Onboard: Sam and Steve Nautical Miles: 121 Days at sea: 2 Night hours: 12
Conditions: clear skies, wind on the nose for most of the outbound passage (F5-6). A foggy TSS, but beautiful downwind sailing on the return with approx 20kts of breeze
What, where and when?: A quick weekend getaway to Boulogne, France. Sailing overnight after work on Friday under a star filled sky. We spent a fantastic day in Boulogne on Saturday, before returning on the Sunday.
After a brief sleep following our overnight passage, we enjoyed some fantastic french cuisine. Pre departure on Sunday, we fixed our furling gear before slipping lines for the foggy TSS. Part-way across the first shipping lane we were boarded by the French border Force, who were looking for stowaways
Highlights:
A fantastic overnight passage to Boulogne under a star filled sky. Sam spotted 2 shooting stars
We loved standing solo watches overnight - great reflection time at the end of a busy week
Moules-Frites and Champagne!
We were boarded for the first time on our return passage, by the French Border Force. Very exciting! All our paper work was in order, and after a thorough search of RM, the officers were on their way
Transiting the TSS - always fun to keep us on our toes
Beautiful, fast, downwind sailing on the way home
Lowlights:
NE wind! This added 10nm to our outbound passage
Maintenance and jobs:
Pre-departure we ran a new flag halyard (following our mast stepping), this required a quick trip up the mast
Our furling gear on our jib was failing to allow us to furl the full head sail away (this meant the sail couldn't be fully furled and can lead to it shredding if there's high winds). So in Boulogne, Steve took the entire furling line off the drum, re-ran it and managed to fix the issue
New chart plotter and in cockpit VHF.Steve recently fitted a new Raymarine plotter, and an in-cockpit VHF, this passage was our first test of these. And we're pleased to report that both worked impeccably