Weather barrier for many Sail8 boats
Local winds topping 20 knots and lively seas on the English side of the Channel have kept the majority of registered Sail8 boats from joining the assembly point in France.
Local winds topping 20 knots and lively seas on the English side of the Channel have kept the majority of registered Sail8 boats from joining the assembly point in France.
Only five boats had made it to Cherbourg by nightfall tonight (Saturday), four of them yachts, the solitary motorboat being the Broom 39 Calm Voyager owned by Motor Boats Monthly and skippered this weekend by ybw.com’s Kim Hollamby. First boat in was the Van de Stadt sailing yacht Supertaff owned by Neil Chapman and crewed by a team from boat broker Boatshed. Another yacht to make it across was the Jeanneau Sun Odyssey Che Shale operated by the Burnham, Buckinghamshire-based Long John Silver Sailing Club and skippered by founder member Perry Davies.
All three boats reported difficult conditions; Supertaff had a brisk wind on the bow for much of her night crossing forcing her to motor for part of the time and tack for the rest. It was a similarly difficult passage for Che Shale with several of her crew suffering from sea sickness in the short pitching seas. Calm Voyager shipped a lot of spray and encountered uncomfortable seas and patches of lower visibility when pushing past the eastern side of the Isle of Wight and out into the Channel this afternoon, only finally gaining more comfortable seas and clear visibility around 25 miles out from Cherbourg.
The sea state was really only suitable for well found boats and experienced crews but it seemed participants heeded the safety warnings and the majority chose to stay in their berths or to turn back once they saw the conditions. As it happens, potential French participants for The Long Walk to Justice Edinburgh march appeared to be thin on the ground in Cherbourg, so the lack of berths for them poses no real issue.
Organisers of Sail 8 still hope to attract a crowd of UK based boats to join the Cherbourg five in the eastern approaches of the Solent at 1400 tomorrow (Sunday). More information here.