Alderney to Cherbourg 23nm
Wednesday 23 July
Now that the harbour has stopped heaving around (sleep not that good) we are heading to Cherbourg in Lily the Pink weather: flat seas and 9-12 knots of wind.
There was a bit of a kerfuffle with the drum that winds the sail out: as we wound her out at the top she started winding herself in at the bottom!
We were very confused but after several efforts, we discovered that the attachment to the drum at the base wasn’t spinning like it should- it had got jammed.
Once we discovered the problem, David sorted out the jam and she flew out by herself!
And she flew beautifully
We went from 5 knots to 9 + 2 knots of tide with us = over 11
What a relief!- there was a boat behind us with her spinnaker up and I was worried she’d sail past us! Now no problem!
It just goes to show you should never just give up and keep trying! Lily is always worth the effort.
We even put in a jibe – our first with Lily up.
Our arrival in Cherbourg was less than satisfactory – despite booking ahead and radioing in when we arrived, we were first told to go to Q pontoon where there were no spaces, so David reversed back out ..
then they asked our length again and told us to go to another space, but now that had been given to someone else & we’re finally led to a very short finger with no cleats, just one hoop to put the ropes through.
It was obviously for a much smaller boat. It was very hard to get off the boat and tie up – no assistance was offered or came. We managed but it was pretty impossible and we scratched the boat slightly despite David going perfectly slowly.
This fortunately is a rare event, marinas are usually very helpful. This one had a good write up, but maybe the normal staff were busy…
We had been booked for 2 nights but I decided one is plenty. They gave us a discount, but in future we will only go to Cherbourg if we need to. Tide-wise it was our best option and the enormous harbour is very safe in a storm.
There was a big tented area where they are getting ready to welcome the Fastnet boats back after the race next week. We did see some fast looking boats out on the water.
We had a welcome meal and got our passports stamped after a walk to the ferry port area. I hate Brexit.