Hamble to Alderney
We arrived in the Hamble on Saturday and loaded the boat for the holiday and visited the chandlers for some last minute parts.
On Sunday morning we brought Sea Crusader into the Southern for a short stay to charge the batteries and fill with water. Whilst we have a water-maker it is convenient to fill up when we can and save the batteries. We were lucky because Quailo III was away do ing the Fastnet so we were able to borrow her berth. I plugged in the shore power and … trip. We have had this mysterious fault and whenever we plug into 16A sockets the power trips and it has been bugging me for some time. I tried various sockets and I found one that didn't trip so I dialled down the current to just 8a and it didn't trip. I carried on with filling the tanks with water. Then for some reason I had to move the extension cable and … it was warm. How could this be? I have changed all the plugs on the cable then it dawned on me the cable was too thin. The extension cable was 1.5mm2 and so I googled it and it seems I need 2.5mm2 for 16A and 6mm2 for 32a. I rushed off to the chandlers bought a new extension lead 2.5mm2 and … perfect problem solved. I have been putting up with this problem for over six years trying to track an earth ground fault that didn't exist it was simply the wrong sized wire in my extension lead. This has made me so happy.
Soon we left with the tide and anchored outside Newtown for the night. It wasn't very comfortable at first as the winds were moderate but after a couple of hours the wind dropped and a comfortable night was had. the next morning we left at 9am and headed to Lymington yacht Haven for a pressure wash to make sure we had a nice clean bottom for the start of our holiday, it will add 1.5-2knts to our boat speed so it is really worth it. Lymington have a wonderful team and some very powerful jets that do the job quickly. We were plonked back in the water at 12 noon to the minute and we were off to Alderney.
In truth we were not sure we were going to be able to make it as the wind was very much in the South West and we were going to be very close hauled and might not be able to sail in that direction. Cherbourg was not a standby option as the marina was closed for the Fastnet so we decided to try and if we couldn't make it we would head to Weymouth. We had to punch the tide under engine all the way from Lymington to the end of the Needles channel as the tide was running strongly east. However it was due to change soon and turn eastwards for the next six hours which means we would be dragged to the west which in turn meant we could bear away from the wind a bit and get to Alderney. As we exited the channel we were sailing at 28 degrees to the wind under full main and jib. It is not a good angle for any boat but with a strong wind and a clean bottom it was OK. After an hour the wind shifted five degrees in our favour and then as the tide started going west we were able to bear away. Soon we were doing 9.4knts and carried on like this for hours. We entered Braye Harbour at just 9pm so it took almost exactly 9 hours from Lymington top Braye which is good going.
It was a surprise to find the harbour was completely full, the harbourmaster came screaming over to us in his launch to say we must not anchor in the fairway and to try to find some space. He was confident there was plenty of room! We took a chance dropped our anchor and ten minutes later it was dark.
On Sunday morning we brought Sea Crusader into the Southern for a short stay to charge the batteries and fill with water. Whilst we have a water-maker it is convenient to fill up when we can and save the batteries. We were lucky because Quailo III was away do ing the Fastnet so we were able to borrow her berth. I plugged in the shore power and … trip. We have had this mysterious fault and whenever we plug into 16A sockets the power trips and it has been bugging me for some time. I tried various sockets and I found one that didn't trip so I dialled down the current to just 8a and it didn't trip. I carried on with filling the tanks with water. Then for some reason I had to move the extension cable and … it was warm. How could this be? I have changed all the plugs on the cable then it dawned on me the cable was too thin. The extension cable was 1.5mm2 and so I googled it and it seems I need 2.5mm2 for 16A and 6mm2 for 32a. I rushed off to the chandlers bought a new extension lead 2.5mm2 and … perfect problem solved. I have been putting up with this problem for over six years trying to track an earth ground fault that didn't exist it was simply the wrong sized wire in my extension lead. This has made me so happy.
Soon we left with the tide and anchored outside Newtown for the night. It wasn't very comfortable at first as the winds were moderate but after a couple of hours the wind dropped and a comfortable night was had. the next morning we left at 9am and headed to Lymington yacht Haven for a pressure wash to make sure we had a nice clean bottom for the start of our holiday, it will add 1.5-2knts to our boat speed so it is really worth it. Lymington have a wonderful team and some very powerful jets that do the job quickly. We were plonked back in the water at 12 noon to the minute and we were off to Alderney.
In truth we were not sure we were going to be able to make it as the wind was very much in the South West and we were going to be very close hauled and might not be able to sail in that direction. Cherbourg was not a standby option as the marina was closed for the Fastnet so we decided to try and if we couldn't make it we would head to Weymouth. We had to punch the tide under engine all the way from Lymington to the end of the Needles channel as the tide was running strongly east. However it was due to change soon and turn eastwards for the next six hours which means we would be dragged to the west which in turn meant we could bear away from the wind a bit and get to Alderney. As we exited the channel we were sailing at 28 degrees to the wind under full main and jib. It is not a good angle for any boat but with a strong wind and a clean bottom it was OK. After an hour the wind shifted five degrees in our favour and then as the tide started going west we were able to bear away. Soon we were doing 9.4knts and carried on like this for hours. We entered Braye Harbour at just 9pm so it took almost exactly 9 hours from Lymington top Braye which is good going.
It was a surprise to find the harbour was completely full, the harbourmaster came screaming over to us in his launch to say we must not anchor in the fairway and to try to find some space. He was confident there was plenty of room! We took a chance dropped our anchor and ten minutes later it was dark.
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Racing God to Braye - we didn't want to arrive inthe dark