A Baltic Odyssey
Two members, John Wells and Ray Norris and friends, all but one over 70, chartered a 40 foot yacht in Stockholm last summer, meandering through
a cruising paradise - more than 24,000 islands, islets and 'skerries',
before reaching the Baltic. A hop across a 35 mile stretch of open water
and they were in Åland, an autonomous ‘region’ of
Finland comprised of some 6,000 islands etc with charm all of their
own. A most successful cruise in isolated magical scenery.
The Harbourmaster arrives with the forecast
A unique feature reported by the crew in "Sailing Today" was the availability of weather forecasts in Rødhamn - delivered by Annette, the harbourmaster hand written on a bag of freshly baked breakfast rolls.
John Apps completes the Jester Challenge with a
"Double Singlehanded Transatlantic"
As reported previously, association member John Apps sadly had to retire in the Azores from the Jester Challenge in 2006. He did not formally complete the race, so set off again in 2007. After a gruelling voyage - and in true 'Jester Spirit' - he finished the Jester Challenge 2006 arriving in Newport RI on 18th July 2007. He is the third skipper to finish.
John wrote:
"Well we made it. I passed the Castle Hill Light at 1350[UTC] on 18 July 2007. 410 days, 2 hours and 50 minutes since the start of JC06. I think this might make me third on the podium."
"Except for the last 200 miles when I had next to no wind I seemed to go from low to low with only a day in between. Even where the routing chart indicated that the wind should never exceed F7, I was encountering F9s. I was knocked down twice in three hours trying to sail under bare poles in a F10 NE. The first knock down was disastrous as I had just taken my top stormboard out to check on everything, when I was knocked down - ending up with about 2 feet of water in the cabin. I also lost my wind indicator, broke the babystay, flattened my spray hood and ended up with a raincatcher radar reflector looking like a flower as it bent out of shape. Except for the missing wind indicator everything was more or less repairable"
"About
100 miles out of Newport I encountered very dense sea fog and unfortunately
no wind for a day and a half. I was caught in something called the Great
South Ship's Channel just south of Nantucket. Every hour or so I could
hear a ship's fog horn going past. I was replying on my foghorn, but
it sounded very puny in relation to the ships' blasts. Still I think
my two radar reflectors are fairly effective."
John then spent a few days in Newport before heading straight back to the UK's East Coast. When asked by another association member whether he had a good summer cruise, John responded "I just popped over to Newport to finish the Jester Challenge" - modesty indeed.
"Stella Maris" on the ARC 2006 (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers)
Geoff Clitheroe from GXSA crewed for Ian Hankinson and Elspeth in the mass rally from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to St Lucia in the Windward Islands in Ian’s 36' Starlight "Stella Maris", a distance of 3,000 miles. The voyage took 21 days and 6 hours, getting progressively warmer as they ran before the wind, goose-winged, from 28 to 14 degrees north. In contrast to other yachts, they had no major incidents or failures. The crew voted the "hydrovane" the most fantastic piece of kit followed by "ear plugs" for getting to sleep. They saw several schools of dolphins which on each occasion came to play around the boat, a pair of spouting whales, and lots of flying fish. A truly memorable experience.
Following this event Geoff was presented
with the Bob Gammack Trophy by GXSA for the role that sailing has played
in his determination in recovering from a recent stroke.
Stella Maris arriving in St Lucia.
"Optimist" towards the outer Hebrides
Reached Stornoway in June
On arrival in Stornaway we explored the town – absolutely dead closed. We’d heard about this, but were still taken aback.
Next day we decided to do the tourist bus ride. There are several attractions, the standing stones of Callanish, Carloway Broch, Gearranan Blackhouse village, 2 museums at Shawbost, a whalebone arch at Bragar and a blackhouse museum at Arnol. The bus does a circular ride. Unlike the hop-on, hop-off city buses, these are infrequent, so we decided not to alight at the standing stones, you can just see them from the bus. Everywhere we did get off, we had to spend at least 2 hours!
Getting to Scotland from Brighton was not easy in the weather we had, with a week’s delay at the start, including five days at Poole, and more delay at Aberystwyth, Holyhead and Bangor
We thought our return would be easier – wrong again – and had to wait 10 days at Arklow while a series of depressions passed. With an 80 mile trip to Milford Haven we didn’t dare to set off in such wild weather, and a little community of “stuck yotties” emerged. We speculated on when we would ever escape. The highlight was when an Irish lady called Cecily organised a “stuck yotties’ dinner” and eleven of us, from 5 boats, went in a 12 seater minibus for a splendid meal – and only 3 days later we were able to sail away!
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