The weather in the Irish Sea really hacks me off. For 3 months there has been a constant stream of northerlies...just what we needed to blow us down to France. On the day we set off from Holyhead the wind turned South, with a vengeance. Following local advice from Brian the Life Boat coxswain, amongst others, we left an hour before HW to ensure slack water through the South Stack overfalls, notorious as being amongst the worst in European waters. Despite this, with 30 knots blowing from the south, the waves were unpleasant, maybe 3.5 metres and tumbling, for the first 2 or 3 miles and then a continuous 2.5 metre swell with a big chop running across it after that.
We were either able to do less than 4 knots reasonably close hauled, or, by easing sheets just a little, we accelerated to 7-8 knots and took a real thumping. Either way the cog was north of west, not good when we wanted to make SSW. We got 23 miles offshore in jig-time, before realising that we would end up further away from anywhere useful than when we had started.
A shackle on the port running backstay parted and sorting out the knitting after the wires had gone round the upper mast a couple of times was quite energy sapping. Then we took a couple of really heavy green seas over the bows, one of which popped the foot of the spray hood off its tracks (and topped up my neck with several litres of 'oggin so with a heavy heart and much gnashing of teeth, I gybed the boat (tacking was a no-no in the huge seas, she just got knocked to a standstill and would not go through the eye of the wind) and we headed back to Holyhead.
That was a real roller-coaster wild ride, hitting 9.7 knots, surfing across the face of the big rollers. Chris described it later as proper buttock clencher with a few "yee-haa" moments thrown in as we accelerated down some of the slopes. The overfalls off South Stack were the climax for about a mile then, far quicker than we had left, we were back inside Holyhead breakwater and heaving a big sigh of relief. Circa 45 miles in under 6 hours! We lost a mains'l batten as we dumped sails, all 2 metres of it just flicked out and vanished over the side.
We picked up a mooring at the yacht club and went ashore to the Yacht club to watch Ecuador cheat Ghana out of a win in the World Cup and then back on board for a very noisy night and then sat out gale 8 to storm 10 in all sea areas for 36 hours using the time to make and mend around the boat. My Dad (87) very kindly drove over from the Menai Straights to deliver a temporary replacement sail batten and reminisce about the war and motorbikes. We went to the Holyhead Maritime museum (well worth a visit) and, in brilliant sunshine, walked to the start of the massive breakwater through narrow Welsh lanes heavy with the scent of wild honeysuckle, a world away from the big seas still pouring over the top of the breakwater.
The forecast is for another two weeks of southerlies with some potential nasties so , once again, France is off. Rats. See fed up look in photo.