Saturday September 18th
Position 50′ 48″N 001′ 07″ W
Docked Royal Clarence Marina, Gosport Days run: 198
Wind: Direction 220’T Speed 25 Kts
Weather: Overcast and showers
News:
The closer Timoneer approached to the straits of Dover the more the tide started to affect the sea state. For the early afternoon the tide was with us bringing our speed over the ground up to 6 kts. But the ride was uncomfortable as the wind against tide scenario made the waves short and steep. By 18:00 the tide had gone against us but this actually helped as the waves dropped a bit and we could motor full speed with out pounding. By midnight we were through the straits and a favorable tide even helped push us along at 13-14kts. At 04:05 on Mikes watch our course had changed enough to the West North West that he could roll out some sail, and as he rolled out the partial staysail in 25kts there was a loud bang. I was sleeping in the salon to be close to the pilot house and I actually heard it go. The boys had the lights on as I reached the pilot house and you could see the majority of the staysail over the leeward rail. My first thought was that it was probably the webbing at the head we had hand sewed back on coming from Iceland. We quickly pulled it out of the sea and eased the halyard pulling down what was left on the foil section. Near the horizontal joiner at the head it had ripped from the leach to the second panel back from the luff and then vertically down to the tack. We dragged the sail down the leeward deck and piled it up in the aft seating area and lashed it down for the evening. We finally arrived at the Royal Clarence Marina in Gosport at 11:35 on Saturday morning completing what could have been a 4-1/2 day trip in 6 days and 3 hours, with an overall speed of 8.4 knots. As you would imagine everyone is glad to be on dry land for a couple of days until we start the next leg to Gibraltar.
John
