TADORNA the SHELDUCK

From Ramsgate (UK) to Nieuwpoort (Belgium) delivering a fellow yacht.
Due to some bad weather friend J. had to leave his yacht behind in the Ramsgate Royal Harbour Marina the weekend before. To bring her back the next weekend, all local weather forecasters agreed that, after a windy near-gale weekend, Monday the 20th of June should offer a small window of force 5 winds from SSW, later backing SW to W, ideal conditions to make the 50-miles eastbound passage. So on Sunday we took the ferry from Calais to Dover, where we had to take a taxi to Ramsgate, British Rail having some troubles on the line, or being ‘on line’ with trouble as usual?.
We left early Monday morning at 5am Belgian Summertime, (4am local time, 3h UTC), which means that even on this nearly longest day of the year, the sun was still behind the horizon. Looking outside it seemed as if the wind machine, after a weekend overtime, had completely broken down. There was no wind at all so we had to use the engine to sail with the ever-reliable diesel-wind. Once we were well off the coast the recently build wind farm on the sand banks in the Thames mouth showed up to port in the faint light of the slowly rising sun. (I don’t think our charts were thoroughly corrected on this matter, but we won’t wait to do so). This man-made wood of windmills looked rather impressive and somewhat threatening. Unlike Don Quixote we had no intention at all to go and fight them, they were too big and too many. On the contrary that lined-up army of eco-fighters seemed to hunt us down, they just kept following us, we only got rid of them when a low cloud came in and some drizzle began to fall.
We arrived at the traffic lanes of Dover Strait TSS (Traffic Separation Scheme) in the vicinity of the Sandettie bank, a rather busy place where vessels for or from Dunkirk and Belgium leave or join the traffic flow in the main channel, so when the time was not for sailing, we still had some navigational problems to solve. Good seamanship impels us to comply to the Col-Regs (IMO-Collision Regulations), which means that we always cross the TSS at a right angle to the traffic flow; although we think that an angle of 90° on a curved surface (the globe) cannot always that clearly been defined.
Also this time, according to Murphy’s law, the TSS was the place ‘where it all happened’, which means that the current suddenly was getting stronger and choosed the wrong direction, that the wind contradicted the promising forecasts and obstinately refused to blow, and that some lower clouds reduced the visibility to only 3 miles (just enough for us, needing half an hour to cover that distance, and no problem for professional seaman as they’re always fixed on their radar screens, even on the most bright and sunny day).
We managed to get through, and the familiar waypoints off Dunkirk and the Belgian coast like Smalbank, Trapegeer and Westdiep appeared on the chart. After 12 hours at sea ‘Alter Ego’ was safely delivered and tied up at her home-berth in the company of ‘Tadorna’ and other fellow-yachts. And believe it or not, less than one hour after arrival, a steady force 4 to 5 wind began to blow from SW to W. So the weather forecast had it right, be it only with a 12 hours delay, and although they might say better late than never, for us it was rather a pity.