18’ LOA x 7’, lugsail & mizzen, with engine

Two years ago I cruised in my Drascombe Lugger to the Cherbourg Peninsula and on to the Channel Islands, and I decided this year to try and go a little further afield — to North Brittany. My children, for one reason or another, were unable to crew for me but I was able to arrange for my nephew, David, to join me in Guernsey. Until there, however, I would be solo.

My equipment was the same as previously other than the addition of a Mini Seacourse automatic tiller which I had bought since I was going to be solo on the longest parts of the trip. David had also helped me improve the tent arrangement by replacing the lines under the hull, which were tied to the tent each side, with elastic with plastic spring hooks. This certainly reduced the set-up time by 50%.

I left Poole one evening in early July to spend the night in Studland Bay to avoid the worst of the adverse tides the following morning, and, after a beautiful evening and night, set off from Studland Bay to Cherbourg at about 8.30 in the morning. The wind, light as it was, moved steadily round to the south and I had to motor rather than sail. Within two hours of leaving Studland Bay the coast had disappeared behind me into the mist, and I saw nothing for 12 hours to help me fix my position except one ferry which gave me some comfort. I got a little worried about whether I had enough petrol to do the 6o odd miles to Cherbourg but, apart from this, conditions were fine even if visibility was poor. I managed to sleep a very short while but was woken up by a change in the engine noise due to a plastic bag round the propeller. Finally at about 10.30 that night I was able to fix my position by the lights off Cherbourg to find that my dead reckoning distance off was correct, but I was about 4 miles further east than I wanted to be and I had to motor very hard against the tide to get into Cherbourg. I could not recognise the lights for the west entrance of the harbour, but used common sense and previous knowledge to find my way in, mooring finally at about 2.30 a.m. With my Evinrude 6 engine I had used about 6 gallons on the trip. As far as speed (and therefore distance) was concerned I was using a Knotstick which I assumed was reading about ½ knot optimistically, and this seems to have worked out accurately (details of this item of equipment and any other referred to are listed at the end of the article). The self steering worked well and left me free to navigate, eat, sleep etc.

I did find I worried about my position after about 10 hours without seeing anything, particularly when the sun set north of west, which made me worry about the accuracy of my compass. However, I cross-checked it with my two hand-bearing compasses which confirmed what it said. (Can anyone explain to me about the sun?)

I slept for a few hours that night in an exposure bag, and spent the next day clearing up after the long journey, with the intention of leaving the following day for Guernsey. Thick fog prevented this, but the following day I set out for Guernsey, timing my departure to pass through the most dangerous part of the Alderney Race at slack water. Again I had a head wind at about force 3-4 but with gusts at 5, both along the northern edge of the Cherbourg peninsula and then backing into the south west as I turned down the Alderney Race for Guernsey. It was a very rough trip, particularly down the race with wind against tide, and the boat was banging so hard on the waves that the floor boards were jumping up and down in the boat (as was almost everything else). I also had great difficulty with my glasses, which were continually covered by spray, which made it very difficult to see anything clearly. Once clear of Cherbourg I saw no other boats at all until I was nearing Guernsey, but the visibility was reasonable and once round Cap de la Hague I was able to set jib and mizzen. I neared the north coast of Guernsey towards dusk and, with the difficulty of seeing clearly with my glasses covered with spray, I made a mistake about the first mark I saw, which I took to be off the north east coast of Guernsey, but which turned out to be a mark off the north of Herm, and I therefore found myself the wrong side of Herm. I think at that stage I was so cold and wet and tired that I was not thinking as logically as I should have been, and was disinclined to believe the compass. However, I knew the east coast of Herm fairly well, so I just carried on round and finally got into St Peters Port at about 11.30. It is clear that I should have stopped to think more and confirm exactly where I was when nearing Guernsey, rather than pressing on in order to try and get in before dark. I should also have worn more clothing.

I was then in Guernsey for about 3 days (working) while the weather was sorting itself out before I left with David, who had by now joined me, for Lézardrieux in North Brittany. We had to leave very early to get the tides right but the wind seemed to be broadly in the right direction being from the west to north west, though we knew the tides would turn against us when we hit the North Brittany coast. Our main troubles on this trip were navigational, though it did get quite rough at times. We were using plastic-covered charts supplied by Seaway Publications, who had also supplied two types of pen, one stated to be permanent and one water soluble. I had used these on the journey to Cherbourg quite satisfactorily, but the charts were then dry. We were now getting continuous spray, and we found that neither type of pen would write satisfactorily on the chart once it was wet, which we both regarded as unsatisfactory (but the charts themselves were first class — we kept them in a piece of plastic drainpipe, but they also stood up very well to folding). This trip there were many more boats to be seen, and, while we never actually kept company with any other boat, it was comforting to see others reasonably close.

The strength of the tides on the North Brittany coast is high, and it took us a long time to do the last few miles of the journey. We also had navigational difficulties as the lighthouse marking the entrance to Lézardrieux was stated to have black and white diagonal stripes but actually turned out to be two tones of dull grey horizontally, which made it extremely confusing. We also used on this part of the trip for the first time a very useful little instrument called a Mardyn Rangefinder for measuring distance off. This only takes about 10-20 seconds to use compared with the much greater difficulty of taking a vertical angle with a sextant and is to be recommended.

Because of the difficulties of identifying marks we were too cautious about going down the smaller channels, which would have kept us out of the tide, and certainly I would recommend anyone else trying to make to westward against the tide to enter Lézardrieux to take the south passage round Ile de Bréhat. But it is very difficult to be sure where you are when you approach a strange coast for the first time with only fairly rudimentary navigation.

After spending a little time at Lézardrieux we set off for Paimpol, calling at Ile de Bréhat for lunch on the way — a very pretty little island, but quite a long way to walk for lunch. When we returned we found our lugger being very much admired by a Frenchman who wanted to know the name and address of the makers. We then carried on to Paimpol using the south channel inside the Ile de Bréhat and catching the tide up to Paimpol. At one time in a brisk force 5 we were doing over 5 knots under jib and mizzen alone. The echo sounder had ceased to work at this stage (probably too much spray) so we were using a normal leadline, which was perfectly adequate for this purpose.

In Paimpol, we met the French owner of a Drascombe Drifter who offered us his berth, which was very nice. One of the advantages of Paimpol was the laundrette there, since we had not been able to do any washing since Guernsey, but it is necessary to collect the right coins in advance. There was a Breton Festival on the day after we arrived which we watched with great interest, and we also gave an interview to the local press.

From Paimpol we went to Tréguier. We had had difficulty in getting the engine to run slowly, and it was at this stage we found that by making the mixture rather leaner, it was then prepared to run at slower speeds.

To take the shortest route to Tréguier we went north of the Ile de Bréhat, and it was fairly rough with one or two tidal races, and we certainly again got rather wet. Our monocular (half of a binocular and small enough to fit into a pocket) was proving very useful in identifying the various marks. Unfortunately our RDF was not working particularly well — again it seemed to be suffering from damp — and our self steering had completely given up the ghost. (When I first bought the RDF it was calibrated at about 10 kHz off true and, while it had been re-calibrated, it was obviously still not correct, because in Guernsey we had been able to pick up a new Guernsey radio beacon 15 kHz off true. This, incidentally, was a new beacon on the harbour breakwater which was not mentioned on any of the charts or in Reeds Almanac).

We were made very welcome in Tréguier, particularly by the other English boats there, who were very intrigued at the distance we had managed to cover in an open boat. Strong winds and rain kept us in Tréguier for two days, and then we decided to set off for Guernsey in a reasonable wind but a warning that the sea was very rough. We checked our sea anchor the night before and made certain we could use it in an emergency, kept a bucket and baler ready for use, and then set off next morning. The first part of the trip was reasonably uneventful, but off the Roches Douvres the seas got very rough indeed; it was hard to keep the boat on course as we were thrown about by the waves and we started taking in quite a bit of water in all directions. It came in over both sides and over the stern (quite apart from fairly continuous spray) and we had to pump fairly frequently — life was certainly very interesting for the next hour or so. It was so rough that the bottles of wine we kept in the dinghy jumped overboard and were never seen again. (I will not carry any glass bottles or glasses actually in the lugger. We found that plastic Coca-Cola bottles were ideal for whisky, rum, or even water if necessary, but wine bottles unopened we carried in the dinghy behind.) After about an hour the sea went down to reasonable proportions but we tended to take a bit of water for the rest of the trip. The seas off the Roches Douvres were certainly the roughest I have ever been in. David told me afterwards that the bowsprit that we carry on our lugger went almost completely under water in one of the waves.

Our navigation in these conditions became a little rough and ready, and I think David’s powers of concentration suffered slightly — he had to do the navigation because he did not wear glasses, and it was probably better for me with my greater experience to remain at the helm in those conditions. Certainly, by not navigating and checking positions sufficiently often we got too far down-tide, and probably extended our journey time to Guernsey by two hours as a result.

When we got to Guernsey we met some very surprised looks that we had come the 50 miles from North Brittany in those conditions. For the very first time in the lugger, the back lockers had quite a lot of water in them, and we had to sleep in wet sleeping bags.

After two days in Guernsey the forecast was right to come back to the UK, and since David had to go back to work we decided to do the trip back in one single journey. With my experience on the journey out of the Alderney Race, and experience of overfalls in the Swinge two years previously, I decided to avoid both of these and go to the west of the Casquets. This worked very well and, while the sea was a bit lumpy round the Casquets, it was nothing serious. We had a westerly wind about force 2 to 3 on the way back, and while we had some exciting moments in the shipping lanes — at times too exciting — we had no problems with wind or sea. We had fed our battery navigation lights with new batteries before leaving Guernsey (I had given up the oil lamps used on a previous trip as too much trouble and too liable to blow out) and found that one battery just lasted the night. I however very much doubt whether the ships could have seen our lights, and we found it very difficult to tell distance off during the night. We used the mini compass to check whether the bearings were constant on ships approaching us, but we got the impression that one or two did change course during the time they were in sight. In the small hours of the morning one’s judgement does become a little suspect!

On approaching England we saw the loom of the light off Portland Bill which broadly confirmed our position — we were aiming to end up midway between the Isle of Wight and Anvil Point since we did not think our navigation out of sight of land was likely to be too accurate. Shortly after seeing the loom of Portland Bill light, mist came down, and we realised we would not see Anvil Point or St Catherine’s, so we turned due north and motor-sailed northwards. At about 8 o’clock the next morning it was clear from the feel of the sea that we were nearing land, but we had no real idea where we were. About 2 hours later we saw a small fishing vessel, and motored across to it. They told us we were just off Hengistbury Head. About 30 seconds later the fog lifted and we could see the land.

David’s navigation had been first class, and we had ended up just where we wanted to. It was then just a question of motor-sailing into Poole itself. The journey had taken approximately 25 hours.

The main lessons to be learned from this cruise were:

1) The vital necessity of keeping warm and dry.

2) Electronics are not really meant for an open boat; nevertheless if one is doing very long journeys solo, I think an automatic tiller is important, and if one is navigating in areas subject to poor visibility an RDF set may be almost vital if fog suddenly comes down. It is, however, necessary to ensure in some way that they are kept as dry as possible.

3) Find a way of writing on wet plastic charts.

Apart from the electronics and the chart pens, everything worked well, the boat at no time giving us any real worry and again proving its sea-keeping qualities. At my age I found the long trips rather tiring, but all in all thoroughly enjoyed the holiday, found it very relaxing and completely different from my normal life, and was very glad that I had made the cruise. With my need of glasses, however, a crew member who can see in continuous spray is a great help.

Name of equipment Purpose Price approx. Manufacturer Mini Seacourse Automatic tiller (works off 12v battery) £100 Electronic Laboratories Fleet Lane Poole Dorset Seafix Radio Direction Finder £55 Knotstick Speed £5 Knotstick, PO Box 1947 Wilmington, DE 19899, USA (Believed now available UK) Mardyn Rangefinder Distance off £8 Maritime Dynamics 86 North Cray Road Bexley, Kent Monocular Mini telescope £25 ? Plastic charts Use in cockpit Various accord. Seaway Publications Ltd 2 Guildford Road Woking, Surrey (Admiralty, Stanford or Imray)