Ardglass again

The forecast had not changed in the morning, but the marina felt much calmer at 8am, and the sun was shinning. We decided we should give travelling north a go, not Belfast or Bangor because there was too much west in the wind , but back to Portpatrick from where we could go to Girvan, then the Mull of Kintyre, then Rathlin. This would use the steady north westerlies forecast for next week and let us get to Derry. Failing that we could turn south, and head toward Dublin, probably via Carlingford Lough.

We were ready to go by half eight, but then realised we should put the 15 litres of diesel we had in cans into the proper fuel tank. We did that, then headed out, with the no 2 jib,, staysail, and main with two turns round the boom. There was no north in the wind at all as we left harbour, it was a pure westerly.

At first things went well, but we knew the area around Ardglass was sheltered and sure enough the swell got up as we neared Strangford Lough and the wind came round to the north west. We lowered the stay-sail and fully reefed the main, and rigged the pulleys for the tiller, and carried on for ten minutes, but at 3.5 knots trying to reach Portpatrick would be a marathon. We had no reefs left for the main if the wind got up more, and Robinetta was really heavy on the tiller in the gusts. We were sailing best course to windward, and if the swell got up any more we would be bashing into the waves. We turned South towards Dublin.

For half an hour this felt grand. We were further out on the coast as we retraced our route towards Ardglass, and the gusty wind did not overpower me with the help of the pulleys. The only problem was that out here the swell was larger than inshore, and as we neared St John's point it began to build more. Julian and I looked at each other. Robinetta is a lovely boat, but she is little, and old. Her crew were not exactly race fit after a winter ashore either. Part of being a sensible sailor is knowing when to stop.

We headed back to Ardglass, and moored up on the pontoon we had left three hours before. It looks like we will be here for a while.