From L’Aber Wrac’h to Camaret – Against winds and tides
For my first passage with my new crewmate, I had chosen a short distance.
37 miles would take us to Camaret, through the famous Chenal du Four.
We left L’Aber Wrac’h short before 09h00, heading north-west. I wanted to sail, so we were doing this first 6 miles leg on a port tack away from our destination, in order to have the wind on our starboard going down south-east.
My new crewmate was full of enthusiasm. He steered like an old sea dog, like he’d been doing it all his life and rounded the Horn every weekend.
That is, until he handed me the bar to go down to do, hem, something I couldn’t do for him.
One minute later, he popped out of the companion way, looking a bit strange. Then, in a sudden impulse of noble seamanship, he made Neptune a generous offering in the form of his morning breakfast.
Poor guy…
I believe it was my fault. I didn’t warn him seriously enough about the danger of venturing down below during the first days at sea. Poor kid learned the hard way!
He spend a good part of the morning feeling very bad, but there was nothing I could do. No parking place nearby where he could have stepped out and walk around for a while.
He eventually managed to lay down in the cockpit and sleep. He gradually felt better as the day went by.
The “Chenal du Four” is a channel where a strong tide current runs.
A good timing is absolutely necessary in order to sail with it, and not against it.
We had checked the tide tables, currents charts, evaluated the time when we would be there, and departed consequently from the marina.
In the “Chenal du Four”
Well… Something must have been wrong in the process. We hit the channel too late, and with sails up and a relatively good wind, we had to start our engine.
I could see by our wake that we were making good speed on the water, but the GPS course over ground gave us 2 ridiculous knots. There must have been at least 4 knots against us, and the sea was at times chaotic.
I guess I’m not the first one to make such a mistake there. Local sailors don’t even have to look at the tide charts, they know by habit what timing to adopt, and where exactly to sail. I’m not a local sailor, and we had plenty time to admire the landscape, as we very slowly sailed past the city of Le Conquet…
Le Conquet
We arrived at Camaret sur Mer at 20h00. It had taken us 11 hours to do the 37 miles, giving an average speed of about 3.36 knots.
The next leg also promised to be a tricky one regarding currents, especially since we had to round the “Raz de Sein”, or “Pointe du Raz”, which some locals like to call their “little Horn Cape”.
We started to calculate again our time of departure, trying to understand what had gone wrong with our last passage.
One man on another yacht even said we had to leave the same night…
So we gave up, went to sleep, and woke up late the next morning, with no intention to go anywhere!
Dead ships…
We had a walk in this nice little town, bought some groceries, visited the harbour and the old ships graveyard.
In the afternoon, we took the mooring lines of a small yacht that came in the berth next to ours. They appeared “local” enough, so I decided to ask them for some help with our tides and currents estimations, for passing the Pointe du Raz.
They turned out to be very nice people, Josi and Patrick, a lovely couple 10 years older than me. They invited us on their boat “Souen” for a tea aperitif, but didn’t mind us bringing our beers instead.
They didn’t drink any alcohol anymore, and related us that some of their old relations had stopped seeing them, because they didn’t accept their decision.
Patrick and Josi
We had a very nice moment with Josi and Patrick. They sorted out our tide calculation troubles, they didn’t need any charts nor mathematics. We would be good enough leaving Camaret at half past eight in the morning, to be more than OK rounding the Pointe du Raz at the right time with the right current.
That was their playground!
One lesson learned there: talk to the people, be humble, listen to them. They can help you and will be glad to do so. And you’ll make new friends.
And once again, I experienced the sincere friendship and solidarity that binds sailing people, and that I didn’t meet anywhere else.
Sailing makes great people!
Yes, both the Chenal and Raz quite hairy, but a good feeling when saying goodbye to them!
Well, on our way back from Roscoff a couple of days ago, we passed the Raz de Sein sailing south. It went smoothly, but as we sailed out of it we were caught in severe overfalls which we couldn’t avoid, with very impressive waves. China Blue was jerking so violently that we were sometimes floating in the air before crashing again on the cockpit seats! It lasted about 10 very long minutes before we managed to sail out of them.