We left Cherbourg on Wednesday, filling up with diesel before we left at the self service pumps. The 300Euro maximum for a card transaction filled one tank and took the other to 92% so we left it at that and headed off. We took a fair tide to Cap de la Hauge and saw a fair bit of water over the deck, though never in the cockpit, in the overfalls as we motor sailed into the Alderney race.
Our straight line course to Treguier took us down the Big Russel channel between Sark and Herm passing lots of fond memories – more than one involving food on a beach – before a fairly dull 40 mile stretch towards the French coast with the engine thumping away all the time. It was uneventful except for some dolphins joining us mid afternoon just after I’d gone for a nap – Kathryn had no hesitation in banging on the cockpit sole to summon me back on deck, and I was glad of it. As ever the dilemma was whether to just soak up the moment or to go and find a camera to get a record. This time we both settled on just enjoying the moment, which was over all too soon.
Tregieur entrance is a bit wiggly and needed some attention at the end of a long day – we were easily 12 hours in by then, though had both had naps.
But once in, and up the river a bit, it is very snug and sheltered. We elected to anchor as we planned to be off the following day. We picked a lovely spot a little downriver from the town and across the river from a Chateau. A quick shower followed by a long sleep was in order.
I am very pleased to report that the coolant leak seems to have been a loose hose clip on the shut off valve for the hot water calorifier (domestic hot water is heated using the engine cooling circuit, when the engine is running, or, on Trouper, by an immersion heater when plugged into the shore, or from our diesel heating). We’ll probably now carry the remaining 4.5l of coolant around as a talisman against leaks for the foreseeable future.
On Thursday morning we had a leisurely start to the day and I got our newish solar panel array out for it’s first real test in bright conditions.
The FlinKite solar array is very neat – it hoists out of it’s storage bag on a spinnaker halyard and plugs in on the back of the forward dorade box. It has a notional 200W capacity, and can be orientated to point at the sun and operate as efficiently as possible. Without any real care in pointing it, it was generating 180-200W, as you can see from the display. For us that’s great news as it means it will outpace our electricity consumption at anchor and remove any need to run the engine for battery charging. At sea there is a big 225 Amp alternator managed by the battery management system that can very quickly put charge back into the 660 Amp hour LFP battery bank. The great thing about LFP battery chemistries is their very high charge acceptance: it will accept pretty much as much as we can generate.
The holding was excellent in the river and despite all the pilot books’ warnings about the strength of the tide, albeit at neaps, we barely troubled the anchor all night. I put 40m of chain out and even when the tide turned I don’t think we pulled it straight in the mud. It certainly took some cleaning.
We left on Thursday lunchtime for a smaller hop down the coast to Roscoff where we plan to spend a few days, partly to do chores such as laundry, and partly to let some weather blow through. Finally on this leg we were able to actually sail for at least half the passage and were making a nice 6.4kts in 10kts of breeze on a beam reach for a period. It was so lovely to be at sea without the thrum of the engine. Kathryn made a lovely dinner of trout fillets, new potatoes and veg which I’m sure tasted all the better for the noise of the water gurgling past Trouper’s transom.