Overcoming Fear: Conquering Biscay on Our Atlantic Sailing Journey

Overcoming Fear: Conquering Biscay on Our Atlantic Sailing Journey

So this is our challenge to cross the infamous Bay of bisque a distance of 450 Mi with a reputation for storms high winds and high seas it’s a Lee Shore so we can’t afford to hug the coast we have to pull on our big boy pants and head well

Offshore before we head out a few last minute boat jobs a missing n from the inm mains furer and check out of the marina pay our bills and then take a big breath in and we’re off so we’re leaving Plymouth for the first for the start of a new

Adventure to the Plymouth VA on the other side pouth y Haven thanks very much for a great stay Bon and and the end of the mall they’re getting out the way B borders bit of morning exercise what we up to this morning Skipper well we’re starting our

Adventure I’m heading south down to the can Grand canar but uh today we’re just going to aarona the top of Spain well yeah well in 4 and a half days we should get there yeah so yeah happy just leaving Plymouth happy to leave Plymouth yep we’ been got Harbor Harbor rot been

Here over a month now well yes about a month but we’ve got a lot done lots of things we’ve had to do and the boat is so heavy she’s all full of water all full of fuel and she takes ages to get it going so good passage to Corona what’s the

Weather forecast for today it’s pretty good pretty benign actually for the next couple of days we might be motoring an awful lot yeah before the wind kicks in fact we could do mid with mid teams to 20s wind would be ideal for us yeah actually ideal cool as you said we’re

Off to aarona we’ve U finished all the work on the boat done a lot of work on the underside new rigging sanding rigging so the boat’s in great shape uh we put a lot of stuff away in cupboards lots of food lots of water and and fuel

As you said we got a new dinghy cover which we’ve been able to hide some of the fenders in and we’ve got a crew a crew helping us go Paul we’ll introduce him in a minute the up on the for deck to say good morning to his wife yeah so we’ve

Got extra hands to uh help the passage I’m looking forward to it it’s got a bit of a reputation as the B bis so we’re taking it not taking it lightly at all we’re all geared up we’re sailing direct from Plymouth to aarona in Spain why are we doing that

Well it reduces the time we’ll be in Europe and hence our shenen days by 5 if we hug the coast it would take twice as long being more like 770 Mi the challenges are the traffic separation zones in the channel and off the French Coast at usant why we’re heading for our Runner

Well it’s a port of entry into Spain it’s well West along the Spanish Coast so we should not we shouldn’t have to face much of a headwind to get around the famous Cape finair it’s also a beautiful city with the Tower of Hercules towering over the approach to the port and the Marina MH First night see on the bisc crossing we’re just heading for uh turning on the corner of Hant So this is the other side there’s the moon still up there out quite a bit last Night all Cain ceiling then till 20 mil south of the CH to 4 when the starlink stopped working my fault unfortunately this is our best and main method of communication especially for weather reports our backup the idium go hadn’t been configured at this point so we were back to VHF forecast from the

Met Office or French channels along the coast so we’re hoping that the last weather chart we picked up this morning will hold for the next 3 days it showed strengthening wind 30 to 35 knots se’s topping off at 4 M that’s 12 ft we’re in for a bit of a beasting ideal conditions

For AAS she needs 20 knots to pick up our skirts and at 30 knots she’s flying with the engine and Generator off it’s lovely to hear the creek of the sheets as she effortlessly slides over the waves heading ever further south going down going down saving vessel eager can’t see lotion is on Just Oh Okay so Sun up on Saturday morning big Atlantic swell quite rolly but C coping with it fine we’ve got the Ashen tied against us so we’re only we were only doing about 2 and 1/2 knots we’re now up to about 4 and 1 half but six over the ground so we’re getting

There slowly no rush that’s a lovely Sunrise moon was the other side but I’m the wrong side what type of weather sources do we use well we like uh the apps predict wind windy and wind finder uh using mostly the ecmwf forecasts uh and occasionally Spire when

We need a a longer range forecast more days and of course uh on the VHF you can’t really beat the Met Office o just got it just got it I think just oh to come so most of the time when we’re going down wind we have the msel out

Long way and we have it held with the main sheet and sometimes a prevented to stop it moving around we can also set the Genoa on the opposite side when we’re going dead down and we use the Spiner P to stabilize the sail so it doesn’t collapse it’s a condition called

Wing on-wing or goosewing this Spiner pole can be moved forward which allows the sail to be reefed so you can have a smaller uh for sale in heavier wind conditions it also allows you to reath theil and then pull it out on the opposite side if you’re going to Jive

The main Sal to the other J jibing can be quite dangerous as perfectly good block and here we have example two and not so good block this so what happened last night J just the weight of the M shot around yeah weight of the uh load on it as we jived

Pulled the Rope through between the cheeks can’t get it out at the moment so we’re just going to swap it for a different block he’s on maneuvers around the boat going and get a new prevent a line and a new block to put on it and he’s going to rescue his pot of

Sand through under his arm and bring it back a bit so it’s not look as though it’s about to fall off the boat and we’re averaging about 9 9 and a half s so at the moment these are lovely big waves pushing Us in the Wind yeah The wind patterns in the Bay of bisque are formed by low pressures that are out in the North Atlantic coming up there we can see a good example here one that’s coming up and driving weather up into the Bisc believe the sun was in the way There Pretty bouncy sea tonight we’ve just taken a reef in which was interesting to say the least it’s probably gusting 30 knots at the moment I would think big Seas I I doubt whether you’ll see them from out the window but there are some big Seas out here here and we’re romping along

Probably 8 9 knots constant and we’ve been up to 10 in this set of gusts and this afternoon we had you had 12 12 knots so we’ve been piing up a lot of wind you see the Bow’s not been actually burying itself but we’ve certainly been

Uh pressing the bat quite hard so the new Riggins had a test we had a bit of a laundry though um we had full Mansel out the Mansel they recommend you take in on starboard tack so of course we’re on Port tack which doesn’t help so we

Went up into wind with the motor on didn’t want to tack in this situation cuz we’ve got a preventor on at the moment and uh yeah we just needed to take it very gently but it was kind of pretty violent at at the point of doing

It so we came up took the pressure out to the maina and then Mary was able to Reef it in she’s got one and a half reefs in at the moment almost two and we’re now back Comfortable so how do we refar mainil well the Mast itself is a hollow shell of aluminium in the front of it cables come down and inside the back end of it is a circular foil which the main will sit wraps around so in this direction it comes

Through the slot in the Mast quite easily and goes around the foil and wraps itself on as it turns if you look at the boat on the with the T on the opposite tack you will see that foil is the foil is in exactly the same position in the

Mast but with wind pressure and being on Port tack the sail has to go through the groove and wrap back on itself and this is a much more difficult position it’s also in this position can also be sitting pinned against the shrouds there a lot of pressure on the

Sail means very difficult to rein so they recommend you rein on starboard side where there is pressure that helps the sail go through the slot starboard tack we tend to try and rein on Port tack avoid although it can be done so in heavy swrs the boat uh comes down the waves following

Sea pushes the boat down the waves and as it reaches the crest of the wave it tends to lose speed and the wave tries to turn the boat sidewards on and then this position is quite a dangerous position to be in so suring down the waves in uh 3 4 M

Se’s which is what we’ve got means the boat picks up speed as it goes down the wave and the top of the wave loses that speed but that that speed drives the boat down into the trough and slows it and then it tries to turn sidewards on

And if the steering doesn’t correct for that you end up sideways on as the crest comes through and the motion of the water particles tries to turn the boat over and you then end up in a situation uh where the boat is inverted and U not a good place to be

You’re in the water cells are flopping under the sea and uh hopefully everybody’s safe but it can be a situation that turns into a disaster where you have people in the water PS upside down you got no methods of rescue you have to get the get to the flare

Pack fire off some flares and see if you somebody can help you you’re pretty Limited at that point in time not good to be There Safe arrival zarona safe arrival zarona after the after bisc so haven’t got our passport stamped we are now officially in Europe sh good days are ticking so having been past the Tower of Hercules we decided we better go on an expedition to see what that was all

About here it is on the top of the hill they stuck in aaronia until the swell dies down you can see how powerful it is at the moment Tower itself pretty high and it did have a ramp system inside it that they could walk donkeys up to carry

Bundles of of wood to light the fire as a Lighthouse there a view back over into uh LaRon here so well our Marina will be over the back of there but the front’s quite pretty they’ve got nice bays and lots of surf coming in tonight uh quite uh spectacular Skies as well so today’s little task was to sort

Out why the Jenny was overheating and shutting out so I’ll give it a service I have one of these oil pumps I’m train to sump I have sucked it out with that I put a new oil filter on I was in and checked the impeller that’s that’s very recent that one so nothing

Wrong with that um there’s intake water coming from the seock so it’s not that and so I continued with looking at the engine the manual suggest making sure that the uh heat exchanger is clear so I’ve taken photog shined a torch through here and um there

Is a little bit of um build up in there but not very much they’re all mostly clear but quite a lot of pressure when you blow through the system from the pump to this pipe which is the intake to the heat exchanger this pipe from the end of the

Heat exchanger up to the exhaust seems fine nothing really that IND indicated what was going on until I blew down this pipe which goes from here and joins at the back of the generator to go into the uh the actual generator itself the electrical part gets

Cooled and uh then comes out and goes into the exhaust system and when I blew through that I couldn’t really blow particularly easily and at the back of there there is this WI Junction which has a filter in it and the filter was completely clogged and the reason it’s clogged is

Because it’s got such a fine mesh on it I’ve cleaned it up and it now seems to flow really well but I think that’s too fine a filter for a raw water intake there is already one on hour intake on the seock so I’m not sure whether I

Really want to put that back in but it did capture a piece of broken impeller that I had from a previous uh incident ENT so I’m going to put it back in it does flow water and I’ll remember that’s where to look if the engine’s overheating first thing rather than

Taking the rest of the generator apart we headed over to the fuel bth before we uh left but got gazumped by a lovely classic yacht uh which we happy to let into the fuel birth as he drew 12 ft but we were not so happy when he took 45 minutes to fill his

Tanks So that’s us leaving a Corona had a nice day here a couple of dirt nights and um we’re heading down the coast staying close in Shore well that was an exciting time our first big offshore passage and the start of our adventure to cross the Atlantic we

Started um with a bit of trepidation after all stories about bisque first couple of days were lovely then the wind and the swell got up and it really got quite uncomfortable but she picked up her skirts and was flying uh it was a stressful passage as Mary said our weather forecast system

Failed after a few days uh and uh 24-hour sailing on a watch system is quite stressful uh so thanks to our our crew Paul uh who helped us get through that um it would have been much more stressful if it uh it just been the two

Of us so the highlights were the sunsets the moon rise R es and the sun rises and when the sky was clear at night the SK Stars even were so bright they were fabulous yeah it was great to finally get away from Plymouth and uh get some

Sea miles under our ke uh so until next time when we’re facing Oka ali uh we’ll say Fair Winds and following SE bye Okay now I’m in the picture you were always were

The start of our Sailing Adventure to cross the Atlantic Ocean. This is the first stage crossing the feared Bay of biscay , through High winds and big seas. We explain how we handle reefing our Oyster 47 in heavy seas, and how we set our sails. We take on an extra crew to make the 24 hr watch system less stressful. Our weather reporting system gives out on us as we head into the forecast 30 knots of sea and 4 m (12ft) seas. The long hours of sailing are balanced with superb sunsets, moon rises and moon sets , oh and the stars in the clear air away from land light pollution were fantastic . This was our first taste of fully offshore sailing with ocean swells , flying fish and far far from land. We have loved sailing all around the shores of the UK , but this was always our dream , to sail into the sunset crossing oceans, and visiting warm sunny shores, only one way to do that , by taking the first step across the channel around the NE capes of France and out into the 15000 ft deep waters of the Bay of Biscay. Join us as we fulfil our dream . #sailing #arc #Bay of Biscay #Atlantic Crossing #yacht #sail into the sunset #ARC #ARC + #Crossing Biscay #sailing life #life afloat #Atlantic crossing