Liquidstate

The Channel Isles holiday is/was somewhat of a big deal for me. I’ve been an active sailor for seven years, covered thousands of miles, participated in several annual sailing holidays and seen my fair share of nasty weather.

However, this year marked my biggest challenge - to act as Skipper for this years’ big holiday, arranging (and be responsible) for all the planning, crew, passages, whilst doing my best to have a good holiday! Thankfully, as ever, I had Jen by my side to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid, dangerous, or well … dangerous and stupid
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We originally had planned to have Gee/Dom along for a final ‘proper’ sail before the end of the season. Unfortunately, Gee dropped out, but Kev stepped up into his place. Maybe he knew something we didn’t

1/11/03: After having a look at the weather, and talking over our plans with the Marina office, we headed out around 11am, but decided to stay reasonably close to home, so that we didn’t end up getting stuck anywhere - after all, we’ve all got jobs to go on Monday! There were four pretty major low pressure’s mulling their way over the scottish coasts.

Some good weather for our first leg from Troon to Brodwick Bay though! We turned off our GPS, and our skipper decided it might be a good trip for me to get some blind nav experience. So, out came the charts, plotter and dividers, and off we went. Pretty easy going. I kept track of our current location, and called up to the guys every so often to get a three point fix. We arrived in Brodwick Bay around 3pm, but found our mooring buoys sitting on the beach- not much good. Instead, we dropped anchor below Brodwick Castle, and got stuck into our well deserved lunch/dinner.

The wind was picking up, so rather than battle the weather across to Largs, we decided to stay where we were. Unfortunately, by about 10pm, the wind had increased from 6’s, to 7’s, and was now blowing 8’s and 9’s. I went up to let some anchor chain out, but Jen thought we were slipping. Rather than risk getting swept onto the rocks, we lifted our anchor, and set sail for the protection of Lamlash.

The winds were pretty strong, Force 9 (gusting 10s) - pretty serious. We brought out a tiny amount of sail, and prepared ourselves for a night sail down the coast of Arran. This was my first night sail, and although the weather was a little bit much for a first attempt, it was actually great fun/experience. In weather like that, you really begin to trust your skipper, your yourself, and most importantly, your boat.

We finally arrived in Lamlash, after a seemingly endless 2 hour sail. Our attempts to drop anchor didn’t quite go according to plan, and we were swept onto a sand bank. After some assistance from the Lamlash RNLI guys, we wriggled free, and picked up a mooring buoy for a good nights sleep!! I was absolutely shattered, and buried myself in my bunk at about 2am.

02/11/03: An unadventful trip home thankfully. The weather was the best, so whilst we all hid under the comfort of the spray hood, Kev did a great job of helming us through the F7 winds, pretty much all the way home!! For a guy only on his 3rd weekend away, its amazing the stuff he can do
Our arrival in Troon was looking to be quite interesting, as we were still experience quite strong winds. Thanks to some lovely helming from Jenny, we arrived textbook style Of course, as always in the world, nobody around to see it!!!

29/08/2003: After a really long drive all the way from Edinburgh to Ardfen, we finally arrived in what looked the worlds most unlikely place to put a harbour. Anyway, after lots of well wishing from the previous crew, they handed over to us, and we prepared for a long sail down round the Mull Of Kintyre, and over to our home port of Troon.

30/08/2003: Everyone up bright and early for our 8am departure. An absolutely beautiful sunset, and absolutely no wind. I take her out of the harbour, and off we go… The log reads “Donk, Donk, Donk… is 9.30am too early for a beer?”. Not a puff of wind, so we did some nav, set some waypoints, whacked on the autohelm, and kicked back with a few beers.

Unfortunately, our skipper doesn’t deal too well with no wind, so she got bored. After a quick phone call, we were told that now wasn’t the time to be learning how to fly the spinnaker… so, well, she started firing people up the mast!! Its a great buzz standing at the top of a mast, as you hurtle down past Gigha at 7 knots. Really wanna go back another day with my camera and take some pictures of the boat. She looks beautiful from up there.

Because we had motored all the way down from Ardfen, we were a few hours early for our tidal window around the Mull, so we battered against the tide for a while, until we were spat out the other side, for a short leg up to Cambeltown. 12 hours of gorgeous weather… no sailing, but at least we all got a tan. Infact, Gee resembles a panda
31/08/03: After a few beers in Cambeltown, we set off around 10.45am, for our last passage. Again, no wind, so this time we did some MOB’s under sail to keep ourselves amused. Much to our surprise, they went really well, with everyone getting a go at each job. George went for a swim 8 times, and each time he was recovered within 3-4 minutes. Not bad!!! Arrival in Troon 7 hours later.

First of all, we got the crew together - who had mostly not met each other before! Thankfully, we were mostly all from Edinburgh, apart from Stan, who we picked up from the airport on our way through to the west coast.

28/06/03: The plan for the first day was a short sail from Troon, over to Lamlash, where we would drop anchor for the night. On our way, we practiced some of the basic skills we would need, such as some pontoon bashing at Troon marina, tacking practice, mob drills, etc. Also gave the crew a chance to get to know each other, and work out everyone’s abilities.

29/06/03: Our first big sail. A 10 hour hop over to Ballycastle Marina in Northern Ireland. A bit of sailing, a bit of motoring, and some great weather.

30/06/03: Up at 6am to leave Ballycastle for 6.30am. An 8 hour trip down the east of ireland to Carrickfergus. A few nights stay at the marina to take in some of the sights and get ourselves well rested for our next few passages.

02/07/03: After a few days rest, the crew are ready for another 7 hour sail further south, down the coast, to Strangford Lough, which is known for its strong currents. You guessed it, another 6.30am start! Apart from a ‘gentle kiss’ from the sandbank on the way out of Carrickfergus, we had a good trip down. More great weather, and just perfect wind to get some goose-winging practice! Strangford Lough has some really interesting overfalls, and its amazing to watch boats rip up and down, carried by the 7-9knot tides- definately not one to time wrong! Quite poor holding, so we had to drop anchor a few times. Also did an all-night anchor watch to make sure we didn’t get any nasty surprises!

03/07/03: After everyone doing 2 hour rolling anchor watches, our skipper very kindly let us lie in until 7.30am! 10 hours later, we arrive in Dun Laoghaire (Dublin) where we plan to stay for a few nights for a few pints!

05/07/03: Dublin was great, to be sure, to be sure. The guys really wanted to see the Isle Of Man, so off we went on a long journey, in search for a single mooring buoy - the only one on the island big enough to hold our weight. So, 12 hours of listening to fishermen swearing on VHF later, we arrive safe and sound in Port St Mary on the south east corner of the island - where, thankfully, additional buoys had been dropped. After quite a long stay on the Isle Of Man, it was time to start heading for our final destination. Unfortunately, we weren’t 100% sure we would have enough fuel, so we ended up carrying containers of deisel from the other side of the island by hand!!

08/07/03: Its 0200 hours - what does the 0 stand for? Oh my god its early!! A night sail out of Port St Mary towards Bangor - our final stop. About a 14 hour donk back over to the east coast of Ireland. We moored up in Bangor, had a wee night out on the town, cleaned the boat the next day, swapped over with the next crew, and finally caught the Seacat back to Troon.

Phew. At least 60 hours at sea, about 500 miles covered, and I wish we could turn around and do it all again!!! A great skipper, a super crew, a beautiful boat, and one of best holiday’s ever! Thanks to everyone who made it possible, especially Robert for trusting us with his pride and joy.