That wasn't the weather we were promised

That wasn’t in the forecast.

After yesterday’s strong winds it went very still in the evening as we walked to Weatherspoons for pudding.

When I opened the companionway hatch this morning it looked fine but by the time we went for our showers it was raining. That wasn’t in the forecast last night.

We checked XC and it still said it would be a sunny day with a nice constant 14 knot wind with almost no gusts.

I mended the staysail track ends so the car wouldn’t get stuck – it had failed yesterday.

Then we tried to fill the water tanks but couldn’t reach the tap so we went to the fuel dock and got fuel and water there.

We got the sails up in the harbour on the way out. We were followed by another gaffer called Saskia – probably a Tamarisk 29. She headed off towards Abersoch or Bardsey.

Instead of bright sunshine and a steady light F4 we had a slate black sky with more wind.

I wanted to sail close to the Snowdonia coast so we set a course for the entrance to the eastern channel inside St Patrick’s Bridge. We went over another St Patricks Bridge outside Kilmore Quay in Ireland – I must check if there is a legend that connects them.

Holding the course was uncomfortably close to a run so we gybed onto a course east along the Lleyn coast towards Criccieth.

We saw rain building on the coast and decided it was time for another gybe back onto the course. Alison spotted that the VHF antenna cable was flapping at the top of the mast. It runs up the port forward shroud and then is taped to the mast. The tape must have broken. I hoped it wouldn’t pull out before we could get up the mast to fix it.

Then she noticed the starboard lazy jack had unclipped itself from the end of the boom. We tied it off. I have no idea how a snap shackle can un-snap itself. Things weren’t going well.

The wind built and built. We had full main and no 1 jib – the right configuration for broad reaching in 14 knots but it was getting hard work. I kept hoping we would get out from under the cloud and it would calm down but …

Eventually I faced reality and we reefed down and furled the jib and I went forward to change to the number 2. The seas were bouncy so I was really careful to make sure everything stayed tied on, including me! I got the No 1 bagged and the No 2 hoisted and went back to the cockpit. The No 2 had come out a bit and we tried to fully furl it and spotted that I’d got the furling line caught under the drum.

I went forward again. The only way to fix it was to undo the foot from the drum. It got away from me and went flying. Alison went head to wind to bring it back on-board and then she realised we were getting lee-shored on St Patricks Bridge. She banged the engine on and motored back north to safety while I sorted the jib. Finally I got it right.

We debated going back to Pwllheli. Alison called Aberystwyth several times, and finally got through. They were certain it would be safe to get into the harbour this evening and we were welcome to leave Robinetta there. We decided to go for it but the seas were getting scary to go through the eastern channel so we reset the course to go outside St Patrick’s Bridge. An extra nine miles! The strong winds were pushing us quickly, even reefed down, so the short cut would have got us to Aberystwyth hours before we could get into harbour. The weather wasn’t good enough to get good views of the mountains so we were content with the extra distance.

We had cheese & tomato rolls for lunch.

It was a bouncy nine miles to windward and the leak in the bow was getting worse under the strain. We were pumping too frequently for comfort but not frighteningly.

Once round the western end of St Patrick’s Bridge we were back on a run again. We took long gybes to stay on a broad reach, allowing the cross track error to get to between 0.5 and 1.5 nm.

As the afternoon drew on the weather improved as promised. The wind gradually eased and we got some blue sky and some reasonable views of the southern Snowdonia Mountains. The waves were still 2m high at times so it wasn’t comfortable at all. 

By 18:00 we were getting hungry again and I got the stove onto its gimbals and cooked some potatoes and tomatoes and heated a tin of jerk chicken.

After that it really did settle down. It was pretty flat by the time the sun went down. 4 miles off Aberystwyth Alison noticed dolphin fins. They were larger than common dolphins and probably bottlenose, although we only saw their backs. They seemed to be guiding us to the Main Channel towards the harbour

After that we got into the harbour without incident and found the fuel dock and tied up.

The next day we got the sun to see the mountains.

 But there was no wind so we stayed in Aberystwyth.