Brighton to Le Havre

Well maybe the start date was meant to be easy to remember – 08.08.08, hence the delays? Friday morning I opened my eyes and reached straight for the phone to call Mike Stevens (the ‘Rigging Guy’) to arrange the fitting of the spinnaker pole eye to the mast.

When he finally arrived I couldn’t hide my expression as he says ‘Ah you have a SparCraft mast, I ordered an eye for a Z-Craft mast’. After some bending and for want of a better word, ‘Bodging’, it was on there!

Mike Green (the Sail Guy) called to say there had been a ‘Cock Up’ at the post office and the Genoa Cars would arrive around 2pm. Great! - Exactly the time I needed to be leaving!

Francois came over to say goodbye and he joined us for our last Bacon & Egg sandwich, the time now being after 1pm. Needless to say, by now I was close to either killing someone or having a heart attack caused by stress.

Finally the cars arrived and I raced back to get them fitted. Mike Green was around the marina and I wanted him to take a look at the new Genoa sail as I was concerned that it might have been cut too long. Sure enough, the sail had to come off to be shortened, back to the Sail Loft! We left Mike working on the sail and moved Doris round to the fuel pontoon. All I wanted more than anything was to leave Brighton marina! I am not sure a storm warning or even hurricane warning would have kept me there another night…

All fuelled up, I retrieved the sail from Mike and we fitted the original Jib (for simplicity) before finally leaving Brighton at 5pm exactly – only about 3 hours late!

Mike Green – many thanks for your patience and advice in sorting out the sails etc and dropping everything at short notice to shorten the sail, especially when I know you are already snowed under with work.

Outside the marina, we found that the wind had dropped off to nothing and what little there was, was coming from the North - straight up our chuff! This was all the excuse I needed to get the engine on and point her due South to try and make up some time.

About 2 hours into the trip I got a strange text message from Kat telling me to look in the bilges under the bed! I discovered a ‘Good Luck’ card, Sailing magazine and secret chocolate stash. Kat if you keep on you are going to have to inform Bisi & Angela what colour of hat to buy in the Carribean!

The delays meant we would be crossing the East going Shipping Lanes in the dark without radar or AIS. Daz loves his carrots so I was relying on his Mk1 Eyeball!

It’s amazing the effect a cluster of lights in the dark suddenly has on you when you can see both a red and green at the same time! After some very close encounters which tested our night light recognition skills (and nerves) to the maximum, we motor-sailed until clear of the Shipping Lanes into French waters. The wind by now had veered SW and was gusting to F5, so with a reef in the main and full jib we averaged 6+ knots with waves crashing over the bow in the steep choppy seas.

As it got light the wind speed continued to build as did the waves as we surfed off their backs making very fast progress. Upon approaching Le Havre at around 08:30am, Daz was ready to climb overboard! The shipping coming in and out of the port was massive!

Very scary with such a narrow approach channel and entrance to an unfamiliar port. Steve & Angela many thanks for the Channel pilotage info – it was invaluable.

I motored around just inside the less choppy water of the marina to allow Daz time to sort out fenders & lines before taking the easy option of being ‘blown on’ to the visitors pontoon. Boat tidied, French flag flying before the locals get nasty, we have officially arrived in France.

The journey has begun…