IAN STEPHEN’S BRITTANY WEBLOG

False start …

3 September 2008


I know why the GPS broke. Because I didn’t pay the blacksmith. It was high on the “to do” list but it slipped. Calum Stealag lit his eyes – he didn’t need the forge and fitted the job in between trailers and digger-shovels. Don’t pay me yet, you’ll be needing something else you’ve forgotten. Buit that was weeks ago.

Yesterday, I got to the the poy-oy, got some of the the promised stuff in the mail and remembered the euros – not bloody many of them to the quid – and time slipped.

So it was the classic, lifejacket on as the warps are coming off, ten minutes to departure time.

You could see Jean’s way of working, over the tide tables and the computer- assisted passage planning in my kitchen. He researches carefully, listens to advice but then a plan is a plan unless something like wind changes significantly. Tide is less fickle than breeze. So by and large the streams will turn when the arrows point the other way – if you’ve worked forward or back from the correct High Water time correctly.

Splitting the stated hour halfway so the map of the tide for high water will start half an hour before the time in the table and end half an hour after. And the time will usually be given in GMT but watch out because some fisherman’s table will give it in BST. So it’s not complicated, you just have to be careful.

Right that’s the end of the nav stuff. All the points are in the system or rather two systems, one on each vessel. We’ll go side by side. And I’m on the helm of Bonny taking her out of my home port in the calm dark. Well, dark apart from the fishing boats coming and going. And all the winking nav. lights. We’re showing a tricolour light at the top of the mast. But we’re not a sailing ship now. We are a power driven vessel. But how could we be otherwise in the absence of any trace of wind and a glass Approaches.

Michel and Guy know I’m taking a short-cut from the prescribed channel. But they know I know the way out of town and there’s also nearly 5 metres of tide over the charted depths. But I don’t show off because Sandy’s crabbing gear could be waiting to catch us. It’s the happy medium as my ol’man called it. It used to be called between prudence. In its French pronounciation the word is the radio proword for radio traffic relating to safety at sea.

A propos. Michel asks if I’m fine after the port hand buoy if there’s no autohelm for now. I outline the route. He’s happy but the boat’s fixed GPS will not talk to the plotting software so our position won’t appear on the electronic charts. For me this is not a problem. We have paper charts and 3 hand-held GPS sets aboard. And it’s a clear night with a series of marks and light to pick up along the way. There’s the sequence of red aeronautical warning lights on the Arnish wind turbines. But Michel says we’re turning round.

I’d be the same. If a problem occurs when you’re at sea, you deal with it. But you don’t want to start a long voyage with a key bit of gear not working. It’s fixed almost as soon as we’re tied up and in amongst the electrical contacts. But Jean is clear. Two hours is too long to catch the coasting from tide to tide. We leave again in the morning.

So I slept in my own bed, 100 metres from the two boats. I’ve made soda bread. I have to retrieve my wallet from Bonny – to get my card, to withdraw cash, to get to Inaclete road and thrust some cash in Calum’s direction before we sail again.

© Ian Stephen, 2008

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