To Treguier

 With one day of breeze ahead of a forecast of several days of calms, we decided to minimise the burning of diesel and head back west.

The 39 mile passage to Trequier, up the River Jaudy, was another perfect opportunity for the Parasailor, beam reaching in 10 - 14 knots of breeze.

Our timings were fairly crucial as the marina at Treguier can be a very tricky place to moor unless you arrive at slack tide; the current fairly rips through the berths at mid-tide. We met the marina manager Tiphenn who told us that there have been a few 'incidents' over the past couple of days with yachts misjudging the current.

We were last here about 15 years ago (with Laura Thornton and Amy Gamman) but know a lot about the place from Cindi and Adam on Bravo. Their Boreal 52 was built here and they arrived to launch the boat only to to be locked down a few days later due to Covid. They spent many weeks here, the only people in the marina, with daily exercise limited to less than 1km from the boat.

The marina is still full of Boreal boats - including a brand new 56 being commissioned.

Our first, very calm evening with the aluminium Boreals on the pontoon downstream of ours.

The new Boreal 56 - not the prettiest boat in the marina but very capable

We'd arrived a day after the highest of spring tides and the tidal range is pretty dramatic:

High Tide

Low Tide

A challenging angle to the walkways

We enjoyed exploring the old town with its magnificent cathedral and the excellent Creperie Les Halles for a delicious lunch..

After two nights we decided that we liked Treguier enormously but could see how its charms with few non-tourist shops must have felt pretty limiting for Adam and Cindi during lockdown!

We waited for slack tide - at low water this time - to motor down river in search of a more remote spot to anchor for the night.

Musings of the evolution of boat design

This is the sort of post that would have appealed to my dad, Geoff. We miss him terribly but it's when we're off cruising that we feel his loss the most; he used to love following our progress, would be watching the weather forecasts for us and would ask lots of thoughtful questions about our trips. Even when his regular sailing days were over (at the age of about 86!), he would spend happy times 'buying' a new boat - researching designs and comparing the pros and cons of yachts he'd seen advertised.

While we were in Roscoff, Maunie was moored next to an interesting boat with topsides finished in a rather fetching shade of pink. It was a 36ft RM1080, one of the latest designs from a French yard with a reputation for building light, fast cruiser / racers. The comparisons with the 38ft Maunie were interesting.

Lots of square edges and hard chines

The boat's full width comes right to the stern, making for a very wide cockpit and requiring two rudders

The rather boxy shape provides lots of volume in the cabins and saloon.

The bit you can't see, under the water. is a very flat bottom and the deep thin keel with a 'torpedo' bulb (its main weight) at its base.

The shape of the hull and the bulb keel makes the boat very stiff (it apparently doesn't heel more than about 15 degrees) and the flat underbody means that it will surf down waves. The downside is that it'll probably slam horribly when beating into waves.

The whole boat, without fuel or provisions, weighs in at only 5.5 tonnes and down below everything shows the designer's absolute focus on minimising weight. Even the hanging lockers (wardrobes) are made of fabric, with zipped doors, rather than wood or fibreglass.

Maunie's design is much more traditional - a deep v-shaped forefoot and a long deep keel means she cuts through waves with ease but definitely doesn't surf down them! Her widest point is pretty much at the middle of her length and she's designed to heel comfortably to 40 degrees (maybe 'comfortably' isn't the right word as far as her crew is concerned). 

Maunie's sloping bow and deep vee forefoot are great for slicing through waves

Reducing weight clearly came nowhere on her designer's list of priorities - Maunie tips the scales at about 11 tonnes, twice that of the RM!

The RM's mast is supported by two shrouds (wires)

Whereas Maunie's has five!

For the blue water voyages we've done, we certainly wouldn't consider a lightweight boat like the RM but it certainly is an interesting development in yacht design.

At the other end of the spectrum, this Canadian cruising boat came into the marina while we were there. It's a motorboat with occasional sail assistance but it was certainly eye catching:

To Roscoff (avoiding the ferries)

With high pressure moving across us, we didn't expect much in the way of sailing for the passage from Trebeurden to Roscoff but were delighted to find a 10-12 knot breeze. Ok, it was on the nose so we had to beat, but that was preferable to the alternative of burning diesel and we had a favourable tide to make our tacking angles look respectable.

 Roscoff is best known, of course, as a major ferry port and, until a few years ago, yachts were limited to the old, drying harbour. However a very well appointed marina has been built just south of the ferry terminal and it's accessible at all stages of the tide; you just have to be careful with the current that runs through it.

The old port at low tide - you have to lean your boat against the tyres as the tide recedes and dry out

The north entrance to the new marina, with the ferry terminal in the background. You can see the swirling current in the water

Looking south into the marina

The marina staff are super helpful and meet arriving boats in big inflatable RIBs with powerful engines. Their boats have big soft fenders on the bow so they can nudge boats against the current if required.

A walk into the old town took about 15 minutes and it's a very attractive place.

Eglise Notre-Dame de Croaz-Batz

The town was fairly touristy but we found a creperie whose clientele were mostly locals and had a very good lunch.

Galettes (savoury crepes) with local cider from a small jug, drunk from pottery cups

As ever we had an eye on the forecast. We had wanted to head further west out to Ile d'Ouessant (Ushant) but it was pretty clear that we'd then be faced with a lot of motoring to get back. Wednesday's forecast offered the last chance of a sailable westerly breeze so we decided that we'd head for Treguier.  More to follow.

A good Channel crossing and back to Brittany

 After our aborted night-time attempt, our second go at the 100nm passage from Dartmouth to Lezardrieux was a much more satisfactory affair. It wasn't all plain sailing of course - the first three hours were hard on the wind and in horrible, heavy rain but after that the skies cleared and the wind backed to a much more favourable angle. 

We were able to sail up most of the Trieux river in the fading light and completed the trip in almost exactly 15 hours. Here's a very short video of some of the highlights:

We moored up for a couple of nights on the mid-river pontoon in Lezardrieux, familiar territory for us which made it all very easy. The online 'Protocol' Customs system is still operating (in spite of the new fingerprint / face recognition system supposedly being in place for all non-EU visitors) so we were able to get our customs clearance emailed to us by the very efficient marina office even before we arrived.

With the winds now too calm for much sailing (this trip is beginning to challenge us, weather wise!) we decided to motor an hour up river and through a large lock into the little river port of Pontrieux where we spent a couple of nights. Here's a video of the trip on YouTube - click HERE: 

The visitors' pontoon in the river at Pontrieux

The village square and one of the few remaining C15th timbered houses

The return trip down river was easy, though the top of the mast looked terrifyingly close to the bottom of the suspension bridge as we passed through. We celebrated with a brilliant meal at the Auberge de Trieux, where we ate with Barbara and Steve last year.

We returned to a very calm mooring, ready to move west the following day.

The calm overnight conditions didn't suggest that we'd get much sailing the following morning but we rigged the spinnaker lines anyway and we motored out of the estuary.

Passing La Croix navigation tower

Lovely sailing with the Parasailor

The breeze gradually picked up from a gentle 8 knots to a very respectable 16 knots so we covered the 37nm in just over 5 hours to arrive at Trebeurden which has a large marina with a flap gate which only opens for about 2.5 hours either side of high tide. We picked up a mooring to wait a couple of hours for the tide to rise and made our way in. The marina was fine but the town didn't have much going for it so we just stayed for one night.

The marina at high tide. At low tide all of the water in the foreground disappears and the marina retains its water behind a wall and the flap gate (which can just be seen on the right, with its red and green markers).

Our departure the following morning looked a bit in peril as we were greeted by thick fog and less than 100m of visibility. We crept out of the marina just before the flap gate shut and picked up a mooring just outside for a second coffee to wait for the visibility to clear. Thankfully we only had an hour to wait and enjoyed a good beat to windward to the big marina in the ferry port of Roscoff. More to follow!

It's involved a lot of waiting but we're exploring again

 The trouble with normal life is that it all too easily gets in the way of sailing, so we blocked out the month of June to go off cruising. The problem was that the weather gods didn't get the memo.

After a couple of weeks of the hottest May on record, the start of June saw a succession of very unseasonable gales so our plans to get across to Brittany were suddenly put on hold. We did try an overnight passage on the first Thursday of the month, in between two weather systems but sea state in the English Channel, left over from days of strong winds, was pretty horrible and we turned back after a couple of hours.

Back in Dartmouth we saw the next gale approaching on the Saturday but, in the meantime had managed to negotiate a last-minute and unplanned haul-out at Darthaven Marina. Our Thursday night foray had told us that Maunie just felt slow and we'd realised that in only two months afloat she'd gained a tenacious coating of green weed on her hull.

Talking to the yard guys, they said everyone has been reporting really back weed fouling this season and it seems that CopperCoat just doesn't cope with it. I'd tried scrubbing and scraping as much as I could reach from the dinghy but the stuff really didn't want to release its grip. Paul, the man with the super-powerful jet washer did a meticulous job and too about 90 minutes to get the hull clean.

Back afloat, with an extra knot of speed, we fled the impending gale to pick up a mooring in Dittisham. Even there, the boat heeled and tugged at the mooring in the gusts so we didn't get the best night's sleep but it was reassuring to have our anti-chafe mooring line rigged, with a spare added for good measure,

Our mooring line has a section of chain spliced into the middle to stop the metal ring of the mooring from chafing through the rope.

We finally got away the following Tuesday - more photos and stories to follow....