Déjà vu: a mini adventure, take 2

Once again I have found myself spending my weekend tackling the French public transport system; an experience all to similar to a few weeks ago, when Becky Scott and I had a rather prolonged journey to deliver the Artemis Offshore Academy's Min 6.50 from Dournanez to Les Sables d'Olonne, in preparation for the 2012 Azores race.

After a last minute flight booking, some problems with too much boat baggage, taking a circular bus tour around Roscoff, and sneakily riding in first class on the train, we got to Les Sables- some 7 hours after leaving the UK!

The forecast for the weekend was a breezy one, with 30 knots plus blowing along the entrance to the harbour. Although the boat could have handled the breeze, the sea state was looking pretty rough. We decided to spend the night in port, looking forward to catching up on some important sleep. However, this was not to be; with the last competitors to finish the Azores race arriving on the dock, we awoke to loud bangs on the hull and chants of 'Becky! Becky!'. Stumbling out of sleeping bags we were greeted by a row of tired and salty looking men,  holding pints of beer and wearing warm smiles.

''You are welcome to Les Sables!'' they said, whisking us off the boat and up to the race office, to share  'the Mini spirit'; a great warmth and friendliness which seems unique to this offshore sailing class.

It was great to hear about the sailors experiences of the race; hitting whales, hallucinations...the list seemed endless, and really geared me up for my second 'Mini adventure' along the French coastline towards home.

The next morning it was still pretty rough out on the water, so we spent the day exploring Les Sables d'Olonne. The streets were busy with people munching baguettes and drinking coffee, while the sandy beach was littered with tanned, young bodies launching windsurfers, dinghies and surfboards into the water. With some long rolling waves towards the western end of the beach I was desperate to have a go myself! While walking back to the Mini, we watched Aron Meder from Hungary returning to the harbour. He had broken his starboard rudder so had a jittery sail back in, rocking and rolling around with the support boat on hand once he had crossed the finish  line.

By the evening it was ok for us to go, so off we went- some 480 miles from France to the Isle of Wight. Studying the charts showed just how rocky some parts of the French coast line are, making me slightly nervous- as all you have to navigate on the Mini is that vital sheet of paper and GPS; no electronic chart plotters allowed! There are also quite a few islands scattered about in the bay of Biscay. We had a look at Ile de Y'eu, which turns out to be quite large when your trying to get around it; not surprising when it has two harbours (famous for the fishing of tuna and lobster) and an airport! Interestingly Philippe Petain, who I remember learning about at school when studying the World Wars, was imprisoned on the Island and died there in 1951.  We passed another island before heading further offshore and then back in towards Groix, just of the coast of Lorient. Again this island seemed to take an age to pass, but at least we could see it in the daylight. It seemed more a place for sea birds than people.

After two nights at sea we were getting closer to England, but still had the Chenal Du Four to get through, to cut some 50 miles we would have done going around the Chasse de Sein. I'm glad we went through it in daylight, as in the dark there are an awful lot of rocks, shoals and lights to decipher, and loads of unlit buoys too! It also meant we got a good view of all the little houses and boats. Once through it was a case of making our way into the English channel, crossing the shipping lanes as night time fell. We could see the lights of Guernsey, which I have yet to visit. It was a relatively smooth crossing back to Cowes, although it was a shame that the wind shifted so we were no longer on a fast reach home, instead having to VMG run it back. We had good winds all the way to the Needles, arriving home around 3pm in the baking heat.



It was fantastic to get so much time on the helm in different conditions; sometimes wiping out with the kite in 25 knots, other times riding a bucking horse on an upwind course, and brief moments of calm when the auto pilot was capable of doing a better job.

Mini sailing in with a broken rudder