We’re off – yeah!

Yes, it is true. We finally departed Haslar on Monday 15 May and sailed across to Cherbourg. We still have one job left to complete on Valent before we can head across Biscay, but it is good to have set off. Don’t forget if you wish to follow our progress then visit the ‘How to follow us at sea’ page where you will find the links set up for the trackers.

The last month saw us hosting friends and family and getting Valent ready – you know, important things like trying to make sure we have enough tea bags. For the same reason it was important to pop across to Cherbourg to visit the wonderful Normandie Wines and ensure that we have adequate supplies of fermented grape juice on board. We have not quite used all of the available stowage holes yet, but we have many more months to gather supplies from Portugal, Spain and the rest of the wonderful wine producing regions of France.

On the subject of visitors, we successfully got my parents down to Valent and on board. Both managed to successfully navigate the various trip hazards and steps to get into the cockpit and subsequently down below. We took them out on a short dockyard tour of Portsmouth before heading over to Osborne Bay for lunch. Billy the dog also came for the trip and seemed to adapt well to his new surroundings. We also hosted my parents for dinner the next day and they went for a tour of HMS Victory and the Mary Rose.

We also popped back to Shamrock Quay for an evening of farewell drinks and pizza with the lovely people from Willett Marine. The short visit also provided an opportunity to fix a few snagging issues, particularly the generator, plumbing issue in the aft heads and a blockage on the breather for the grey water tank. The generator turned out to be embarrassingly simple, one of the fuel taps had been turned off! I can make many excuses, produce reams of mitigation but the issue was rather basic. The plumbing was beautifully resolved through the installation of a new tap and modern connections (thank you Alan). The grey water breather required some engineering tricks and better use of a hammer than I managed. Thank you Andy for clearing the decade old blockage. A few days later I replaced the breather pipe from the now cleared vent on the tank, and hey presto the grey water tank was able to vent itself again. The result of this is that the forward heads now drain properly and I was able to fit a non-return valve into the drainage system to prevent odours coming back the wrong way from the tank. 1 week in and it is looking to be a good solution.

The following weekend Alex (Suzy’s sister) and Guy came down. We again popped over to Osborne Bay, but this time we rendezvoused with Guy’s brother Jason and his wife Jess who sailed over from Cowes. After lunch on board we did some swimming (well Lucy and Guy did), drone flying and general lounging around before deciding to stay and spend the night at anchor.

During the rest of the time we were busy getting Valent stocked and ready for departure. A large Tesco order was received with a lot of tins, the aforementioned tea bags, mayo and most importantly Nutella. Other important supplies included Marmite and Branston. Another good job was calibrating and filling the fresh water tank. Nominally this holds 1,000 litres, but the dip stick only showed empty and full. After some maths and a number of trial runs we have managed to produce a more accurate dipstick and calibrated the tank to 920 litres. Given I started empty from the point where the water pump could no longer extract water, and Valent had a slight list (due to the fuel tank on the other side being empty), this is probably an accurate representation of the useable water capacity on board.

We delayed our departure until Monday to wait to get some wind – take the free energy where we can. The forecast was for Northerly winds and I was enthusiastic about trialling out our new Blue Water Runner (BWR) on the trip to Cherbourg. This sail is specially designed for sailing downwind and is best described as 2 headsails sewn together. On the trip over the wind angle was not quite what I had hoped for but we still managed to deploy the BWR and sail for around 30 mins with it up. However much fun it was, sailing the correct course for Cherbourg was more important, and so we furled the sail away and reverted to a more conventional rig.

12 hours after setting off we arrived in Cherbourg, and as intimated by the Marina Office the marina was full and we spent the night on the waiting pontoon. The next morning we were allocated a berth just inside the harbour entrance on Pontoon H, a new experience for me in Cherbourg. Suffice to say there is not a berth with a longer walk to town or the office. A big plus however is you are well away from members of the public and so it is very quiet (until the fishing boats come steaming past operating entirely under their own regulations, particularly with regard to speed).

We will leave in a few days and plan to spend a few weeks cruising around the Channel Islands. As well as being a lovely area we need to be aware of the Brexit regulations (Schengen Visa) that only allow us to have 90 days in any 180 in the Schengen Zone (most of the European countries that are on our route). Even Gibraltar counts as Schengen and Croatia joined in January 2023. That leaves us Montenegro, Albania and the North African coast for destinations that will not impact our Schengen days.

I mentioned one final job – well we need to get the mast winches that control our Spinnaker poles repaired and reinstalled. Until then we have the poles tied down on deck where they are both in the way and unusable. The issue is waiting for 2 small spare parts that have now been on order for 6 weeks from Denmark. Again, due to Brexit the company will only ship in consolidated loads and we have to wait until they have a full consignment. We asked if we could pay for expedited delivery, but no they will not/are not set up to export that way. Once the parts arrive (hopefully next week) then they will be delivered to Willett Marine. Andy and Steve Willett are due to depart for the Channel Islands at the end of the month, and so a rendezvous is planned, the winches will be reinstalled and the pole control lines refitted – and then Biscay here we come.