SAORSA - Toward Sailing Club

09.30: Couldn’t stand the rolling any longer and got up. Texted Lesley on holiday in
Sunny Cornwall to see how they were faring;
‘Struggling to stand up and Ramsay says we’re not all to leave the van at once!’
Although Lesley didn’t clarify exactly why they were struggling to stand up, I am
assuming it was because of the wind and nothing whatsoever to do with alcohol.
13.00: After filling some rolls and making up a bag of goodies, swallowed some Brave
Pills and left Ardminish Bay. Once out of the shelter of Gigha, waves and wind
increased and we had a fast bouncy reach north. Al kept rolling the jib out, till we had
beaten the 9.4 I got off Arran. He was a happy bunny after that and stopped tweaking.
Hard work keeping the boat in a straight line with a big southerly swell and westerly
cross-waves. Very few other yachts out. By 16.00 we were regularly getting over 10
kn. Decided that Ardinamir looked best for a quiet night and took turns helming as the
conditions meant it was quite hard work.
17.00: I was helming just south of the Corrievreckan when we hit 12.6 kn. Yee-Haar! I
could feel the tide pulling on the rudder and then the water went completely flat for
about 100 yards all round. Eerie! Spent the rest of the trip peering at the chart plotter,
as the visibility was very bad.
18.00: I had never driven into Ardinamir before and there was a strong cross-wind so I
was a bit wary. Al was keeping a close eye on the chart plotter to see how accurate it
was. Not very; it put us right on top of a big rock to the south of the entrance. If it
hadn’t been near low water with the rock visible, I would have been panicking. We
dropped the anchor and scuttled below for some comforting tea as the visibility had
been very poor with heavy drizzle. Forecast not good and needed an early start so got
off to bed earlyish. Notes read: “Absolutely foul, poor visibility, heavy rain + mist,
occasional squalls”. Sunshine cruise?
36 Miles in 5 hours, Mike says average speed 7.2 knots. No’ bad!
Log Reading: 284 n/miles
Distance run: 36 n/miles
Log of Saorsa Saturday 17 th July 2010