Crossing the English Channel

The  trip from Lymington to the Channel Islands is at it's shortest about 60 nautical miles.  The plan had been to cross to Alderney and make our way from there to meet up with Carla and Peter Murray who were already sailing in the area and were going to be in St.Peterport on Guernsey this weekend.   We decided to make the trip there instead of stopping in Alderney.  This would make our channel crossing approximately 80 Nautical Miles (about 100 land miles) and would take up to 17 hours.  There were two reasons - firstly the wind was in the north east and Braye Harbour on Alderney is a bay open to the NE and very exposed in a NE wind so would be very uncomfortable for an overnight stay as waves would constantly be buffeting the boats at anchor there.  Secondly we had been delayed by two days with tech. problems and as such we wanted to move on further.



 

Alderney is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands and sits about 25miles west of Cherbourg.  The channel islands, apart from the Bristol Channel and a few ports on the East Coast of the States and Canada have the biggest tides in the world.  On a spring tide in Alderney you can see a tidal range of over 9m.  This is caused by the Atlantic rising tide filling up the English Channel and a wave of inertia channeling its way up past the islands building these huge tides.  Consequently the water flows very fast both on the rise and the ebb causing a phenomenon known as THE ALDERNEY RACE.  If you sail from Cherbourg to St.Peterport you must negotiate the race which starts to run in a south west direction at the same time as high tide at Dover.  Once in the race there is no turning back.  Our boat has a top speed through the water of about 8 knots max. and the water in the race, on a big spring tide, can travel at over 10 knots so it's basically a case of hitting the race at the right time and trying to make sure you don't run into anything as you are swept southwest towards Geurnsey and Sark.  A bit like Poo Sticks if you remember your AA Milne.

 

So our plan was to set off from Lymington, get through the Hurst Narrows at the Western exit from the Solent, round the Needles Lighthouse and set a course of approx. 187 degrees on the compass and sail all day to hit the entrance of the brace just as the turn of the tide to gain the advantage of the south flowing race.  We needed to average 5 Knots all day.  Weather and wind were set fair with a risk of fog patches, NE f2 to f3 (very light wind), sea state smooth.  In fact ideal conditions were predicted.  What we got was 2 out of 3.  There was no wind at all.  Visibility was about 2 miles and the weather swelteringly hot and we ran with the engine all day.

 

  THE NEEDLES