Jersey to Lezardrieux to Perros Guirrec

JERSEY  TO LEZARDRIEUX TO PERROS GUIRREC

The four of us on Jersey with Gorey Castle in background.

 

Replacing a bent bottle screw

In my last posting I mentioned the accident with the rafted boats.  The boats were moored up together in calm conditions with ropes tying them together.  Once we had moved to St.Helier we noticed that one of these ropes had been tugged to breaking point as the wind increased and the shock had bent a 12mm diameter bottle screw.  The bottle screws are the adjustable bolts that connect the mast shrouds to the deck of the boat, in effect they hold up the mast.  The bent screw was not showing signs of cracking but you never know so I decided to replace it.  A sail boat mast like ours is held vertical by a number of guy wires called shrouds and stays.  There is a front stay, a back stay and in our case a port and a starboard cap shroud which is connected to the top of the mast and a port and starboard inner shroud connected just below the mast spreaders.  The shroud that had been damaged was the inner starboard one and I didn’t know whether the mast would be stable if I detached it.  I thought that the cap shroud would be strong enough but I needed some moral support so Chris and I spent a day visiting marine engineers and asking questions.  We decided that the mast was probably strong enough to support itself without the inner but to be absolutely sure we took all the halyards from the top of the mast to the starboard toe rail and winched them up as tight as we could to replace the effect of the bent shroud.  Once these were in place I very gingerly loosened the bottle screw checking that there was no movement at all which gave me the confidence to undo it completely and replace the bent component.

 

The bent screw takes tons of pressure

 

 

A bottle screw

 

Evenings aboard

Evenings can get expensive if you decide to eat out all the time so a variety of activities always are on offer such as Scrabble and Rummicub.

 

 

Miss Carla pretending she isn't competitive!!

 

Jersey to Lesardrieux – Monday 22^nd July

We intended to leave St.Helier for a night crossing to Lezardrieux which meant that we had to get out of the inner harbour in the afternoon, as it is behind a sill, and wait in the outer harbour till the tidal flow was right.  In the English Channel you basically travel east/south on a dropping tide and north/west on a rising tide.  The Channel Islands have very strong tides and if you get it wrong you can be there sailing full pelt but actually going nowhere so we waited for the tide.  We planned to cast off at about 7.30 pm but a large thunder storm developed so we decided that we would stay put till the morning tide.  Chris and I set about filling water tanks and pumping out holding tanks ready to leave at 7.30 am the following morning.

So the time arrived and we cast off and sailed out of St.Helier.  Weather was set fair but with a risk of mist or fog patches so we had our radar switched on in case visibility was poor.  As we emerged from the harbour we had to avoid the Fast Cat – the huge catamaran passenger ferry that docks there.  It loomed out of the mist blowing it’s fog horn and the 3 or 4 little boats which were accompanying us all scattered in different directions to get out of its way.  After that we set our course to run outside the shipping channel in the shallower water where the big ships can’t go and we proceeded down the coast leaving La Corbierre lighthouse behind us (though we never saw it in the mist) and set a course of 240⁰ (T) towards Lezardrieux.  Visibility was pretty poor all day ranging from about 100m at worst to a couple of miles at best.  We kept track on the GPS plotter and kept an eye on Pete and Carla in NANUK on the radar. 

 

Chris at the helm.

 

 

Chris on watch.

 

 

The entrance to the River Trieux on which Lezardrieux sits is surrounded by rocks and craggy outcrops and the Ile De Brehat and the tides run past the entrance at an alarming rate.  We arrived just as the tide was about to turn against us and even then we had speed through the water of 6 knots but a ground speed of as little as 2 Knots until we got into the river.  NANUK, Pete and Carla’s boat has a smaller engine than ours and was hardly able to make way at all.  We got into the harbour at about 6pm but they were two and a half hours behind by which time the seagoing current in the river prevented them from coming up stream so they decided to find an anchorage and come up the river the following day when the tide was with them.

Lezardrieux is a small village with a church, a couple of shops and a small supermarket, the River Trieux is what we in the UK would call an SSSI (site of special scientific interest).  The charts refer to it as a site of marine culture.  There are oyster beds, fish farms, wetlands and loads and loads of sailing craft from historic old gaffers to shiny new pleasure craft.  A very picturesque river but a very unforgiving one if you get your passage planning wrong.


The marina is situated about two or three miles up stram and you have to remember that the tide runs through the moored up boats just as fast as it does in the main river.  Also the rise and fall of the tides is very significant.



 
 



You can see the ramp down to the pontoon.  This is at about one third of the tide.  At high tide the ramp is horizontal and at low tide it is approx. 40 degrees.  The sea wall that you can see in the background has about another 1.5m of rocks showing at low tide.

 

Chris and Simon with beers!!

 The Dreaded Coifficient

Tides and tidal streams are subject to variations which you probably know are called Neaps and Springs.  A spring tide commonly occurs 2 days after a full moon and a neap occurs basically half way between 2 springs.  However some springs are bigger than others and the North Brittany coast has some of the biggest tides in the world and so a 5% increase, which in the Solent would hardly be noticed, on the Brittany coast can cause disruption and ferocious tides.  We happened to go to Lezardrieux when the biggest tide of the year was expected which I think is why Pete and Carla had such a difficult time getting in to the river that night.  The French refer to these differences of tidal height by a system called coefficients.  The coefficient starts at 20 and goes up to 120 and the day we arrived it was 107.  The mean is considered to be 95 for a spring so this tide was approximately 13% bigger than usual.

That evening we were sat in a bar by the harbour and the tide came right up to the top of the sea wall and flooded the car park and two or three people had to paddle to get their cars out.

David and Sarah – Wednesday 24^th July

left to right:   Simon, David and Peter

Carla and Pete have some friends who live near Paimpol so the following day we invited them over and went out for a meal at the harbour restaurant.  They all had Moules et Frites (yuk) I had a pizza.  Seriously though, it was a great evening and we all laughed a lot.  The following day they invited us to their house and so Pete and Carla went early to see Paimpol town and harbour and we stayed to do some chores on the boat.  Swabbing the decks and stowing loads of stuff used over the last day or so.  We agreed to meet them later only to find that there were hardly any buses so we decided to walk the 5Km through very picturesque countryside.  The hydrangeas and honeysuckle and sweet peas with their vivid colours were wonderful.  Chris and I were a little knackered after the walk as it felt a lot longer than 5K (Chris put this in)....... my sole contribution so far!!!!

 

Bridge at Lezardrieux

 

 

River upstream from Lezardrieux at low water

 

 

 

 

Landmarks on our walk

 

David and Sarah had two old friends staying with them called Anth (Anthea) and Sue who were on a cycling holiday and they joined us for supper as well.  We all seemed to laugh all evening, a great time was had by all.

 

 

LEZARDRIEX to PERROS-GUIREC – Thursday 25^th July

Having come to terms with the tides at Lesardrieux we managed to make our exit from the river and headed west with the tide approximately 25 miles to Perros-Guirec where we anchored in the bay for the night.  The extremely low tide meant we were anchoring in about 2.5m and the tide woulf rise to about 12m so we had quite a range to deal with.  The rule of thumb is that you let out chain equivalent to 3 x depth at high tide (known as the rode) so we were anchored on 30m of chain so at low tide we had a 60m circle. 

 

NANUK under sail

 

 

'April Dream' under sail

 

 

 

When sailing you see many contrasting things.  Sometimes you'll see a modern cargo ship then you might see something like this making it's way to Roscoff.

 

 

Square rigger off Perros Guirrec

 

 

Weather worn scenery

 

 

 

 

This is the furthest west we have been on the French coast.  Xxxx