Struggling in light winds against the streams of Little Russel, north west of Platte Fougere, we were barely making any progress as we sailed towards Alderney. It was the worst time for the engine to overheat on our Wing 25, Mariposa. With a foul tide, we tacked away from the nearest rocks, back towards St Peter Port, waiting for the tide to turn whilst keeping clear of the vicious overfalls in the north of the Russel. Eventually, we sailed through the pier heads and one of the harbour launches nudged us onto a waiting pontoon.
We were in Guernsey, having sailed from our home port of Cardiff. Now both retired, my wife, Liz and I have the luxury of no time constraints when it comes to planning a summer cruise. Given Mariposa’s relatively slow average cruising speed of 4 knots, we were anxious to make good use of the long days which would enable us to leave and arrive in daylight and still achieve 70-mile daily passages; we have reached an age where night watches no longer have the romance and charm they once did. The plan was to make use of the strong Bristol Channel spring tide to carry us to Oxwich Bay on the Gower Peninsula then to Lundy. With high pressure and winds of less than 2 knots we fired up the engine and motored on a flat sea.
It is very noticeable that once past Oxwich the water quality of the Bristol
