Valent

The plan is to depart our lovely anchorage at Cascais around midnight tonight (Thu 15 Oct). Whilst we will still have around 12 hours of brisk Northerlies remaining, the wind strength is consistently forecast to reduce to a very pleasant Force 2/3 and the wind is due to back round to the West, eventually becoming Southerly over the weekend. More critically, the weather forecasting is now showing either a horrendous or possibly just horrible storm coming through Biscay, up the Channel and on to the UK on Tue/Wed. By leaving a bit earlier than planned we give ourselves an extra 12 hours to make sure that we are across Biscay and into a safe place to hide when the storm arrives. If we are slow then we will stop in Cameret (near Brest). If we make good time then we will get round Ouessant (Ushant) and possibly stop in Roscoff. All will become clearer over the next couple of days as the forecast becomes more accurate and we know what speed we have made to Finisterre.

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In the meantime we have had a relaxing and productive couple of days. Sam managed to strip down the outboard engine, clean the parts and after a few persuasive tugs on the starter cord the engine came to life. We were able to take advantage of our new found freedom and restock on fresh food at the supermarket – so we get a break from UHT milk, and have some fresh bread and fruit on board. I spent yesterday preparing meals for the next week as it might be a bit bouncy across the Biscay. It is much easier to only need to reheat the meal and cook some rice/pasta rather than chop up the onions and veg on a pitching and rolling boat. I prepared 2 x Chilli, 2 x Cassoulet, 1 x Bolognese and an interpretation of Lamb Navarin. That means that we are prepped until we can smell the English Channel.

Finally more boat envy. We thought that Green Eyes at twice our size was impressive, but then Wisp arrived. Wisp at 156ft is around 3 times the length of Valent and too big to enter the marina where they are used to finding berths of 100ft+ boats. Wisp is a modern classic built in 2014 by Royal Huisman, looks lovely and probably costs more to run in a year than the average cost of a house in England.

We made good progress from Gibraltar and managed to get ourselves about 300 miles closer to the UK. Unfortunately the weather for the next 3 days is forecast to be strong Northerlies – and it is no fun trying to motor/beat straight into it for several days. It makes everyone very wet, sleep is nearly impossible and cooking & eating become survival exercises of their own making. Whilst the forecast is only upto 25-30kts, when you motor into it the apparent wind will be around 35 kts and that starts giving you F8 winds over the decks, a very lumpy sea and waves crashing over the decks. All this is a way of trying to justify the fact that we are now anchored off Cascais, a lovely town just outside Lisbon.

We could have managed another 24 hours before the wind came in, but it is another 300 miles or so until we can get to the next suitable shelter on the Portuguese coast (Porto). We plan to depart Fri morning when the winds start abating, and then at the weekend the wind is going to come from the South. It is looking as though there maybe a storm on Sunday (forecast currently 45kts winds), in which case we will need to hide for a day before tackling the Bay of Biscay. All being well we will have strong Southerly winds all the way across Biscay giving us a quick passage over to the Brest area of France. If conditions are favourable we will keep going.

In the meantime we are doing lots of little jobs and finding a few others to do. We found a leak on the hot water system that was basically causing our fresh water tank to discharge into the bilges. We have now isolated the hot water and restored running cold water to the boat. From now on we just heat any required hot water on the stove (just like Dogmatix). We are now busy trying to get the outboard motor to work with increasing levels of success. I have found why the solar panels seemed to not be charging the batteries (loose connection in the cockpit) and we have replaced the sheets to the headsail with some smaller lines that might actually fit into the winches (Lewmar 65 winches, so gives you an idea of how fat the current sheets were). The electric winches are getting plenty of testing as we send people up the mast to undertake various jobs.

In the interim, we are enjoying the scenery and watching the other boats at play, including this multi million pound example called Green Eyes. She is more than twice the size of Valent. For those that like these things she is a German Frers design and built by Wally. Whilst we were having lunch it appeared that her owner flew in by helicopter, spent a couple of hours on board and then flew off again.

Anyway, the wind has now picked up, the halyards are starting to complain and we have just changed the snubbing line on the anchor to a bridle to give us a bit more security.

We have also found that we can be tracked on VesselFinder.com but for some reason we do not appear on Marine Traffic.

Just before midday on Saturday 10 October Valent completed the first leg of the journey home with a short visit to Gibraltar. In our 90 minute stop we accomplished a lot. We were met at the fuel dock by the representatives of Freight It who had kindly acted as my forwarding agent in receiving and handling the hydrovane, hydrogenerator and satellite communications systems. These were all awaiting our arrival on the fuel pontoon. Very straightforward and impressive logistics.

While I was finalising the paperwork, Richard and Sam were getting on with the refuelling. We took on board a total of 585Ltr, or which 565 went into the tank to replenish what we had used on the predominantly long motor from Empuriabrava. We were pleased to find that we had used less than calculated, and probably means we only used 6Ltr/hr on average. More importantly that should translate to roughly 1000 miles of motoring at 1700 revs.

The final important task was to collect some hydraulic fluid for the autohelm. The spare oil had been inadvertently removed before our departure, and the system needed topping up. Unfortunately, the quantity of air left in the system meant that after a day or so we had no autohelm and we have hand steered for the last 3 days. That meant a switch of watch system from 3hrs on 6hrs off, to 2hrs 4hrs off. It will be good to get a longer sleep tonight. Sam and Richard then spent the the first couple of hours from Gib fixing the autopilot. It turned out that as well as a lack of oil and electrical connection had come apart that meant that the arm would not drive. Once that was found, the pilot was fixed and we are now back on our way and returned to the 3hr watch pattern.

We also now have the pleasure of doing some sailing with a lovely F5 Easterly wind behind us, making good over 7kts on the Genoa alone. Peaceful and quiet. Looks like we have pleasant weather for the next couple of days, but then we may have to hide somewhere for a bit as some nasty Northerlies come through on Tue/Wed. Hopefully we can make Lisbon by then.

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So the big news is that I have been out in Empuriabrava for the last few days getting Valent ready to go. Quite a lot of items have been fixed, including a few unexpected ones. The most worrying of those was the flooding in the frd heads area.

This turns out to be caused by an issue with the anti syphon on the tank pump outlet, a fault in the tank control valve and a poorly fitting inspection hatch. We got the valve changed (missing O-ring), know to keep the seacock closed for the tank out and have sealed up the inspection hatch – it is one thing to have clean sea water leaking out, quite another to have the planned contents.

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Next on the list was the fact that whilst we could hear VHF and see boats on AIS, we were not showing and it appeared that our VHF range was about 100M. The wonderful electronics guy, Marcos was sure that the fault lay up the mast. We spent the weekend pondering, sent a man up the mast and decided everything looked good. Come yesterday we did some more diagnostics and discovered a 20cm piece of the aerial wire behind the navigation station had become chafed with some old heat damage. Cut that out, replaced and hey presto, the VHF works very well and we appear on AIS. That all means that you can follow us on the various AIS tracking sites, Marine Traffic being pretty good.

Amongst all of the many jobs on the check list, I decided to strip down and service the inflatable Dan Buoy. We possibly set a new low for the condition of a gas bottle.

We took the Danbuoy ashore, and from a safe distance we did pull the cord, and surprise, surprise the system worked perfectly. The Danbuoy inflated, the light came on and more importantly the Danbuoy stayed inflated. So new gas bottle, and some TLC and we have a serviceable Danbuoy. Other jobs included fitting a lifebuoy, swinging the compass, calibrating the new instruments and generally getting ready. All being well we depart this morning, Tue 6 Oct, once the elusive flares arrive!