, but two days later when the aches and pains start to improve and your underpants no longer stick to that skinless patch on your bum it suddenly seems just great! John and I planned this cruise very thoroughly. We even purchased a brand new chart of the Dover Strait (Eastern part) and more or less memorised it. We studied Reed’s, the tidal atlas, the tide tables and the notes prepared by John Margarson for the Cruiser Section’s Calais Rally trip. We then calculated courses and distances from WP to WP , tidal stream changes as we crossed the Channel, high and low water times at Thorpe Bay, Dover and Calais and of course, lat. and long for all our waypoints. We both checked these independently and once agreed John did a great job of typing these up in tabular form and getting two copies laminated. The reverse side was laid out to use as the passage log. The advantages of this were that the laminate was waterproof, and could be written on in pencil. Course were entered in both GPSs and cross checked for errors. Equipment included flares, (red hand held and parachute, white [just in case!], and orange smoke), radio, (thanks to Bill Brech), two GPSs’, hand held and steering compasses, echo sounder, normal navigating equipment, decent anchor and chain, newly serviced outboard, 15 litres petrol, spare oil, etc. etc.. Wednesday 15th June The forecast seemed reasonable, if a bit on the windy side in the Thames. For the Dover and Calais areas it was just a very gentle force three; so we decided to give it a try. We left the mooring at 04.15, leaving the dinghy there, (thanks to Peter Thompson who agreed to bring it ashore for us). Just a gentle breeze so we put on the outboard; ten minutes later we did not need it and lifted it; five minutes later it was in danger of getting swamped so it had to be taken off and brought back into the boat. John having seen me nearly loose it over the back did all the oning and offing after that. It was good to have a relatively young (John’s underlining) and fit companion! We watched the sun rise over Foulness, and felt the wind steadily increase. There was a lot of south in the wind which meant we had a fast reach to the Spile and East Last. After that the wind reached the point at which we decided we needed to change down to the small jib. We moved close in under Margate to get some shelter and John hooked on, went forward and took off the genoa. We decided we would still be overpowered with the small jib so just left the main up, this we thought would give us better pointing ability than just a headsail , ( but it did cause problems later). At this stage I felt sick but luckily this passed after about ten minutes so we considered our options. Go back to TBYC where there would be no water; work our way up the Swale; divert to Ramsgate; or just carry on. We delayed the decision till Longnose where Ramsgate looked an unpleasant sail and Calais a possible fetch. So Calais it was with the prospect of almost 30 miles of open water. We almost laid our first waypoint but from then on the wind went more southerly, increased and we faced long and short beats to Calais. It was also at this point that I began to feel cold and realised my oilies were far too old for this trip. I was literally wet to the skin with salt water running down my body and into my boots. I stayed like that for 9 or 10 hours. To add to our misery it rained for 5 or so hours. It was difficult to tell when it started or stopped as we were constantly deluged by the sea, sometimes in solid lumps and sometimes just heavy spray. John had better protection but the water worked its way up his arms but did not reach his boots. We were well over pressed but there was no way we could swap the main for the jib and of course no way to reef the main. So we just had to press on and trust the rigging and tiller survived the strain. At this stage the wind was force 5 to 6; this was confirmed in Calais. We were thrown about pretty hard and at one point John shouted “I am going over”. He did not but it was a near thing. We then had our bit of excitement. As I said earlier we pointed fairly well with the main but it had its drawbacks. We saw a ship in the distance and decided it would be safer to tack. This we did but were hit with a wave which stopped us dead. We were in irons with a ship approaching and no headsail to back and of course no motor. Eventually we just let the main run free and hoped the boat would swing one way or the other. We did not mind which; we just wanted to get moving. This it did and we were able at last to pick up speed and regain steerage way. With the main sheeted in the boat acted just like a weather cock. Fortunately the approaching ship was keeping a good watch and altered course to give us plenty of room. After that we just kept battling our way towards Calais but despite our best efforts were being pushed too far east. We realised that the tide would turn against us as we were running very late. We put another west tack in and eventually ended up only about a mile east of the harbour entrance. However beating against the tide was a mug’s game so we went close inshore for some shelter and John managed to get the motor on. At this stage the echo sounder had packed up and later we discovered it was full of water. So that was more or less it. We motor sailed up to the harbour entrance to be confronted by three red lights. We had to sail round for twenty five minutes while two ferries left and two entered. We followed the second one in and picked up a swinging mooring in the outer harbour fifteen hours after we left Thorpe Bay. About fifteen minutes later the marina gate swung open and we entered the Yacht Harbour all alone. We had not seen another yacht for the whole trip, which suggests we must be mad. We were given the best possible finger berth and greeted by a number of Dutch, French and Brits all of whom confirmed we were nuts. I almost forgot to say, it was the pumping that kept us from hyperthermia, and we did not get the chance to eat anything for the whole period. We were knackered, just picked up our bags, covered the boat and booked into the nearest hotel with a hot shower. About an hour later we tried a restaurant; I was not really hungry but John made up for me. Leaving the restaurant I suffered the indignity of falling down the one and only step and got more bruises then than in the 15 hours on the boat. Thursday 16th June Rest and recuperation! We sorted the boat, spent a relaxing hour and a half in a launderette, ate yesterday’s food with a bottle of wine, spent some time on our beds and finally back to the restaurant where I kept my balance and John devoured almost all of a huge saucepan of moules. It must be good to be young. Friday 17th June Did not look forward to sitting on my skinned bum but it had to be done. The forecast was favourable, no more than a four and from the SW but a chance of mist. We left the outer mooring at 07.20; engine off just before the entrance and we were out, heading in the right direction under main and small jib, with about one and a half miles viz. Great but it did not last. By the time we reached the NE going shipping lane the viz was down to no more than half a mile; somewhat worrying! We saw the odd ship and on one occasion slowed down to go close behind; we actually got a friendly wave. I tried to remember the words to “For those in peril on the sea” and it worked as about an hour later the sun broke through and cleared the fog. All we had to do then was sail. The section of the journey up to the Goodwin Knoll was fast and great fun. The wind then went funny on us, moved around and dropped. We ended up motor sailing round Longnose and it took an age. We eventually got into the Thames but made poor progress until the flood started. There was absolutely no wind so we just had to motor right back to Thorpe Bay. We picked up our mooring at 19.25, just twelve hours after leaving Calais. John has prepared a clear copy of our plan and working log which is attached. Looking back we are glad we made the trip but we are not in a hurry to repeat the exercise, certainly not in the weather we had on Wednesday (but we are available for advice!). Peter Blomfield
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