Cruise to Bristol.

[allan]

When Julian and Matt changed their plans for the weekend from Swansea to Bristol, I decided to join them. We locked out at 0700hrs on Saturday with very little wind but within an hour or so the wind filled and I made it all the way to just off the entrance on one tack. A really nice sail, with a big bacon sarny at Welsh hook! After trying to sail into the wind up the Avon I gave up and motored slowly. At Seamills I was caught by a PCC boats, so motored with them straight into the lock and then up to the pontoon at the Arnofini. Julian and Matt joined me on the pontoon a little later. Steve and I went to the pub and were later joined by Julian, Matt and Steve's girlfriend. We decided to leave the others to continue celebrating Matt's 40th and headed back to the boat.
When I woke on Sunday is had rained and was breezy so I checked the forcast which said NW 4 to 5 which I thought would give me the chance to try my small genoa with one reef. We locked out 1545hrs I had been joined by a mate, John who has never sailed in the Bristol channel before. When we got down to Avonmouth we sailed through the PCC racing fleet and off down the channel in WNW 3 to 4 and nice weather. For the start of the sail we could see a big black cloud over Newport, which I understand was on the telly for most of the afternoon. We tacked down to the west end of English and Welsh before shaking the reef out and sailing over to the Welsh coast. After one more tack we gave up on the failing wind at Cardiff north and motored down to the lock to join Katy who had motored down ahead of us. We locked in at 2045hrs. When we were on the the pontoon John, who sails his boat from Dartmouth, was surprised when I told him that, despite tacking all the way down, we had done 32 miles over the ground but only 26 miles through the water.
Two nice sails in two days. So far this year Chausey has done 1943 miles, what a great year this has been!
Allan

[ishtar]

Come on Allan, you must do the 2000!

[allan]

When you add the trips from Bangor and Plymouth to Cardiff I have done about 2400 miles. As we are only 3/4 of the way though the year, I'm sure Chausey will do well over 2000.
Allan

[Matt]

Personally I had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend and no dead bodies this time around to boot! We had a suprisingly fun sail back to Cardiff too and the horrible wind and rain promised days earlier never materialised.

Matt

[Deleted]

The decision to change destinations from Swansea to Bristol turned out to be theright choice. As Allan said, there was little wind when we started out on Sat but it picked up and we had a lovely sail in sunshine all the way.

Bristol certainly seems to be developing inro one of the more boozy destinations! This time it was Matt's 40th on the Sunday, so we had an excuse. Happy Brithday Matt! We started on Bacardi and Cokes on board Katy at about 6:30 and Allan and Steve came by a little later to announce that they were going to the pub, so we followed after topping up our glasses a couple more times.

I suppose it depends on what time Allan woke up, but I was woken at 7am by the rain hammering onto the cabin roof above my head and could see the boughs of the rather large trees around the Arnolfini bending in the howling wind. A bit breezy, Allan? That must be the understatement of the year! I had time for a little chuckle before turning over and going back to sleep as this would have been the time we would have been leaving Swansea had we stuck to our original plan.

By about 11am the sun was out and by the we had lunch the cockpit was dry. We did have a few bursts of rain on the way down the Avon and it was still rather lumpy in the channel. Enough for there to be daylight under Katy's bow a few times, before it crashed down into the trough with a loud 'smack' once the crest of the wave had passed the pivot point under the hull, but the wind and waves gradually subsided all the way back. We tacked from Clevedon across to the Welsh coast and Katy was down to 1.5kts by the time we got there. One more set of tacks would have been required to sail all the way, but it was 1.5kts and dropping, so we gave up and motored the rest of the way. By the time we had gone through the barrage there was absolutely no wind at all. Cardiff bay was so smooth it resembled a mirror with a dupicate image of all the lights reflected in the water. Quite pretty really.

All in all the switch to Bristol couldn't have worked out better as we had a great sail both ways and the bad weather passed while we were sleeping. If I wanted to be picky the wind could have lasted a little longer on the way back, but you can't have everything!

Julian