Aidan Whiteley

And, finally, back to the Exe from Salcombe. The forecast wasn't too promising with northerly winds so we expected a lot of tacking. It was slow for quite a while after we rounded Start Point - from there to Berry Head seemed to take an age. We idled away the time crossing Torbay watching three large ships in a row come into the bay to take on pilots. As we passed the Ore Stone the wind freed up and we had a lovely sail straight up to the Exe SWM. We arrived an hour before low water but as it was so neapy we progressed up channel to just past the floating cafe where we picked up a spare mooring for an hour waiting for enough tide rise to make it onto Triskelle's mooring

The long trip back from Roscoff to Salcombe. Bit of everything really. I'm not mad keen on dead runs and suspect trimarans aren't either. But the first 40 miles were goose winged (with the first 15 or so having a little motor assist). Triskelle isn't one of those multihulls who bamboozle normal folk by tacking downwind. After some adjustments while crossing the ships coming out of the shipping lanes, the wind had shifted back a little more south westerly. And grown. I saw a 10.3 knots as we surfed down the side of a 3m wave. Lots of fun but I was hoping they wouldn't get any bigger. They didn't! Then rain and drizzle for the last 20 miles that meant the night visibility getting into Salcombe was way more stressful than planned. And we didn't hold out much hope for getting a mooring as it was Salcombe Regatta week. But strangely that helped as we called up "Salcombe Harbour" at 22:30 and they replied! And then they gave us the lifeboats mooring (who we'd seen haring out as we came in).

Up early to catch the east going tide. Enough wind to sail for the first dozen miles and then motoring sailed on to Roscoff. Too misty to go through the Chenal Du Four and we hadn't quite made the tide. A few more dolphins came out to play but didn't give me enough forewarning! Now re-reading the weather forecasts for the trip back to Salcombe or Dartmouth.

The wind was invited but failed to show. The tides were calculated to arrive but we didn't see much more than a knots worth in the Chenal Du Four. Once out of the lee of Ushant we got a tiny bit of Atlantic swell to speed us along. The dolphins weren't invited but turned up anyway. Now on a mooring buoy at L'aber W'rach and the first leg of the homeward journey completed. More details about the outward journey at https://thegpsblog.com/brittany2024

Return from Brixham - clear blue skies and flat sea. No wind! Brief fishing efforts by slowing down but to no avail! Can’t grumble though it was a lovely hot day but with a breeze we generated with the iron topsail!

A forecast of extremely light winds became a F3-4 albeit mostly from the direction of travel and shifting substantially along the way. Very slight sea and warm bright conditions (the forecast rain hardly happened either) made for a delightful if sometimes demanding beat as shown on the track. Thank you Aidan for crewing and doing a lot of the hard work and providing the gpx data as my phone had to be switched off to conserve battery!

A short hop from Camaret to Brest via the southern channel of the Goulet De Brest. This did have a jelpful back eddy an hour before low water. The weather was a rather miserable mizzly mist with visibility of about a mile. Passing U boat pens on the way in was a first. So that's me done for a couple of weeks as Jill K takes over as crew.

From L'aber Wrac'h round to Camaret via the Chenal Du Four. While it was (an average) spring tide we weren't expecting too much from the Chenal Du Four as it was light winds from the west. Motored and motor sailed and speeds got up to about 9 knots. There was a patch of disturbed water for a few hundred metres just south of the St Mathieu narrows. Then on to the outer marina at Camaret.

Up at first light to catch the tide to go thru the Chanal De Batz. The channel looked well marked and interesting but a thick fog came down as we slipped lines. So it was round the top of Ile De Batz and then motoring all the way to L'Aber Wrach against the couple of knots headwind. Now looking at how / when the Chenal Du Four might be do-able.

Good trip across to Roscoff. Some lovely fast sailing on David's trimaran Triskelle. Didn't look so good when woken up at 2am before 4am planned departure by loud wind down Salcombe estuary and loads of banging halyards. Up at Prawle NCI it said F7 but delaying departure for an hour had the winds coming down as forecast. Double reef for first half, no reefs for second half. Forgot to take any pictures on the phone.