Le Palais towards Bilbao, abort to Baie de Bourgneuf

Nick W.

We intended to leave Le Palais as soon as the wind turned from S to NE which was forecast to occur around midnight. However, it had already turned and strengthen to NE 17 kts by 23:10 when we slipped lines from the mooring buoy. We set sail with 3 reefs in anticipation of the predicted strengthening and by 0144 we had NE 25 kts. We struggled on in poor conditions with a choppy sea, rain squalls and occasional lightning flashes. By 0535 the wind had veered to ENE 22 kts and we were not able to make 128 T which we needed to clear the wind farm so we decided to abort and seek shelter in Bay Bourgneuf. We tried to anchor off Prefailles but the bottom was rock so we move further SE and found sand in end of the bay before Pornic.