After our abortive attempt at the Fastnet last year, we are determined to get to Ireland this year. Richard and I have entered the Triangle Race, organised by the Royal Torbay YC. It is a two-handed race, which starts in Torquay, goes to Kinsale in Ireland, then Treguier in Brittany and then back to Torquay (for us there are also the two additional legs, from the East Coast to Torquay and back!)
We did the race in 1990 in our Sigma, when it was sponsored by Yachting Monthly, and have always wanted to have another crack at it. It will be quite hard work, and not everyone's idea of a holiday, but we thought it would give us a realistic test to find out how we will get on long-distance, short-handed cruising (which we plan to do if we can ever afford to retire!)
And there are some great parties at the stopovers! The race is over two weeks, in June, when the nights are very short, and last time we thoroughly enjoyed it, and learned an enormous amount.
Hi Cathy, main sailing plan is to get a lot of offshore miles in. 4 of us over 60's are sailing a Nicholson 38 ketch straight down to Spain in June. Some of us are thinking of onwards and upwards as far as RYA courses go. We all fancied going to the Azores and staying there for a couple of weeks, but work commitments mean that we may have to do that in a year or two's time.
I have mentioned somewhere before on Mainsail, that the Nic' 38 is a wolf in sheeps clothing. The hull, a long keeler, and general design came from the USA and were originally intended to be a motorsailer. Later they were made by Nicholsons, as they turned out to be an extremely good 'sailboat' in their own right. The one advantage for cruising in a ketch like this, is that you can have a large amount of rag in your sail wardrobe, so the variety and choice is as big as your wallet and conditions on the day.
This should then set me up for the season content with a few picnics with wife and friends and a few solo trips here and there using the Portsmouth area as my base. ..Scotty
May I complement you Scotty on a sound vessel. I have admired the Nic 38 for some time. I have a Nic 39 which is a fantastic boat, good old ketch rig with loads of options for balancing the boat, still learning after 3 years owning her.
The Nic 38 does have the advantage of being a bit lighter than the 39 and has a wheelhouse, which I do envy as most of my sailing is in IOM/Irish sea area, and we can get some appalling weather during the sailing season when it would be nice to be in a sheltered wheelhouse.
Hope you have a good trip to Spain, I am planning a trip to St Kilda and would like to visit the Faroes at some poiint, but suspect that may be one for next year.
We will set off driving to Greece in about a month, in the camper van loaded down with kit, as I plan to do a lot of work before launching. Once all this is aboard, principally a new cooker, much bigger solar panels, new prop shaft, new toilet valves and loads of smaller items, we will launch from Preveza.
Initially we will head north to cruise some of the areas that we passed through quite quickly last year. Some family members will join us in late June, when we will do the tourist bit in the Ionian. We then intend to go east, through the Corinth Canal and turn left at the end, spending some time in the West Aegean. From there we will head south, visiting islands down there and eventually circumnavigating the Pelloponese and arriving back in Preveza at the end of September to haul out.
It's a hard life when you're retired, no bank holidays, no weekends, no annual holidays. Still, mustn't grumble!
I will be quite happy with a night spent on Soay-perhaps a circumnavigation of Skye or just a pint at The Old Inn in Gairloch.Or mayebe negotiate my way thru the narrows up to the head of Loch Hourn.
We're moving from the Clyde to the Humber at the begining of April. There's a lot of painting and maintenance to complete (she's steel) and being moored in Scotland the distance makes it a little difficult to complete and the Humber is only a 30 minute drive away from home. Our present marina is undergoing a massive improvement and extension and as you can imagine it creates a lot of dirt and dust caused by the heavy plant working--not good when you want to paint.
The plan is to leave the Clyde and take a southerly route rather than going around the top. With two of us onboard we're hoping to aim for daily hops from one anchorage to the next and perhaps calling in at the odd marina with the occasional night passage thrown in for good measure.
The trip has no time limits so there's no rush. A bit of a holiday and hopefully some good sailing, and at the end some hard work, sore hands and an empty wallet but there will be a light at the end of the tunnel which should get bigger every day!!!!
Being a small but capable boat - 25ft Motor Sailer - the trips are less adventurous than some ! But we plan trips up and down West Latvian coast, Estonian islands just to north - Saaremaa etc. Maybe round into Riga bay ...... and of course in August - Stockholm Archipelago via Gotland.
My biggest limitation is the new contracts at work ! So will have to make all sure all ok in work when I skip off ! Second is the health of my normal crew - who broke his leg this winter and it hasn't mended well.
Hi Possy. Thanks for the compliment on the Nic 38. mostly, if not all, built to top Lloyds spec'. She in fact belongs to my pal and yes she is a fine vessel of its type. I am also a fan of Nicholsons generally. Great hull shapes mostly and perhaps one of my favourites is the 35'.
Nigel, I am impressed with Riga. I flew there a couple of years ago in August with BA, spent 4 nights in a 4*hotel, 2 nights at the opera, a day on the fantastic long beach nearby where many promenade for hours, I eat in rooftop open air restaurants, had a long trip down the river by steamer and really enjoyed the large old town all for around £400ea. If you can sail there and enjoy the same it would be bliss, especially in July/August when they have their music festival. cheers, Scotty.
What I would really love to do is go thru The Canadian Canals-not the big St.Lawrence seaway but looked after network of Canals thru Ontario connecting various lakes and rivers including The Great Lakes. My brother in Law lives in Orillia nr. the Trent Severn system which links Lake Ontario with Lake Huron(may have this one wrong).Designed for broad barges/small river boats they all have lifting bridges whih can accomodate masted boats with not too deep a draft-locks of course and boat lifts.The Trent Severn not only has a traditional lift where the complete Lock full of water and boat travels down/up an incline it also has one where you sail into an open ended trough where if required your boat is secured by lifting strops-the lift then goes up incline waterless(thus a lot lighter)You can also get to Ottawa on this system
I think that I have the best of both worlds - Sunsail flotilla charter at the the beginning of May (very cheap and let someone else worry about boat problems) then messing about in south west of Ireland for the season - life is good!
Well March is here our Zoza will be lifted out for a quick inspection bottom cleaned sacraficial changed if needed .We will leave it on the hard for a month to prepare her for the season then we are off North this year following the Aegean coast Kusadasi, to cesme to catch up with old friends at a great little fish locanter in town up to Ayvacik, calling at Assos Then through the straits of Bozcaada and on to Canakkale this is the start of the Dardanelles were the med meets the sea of Marmara.here is were you can put all those hours of studying rules and regs into practise. iIs on of the busiest shiping areas in the world SCARY!!! fasr curents and the meltem winds but the scenery makes up for all this. Along this route there are lots of places of interest to stop over not to mention Gelibolu or (Gallipoli) And Iznik famouse for it beautiful tiles.then its Istanbul most famouse for its Football teams Fenebache, Galatasary, Topkapi ,The Blue Mosque, The four seasons hotel Formaly the Prison( Midnight Express) and the wifes main task she only comes for the SHOPPING,
Have fun were ever you go this summer and remember to keep your baggy winkles tight.
Scotty .... I live on the West Coast of Latvia in Ventspils. Riga I'm not a great fan of ... but yes it can be good fun.
The biggest problem we have over here and I am ashamed of being same nationality - are the Stag Party groups that come over here. Tallinn was the first target - then it hit Riga. The behaviour is disgusting.
I love the Baltic .... virtually no tide ... water is brackish .... long daylight summers ......... marvelous.
Well Colin as you pass Gallipoli-you may wish to remember my Great Uncle a survivor of that infamous ww1 campaign who began his time there as a Royal Marine rowing a troop boat ashore ie back to the machine guns in a 30 something foot open naval long boat before landing and joining in the battle.
Yesterday was there big day here in Turkey for celibrating that campaign Gallipoli Im going on a gold hunt to look for the lost gold !!! The story goes is that it was the wages for the ANZAC troops but the ship was sunk in the sea of Marmaris other than that we will still have Fun!!
I intend to sail around the UK during July this year in a 32-foot sloop "Meniscus".
Originally we were entering the "5-Bob Challenge". Unfortunately, due to ill health the organisor has had to abandon this event. We will be observing the organisors ethos and doing it as a cruise. I would be interested if anyone else is planning similar.
Leaving and returning to Whitehaven in Cumbria and sailing in a clockwise direction, we will be visiting ports in Scotland, the Western Isles (including the Outer Hebrides), the Orkneys (including Scapa Flow), the Isle of Wight, the Scillies, mainland Ireland, the Isle of Man as well as several English ports.
We plan to create a website to which we will report our progress regularly (maybe hourly), including pictures, using a mobile phone or preferably satellite equipment. . This would allow others to monitor our progress live by logging-onto the website. If Cathy agrees we could create a link to "TheMainsail".
Hi Martin. That sounds exciting. By all means give us a link, and when your website is up and running tell us the address and we'll try and drive traffic your way, too. I'm thinking of setting up a page of links to members' websites and blogs, as there seem to be quite a lot of them, and it's always fun to see what everyone else is doing with their boats (even if at times it makes sitting behind a desk seem rather sad!)
I am also planning on a round Britain sail this year. I will be leaving from Holyhead on the 20th June as soon as I have finished my GCSE`s and sailing in a clockwise direction via Cape Wrath and the Pentland Firth.
This will be a solo trip aboard my 21`Corribee CasulenII and I will be using my trip to raise money for my chosen charity Kendal Sea Cadets as it was here that I was first introduced to sailing. I am also Cumbrian based.
I can only be totally envious of your trips and hope my old body keeps going long enough for me to do such things when retirement comes in a few years.
Jonny, your website is extremely good and i will look forward to seeing your progress. Best wishes to you both, Scotty
As/ my earlier posting.....trip to Northern Spain in one hop from Plymouth, 4 days touring N. Spain and return. 4 aboard....RYA qualifications were 2 day skippers, 2 Yachtmasters,( one instructor. )
Returned safely. 500.6NM outbound, over 4 days, average speed 5.3. knots. Inbound 465NM 4 days. av 5.6 knots.
At times we had 30+ knot winds, bigs seas with huge wavelength. Almost becalmed for an hour or more outbound but we hoisted all the rag we had at times, missen staysail, spinnaker, and kept things going.
Much learnt to do with: AIS and shipping, watch shift systems, reefing for strong winds and difficult conditions, fatigue, and generally thankful that we had an excellent seaboat and not a modern caravan for this trip.
We did carry most of the safety bits n bobs on board but if we had had an MOB at night in the worst conditions, then there would have been little or no hope of retrieval especially when you are over a 100 miles out...
I'm now content to do those picnics off the I of W!
