After I wrote the last post I spoke with a very helpful guy at B&G who explained a bit about the N2k/Fastnet bridge (H5000 Fastnet Interface). It would appear that it should be supplying more data to our N2K network than it is, which suggests our H2000 Performance processor isn’t correctly configured – which isn’t a huge surprise. He explained that the data transmission rates on Fastnet is much lower than N2K and they’d not bridged data to avoid swamping the Fastnet bus. I’m not sure that really makes sense – as a throttled feed of the data that they’ll already let you inject onto Fastnet from an old serial NMEA0183 source (such as a GPS set) would cause no more trouble than the current feed – and be rather simpler on a boat moving towards more modern tech, where a GPS upgrade to an N2K device has probably already happened. Anyway that’s how it is. It leaves me with a job to look at the config of our performance processor.
I did source a rather expensive but fairly pristine pilot remote on eBay, which worked perfectly. That gave me the confidence to take the old one apart. I found that one of the screws that hold the circuit board down had become loose and was lodged under the board. Once it was back in the right place all worked well again, so now I’ve got a spare. Whilst reassembling it I did replace the lanyard attachment point – it had always been broken and having a way of tethering it has always seemed a good idea. I was able to 3d print a replacement, which pleased me.
In order to provide the data feed to the Saillogger platform that provides the tracking I use here I’ve been running SignalK on the Cerbo GX display/processor that manages the Victron battery kit. It’s part of Victron’s supported configuration and the Cerbo is connected to the boat’s N2K network so has access to all the boat’s data. Signalk is really very neat – it’s an open source modern http based data sharing platform, which supports plugins to connect to all sorts of things, and when combined with Node Red workflows can be used to build all sorts of automation and monitoring.
My first step will be connecting the Cerbo to allow monitoring the the bilge pump and an high level bilge alarm. Because the Cerbo is always running and internet connected (ours uses the boat’s network or falls back to a cheap IoT mobile dongle) that means I can get flooding alerts whilst the boat is unattended.
Longer term I’m thinking that the sensible thing to do would be to create a Fastnet SignalK module. The SignalK platform can manage the translation to N2K – or wherever else – and it would allow all the Fastnet devices to be used for as long as they work. I also wonder about an Expedition/SignalK interface – that seems to be a match made in heaven with all the data Expedition makes available.
This post has taken a while to be published so describes the autumn 2025 position, on our return from the Brittany trip.
This trip had a few purposes:
To give Kathryn and I a proper break and step away from the normal pressures of our lives.
To test out if living on Trouper for extended periods was comfortable and what we might want to do in future.
To test out Trouper’s systems and see if they needed any changes for future longer trips.
So how’ve we done? The first two I think we’ve achieved. We’re still talking to each other, and talking about future trips, indeed we’re both very clear that we’d like to spend more time on the Atlantic coast and explore further. There’s an awful lot to like about this coast, and whilst I would like to explore the Mediterranean in future I can see why this might make a better long term home for us. Neither of us feel a huge need to go crossing Oceans, though I did point out to Kathryn this afternoon that it’s only 155nm in nearly a straight line from Chichester to Roscoff, so we could leave one evening and be there the next afternoon, and that in the right weather that would be easy enough with just the two of us.
I think that for longer term trips I’ll need a sense of purpose and mission. Even just writing this blog helped, but simply wandering about exploring won’t quite do it for me – I need a bit more purpose. I think that getting involved in producing pilotage will be the answer – it will provide that sense of mission.
We bought Trouper 12 years ago and she was a very good fit to my tastes and needs, but we have made a few significant changes to her in our ownership. Before we launched her for the first time in our ownership we had the hull coated in ‘coppercoat’ which is a long life alternative to antifoul. It’s meant to be less polluting and doesn’t need annual reapplication. Ours has need some patches where it has come off but is otherwise working well. The pre purchase survey had spotted some issues with the heating system. Unlike most modern yachts that use a diesel fired blown air heating system ours heats a water circuit like a domestic radiator system. Rather than radiators we have two electrical thermostatically controlled blower units, one forward, one aft, which each deliver four hot air outputs. The surveyor had identified that the blower units were leaking, and we’d had them replaced. Trouper, like most boats, has a colorifier (hot water cylinder) that has a mains powered immersion heater element, and a heat exchanger coil from the engine’s cooling system, so engine heat is used to generate hot water at sea. The problem is that the calorifier is small at 25l, and if we at in an anchorage for a day or two we run out of hot water very quickly. During the first season of ownership I realised that we could use a two coil calorifier and connect the diesel heater circuit to the second coil. We had this done and it’s worked brilliantly – the 10kw heater heats the tank very quickly and showers at anchor are now much more comfortable. These diesel heaters have a very distinctive roar and we do get the odd strange look as we fire ours up on the middle of a hot summers day.
We’ve renewed the sails with the latest in high tech cruising sails (North 3di Nordac – a white seam free moulded sail more like flexible fibreglass in structure than traditional woven fabric), and in the process installed a new sail track on the mast to accept the batten cars needed for the fully battened mainsail. They still set beautifully and really do make a difference.
We also replaced the engine a couple of winters ago. That was an ambitious project on several fronts: finding an non turbocharged marine engine that would fit in the space available was tricky and then adapting that engine to fit with the boat’s systems and controls was quite fiddly. I must have been a nightmare client for the guys who supplied and fitted the engine (supplied by the lovely James French of French Marine, and fitted by the brilliant and lovely Dick Woodruff) But, aside from the last few teething problems the engine is working well and the integration with the boat and its systems is excellent. The old engine was becoming difficult to maintain and some parts were become unobtainable so whilst it ran well there was the real risk that it would pack up at some inconvenient moment never to work again.
The year before the engine work I’d also replaced the batteries and charging system moving away from the four big 6v golf cart batteries that were the original system design, to two Victron Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, and associated charging, management and monitoring equipment. This was another big project, which was only really finished when the new engine went in with a new secondary alternator (another of those difficult client requests for James, that he rather overachieved on) capable of delivering the sort of charge that big LFP batteries demand. This has been transformational. We used to get anxious about power after a single night on the anchor, unable to plug in. Two was really the maximum possible. We’ve now doubled the available power and massively increased our charging capacity from the engine, added a small hoistable solar array and halved the weight of the system. We also have lots of lovely data telling use about how much power we use. Our usage has gone up as I’m much less abstemious than I used to be – for example the boat’s instruments have been on for nearly two months, and the starlink dish draws more than we could have supported.
Power consumption data from our Victron system.
So what would we change on Trouper?
We agree that a washing machine would be the biggest creature comfort. There appear to be more options opening up out of the motor home market, so for the future we might need to do some research on the possibilities, but we don’t have room for a traditional mini domestic machine – even if we had the power and water.
The Starlink mini dish has been really useful this trip and has made an always on internet connection just work, with very little effort (mounting bracket aside). I still baulk at spending money with a Musk company but there is nothing else like it. It’s allowed us unlimited access to large weather data files, to stream podcasts whilst on passage, and to even stream HD TV to our Samsung portable projector whilst at anchor in remote spots. We probably used the projector about 15-20 times over the 9 week trip.
Before we left I knew I fancied a larger tender, with a hull shape the would allow better seakeeping. Truthfully we’ve not really needed it, and our existing bombproof Avon has attracted admiring comments from people who are less impressed with the durability of modern PVC tenders, so that’s probably on hold until a proven need.
A water maker (most likely a Schenker Zen 30) is on the upgrade list. We didn’t struggle for water at all (and carry about 350l), but there were hose pipe restrictions in place for most places, and one might expect water supply issues to get worse rather than better due to climate change – so being able to turn seawater into drinking water, now that energy recovery water makers have pulled the power demands down seems sensible. Before these cleave energy recovery units were around it used to be said that all water makers did was turn diesel into water as you needed so much power to operate them! However they are maintenance intensive and need to be used regularly or ‘pickled’ as a consequence it’s probably something to leave until we’re spending longer periods on board.
Trouper’s rod rigging dates from 2017 and needs replacing – that’s going to get done overwinter, and the analogue Furuno radar will be replaced at the same time with a modern digital Doppler radar – though likely still a Furuno.
The minor issues with coolant leaks from the new engine need sorting out to ensure we’ve a robust and reliable set up. That should be easy. What’s a bit more tricky is the steam we get from the exhaust at higher power settings. The engine and exhaust don’t seem to be overheating. The steam isn’t coolant (the levels don’t drop, aside from the leaks) so it must be related to the raw water injection and cooling of the exhaust. But it’s got both engineers involved and me a bit puzzled.
Our anchor has served us well, but is a CQR design and original to the boat. CQRs were revolutionary high performance anchors in their time but they date from the 1950s have been overtaken in the last 20 years by higher performance designs. Ours is also showing some signs of wear and is starting to rust in a few places where the galvanising has worn off, so it might be time to consider a replacement. Trouper has a very nice clamp mechanism to hold the anchor secure in its roller, which will need adapting or replacing to cope with a different design so this won’t be a simple swap. I favour a Vulcan as the replacement – it has the same virtues as the Spade, but is reportedly less prone to corrosion (I think it’s a solid casting, where the spade is fabricated with a hollow shank, at can rust from the inside out) and it doesn’t have the significant failing of the roll bar anchors like the Rocna that are prone to clogging with mud and then not resetting if broken out by a wind or tide shift. Personally I’d trade a fair bit of optimum condition peak performance for reliably reseting after being broken out. Anchors and anchoring techniques are one of those things that people get very exercised about with very clear views on what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – for me in this (and almost all things) there are many shades of grey. The first thing to do is make a template of the Vulcan and see if it will fit on Trouper’s bow roller. Our chain seems to be in good condition – so hopefully that’s good for a little while yet as 60m of 10mm chain isn’t cheap. I suspect I might ultimately change the chain at the same time as renewing the windlass (so hopefully far in the future) and maybe step down a chain size, whilst using higher strength steel chain, to enable me to stow more chain in the locker.
The last thing on the wish list is top down furling gennaker. A big asymmetric spinnaker optimised for sailing really deep (so close to dead downwind) with a small demountable bowsprit. The sail would let us make progress under sail in lighter airs – which is often my favourite sailing. The top down furler technology grew out of the Open60s where solo sailors needed to be able to safely handle large downwind sails. Essentially the sail is rolled up around a torsion rope from the top which has proved to provide much neater stows and to work much more effectively in stronger conditions than early simpler bottom up designs. The confidence of knowing that we could easily furl it would encourage us to use the sail much more. We have two big (one vast) symmetric spinnakers but they require quite a few crew to handle effectively – and are certainly not suited to just the two of us.
Sadly my man in Lymington got back to be on the pilot remote control and said that whilst they’d have a look it wasn’t really their thing. They’ve given me the details of a guy in Croatia, so I’ll try him. But it’s got me thinking a bit about how to keep the boat’s instruments and pilot working long into the future without having to engage in a very expensive wholesale replacement.
The problem is one of history, and arguably corporate ownership. B&G are a venerable British marine electronics firms who produced the first electronic yacht instruments, starting in the 1950s. One of the best histories of marine electronics I’ve read is here, written by Nick White, the author of the truly awesome Expedition Navigation package (my only gripe with expedition is that it forces me to own a Windows PC – I’ve owned Macs since the ’80s).
B&G produced the first modern network style system and at some point in the 80s or early 90’s adopted a CAN bus technology that enables multiple devices to exchange data across a single network cable run around the boat, which they called Fastnet. It was a closed proprietary solution which allowed you to add whatever (B&G) elements you needed and have them all interoperate and display any of the data at any of the displays. In its day it was revolutionary. The modern NMEA2000 (N2K) Industry standard communications system is actually also a CAN implementation with a different messaging standard (which is irritatingly a closed standard owned by an industry body, rather than being open and public – though extensively reverse engineered these days). N2K achieves the same interoperability but across manufacturers allowing you to mix and match equipment, at least to some degree.
Trouper’s H2000 system uses this old B&G technology to connect its three processing units to 12 displays, and five fundamental measurement transducers. The fundamental measurements are depth, speed through the water, rudder angle, wind speed and direction, heading, trim, heel (and associated accelerations). The main processor combines wind and boat speed data to produce a calibrated and corrected set of both true and apparent wind values (the difference between the wind you’d feel stationary in the water, and the wind you feel as you move over the water), together with a calibrated depth (ours is set to report depth under the keel – some hold near religious views that this should be set to depth of water). The performance processor computes the boat’s performance data based upon an uploaded model of the boat’s performance (effectively the expected boat speed for different wind strengths and angles) known as the boat’s ‘polars’ to allow you to monitor your performance. It makes sail trim much easier to set as the system removes the effect of every gust and shift, so you can see if a trim change was effective. The performance processor also provides a serial comms interface to a computer (and Expedition in my case) that allows the computer to add data to the network as well as read its contents. The processor and also provides an NMEA0183 Industry standard serial interface for connecting a GPS. Finally the autopilot controller connects the heading, orientation, and ruder sensors to the network but also controls a motor unit that can move the rudder. It uses some quite clever algorithms keep the boat’s course straight – using acceleration data to create corrective inputs before the boat’s heading has changed, just as a good helmsman does. It will also sail to both true and apparent wind angles, using wind data from the network, which can be really helpful on longer passages under sail, or sailing upwind. The pilot was the first of the generation of systems to use this gyro data, and heavily used in the Open 60s of the late 90’s and early 2000s.
An H2000 FFD in Trouper’s Nav Station.
The remote control that has sort of died – given that it only works with the battery cover off, it’s not exactly useful on deck – was built by B&G at Ellen McArthur’s request, and she was often pictured clutching one when doing her single handed round the world record on her trimaran. It’s really handy – not only does it do pilot remote control functions but it allows you to set what data appears on the mast displays and alter system calibration and configuration settings.
The rather excellent B&G RemoteVision.
B&G ultimately ended up as part of Simrad, in turn part of Navico, which is part of Brunswick Corp, a US corporate behemoth. On the way it stepped away from the firm’s long history of incremental upgrade and backwards compatibility, and gave up on its UK manufacturing site. H3000 had replaced H2000 and everything interoperated happily using Fastnet and the displays fitted in the same holes in the boat’s deck. H5000 moved to the NMEA2000 (N2k) bus standard, supplemented by some ‘private’ proprietary messages for performance data, but dropped all interoperation with Fastnet devices and even eschewed direct connection of sensors to the processor. Even the visually similar displays required a new larger hole. If you wanted to move to H5000 you had to throw almost everything away and start again. Each of those dozen displays I mentioned is in the region of £1000.
B&G 2020’s on Trouper’s mast, below the boom, facing aft.
I didn’t go that route and instead have bought up spares from ebay and now have a small stock of spare parts. Indeed everything except the pilot remote control… Many of B&G’s service team, who were based in Romsey in Hampshire, ended up at a new firm called Tinley Electronics in Lymington (my nice man). Tinley have grown into A&T Instruments and initially targeted mainly the superyacht market, but essentially people with large legacy B&G installations. They continue to repair B&G displays and processors though now also make their own displays and processor that support the Fastnet protocol and fit in the holes. Their stuff is not cheap, but it will allow me to keep Trouper’s instruments working.
After a while B&G realised the error of their ways and released the H5000 Fastnet interface. This is an irritating device as it is so close to being what everyone needs, but not quite, presumably in the (erroneous) belief that it might cannibalise sales of new kit). It is essentially a one way converter from Fastnet to N2k. You can now connect N2K displays, including the nice H5000 colour graphic display at Trouper’s helm (guess how I know that the cut out is different – I ended up buying a 3d printer to fix that problem…). The problem is it doesn’t translate all the data – none of the performance or autopilot data, for example – and it is one way. Except that hardware is not really one way as it allows changes to display brightness in both directions. So it could pass much more data from N2k to Fastnet. This would be ever so handy as it would be a clean way to integrate my modern N2K GPS with the Fastnet instruments, and it could allow you to connect N2K autopilot controllers, complete with remote controls. But it doesn’t.
H5000 GFD at Trouper’s binnacle (with 3d printed enclosure).
A&T’s public literature is a little opaque about quite how much translation their processor does between N2K and Fastnet. It supports both but I’m guessing that given that they’ve reverse engineered and reimplemented B&G’s work there will be agreements in place, or at least a little caution, about what they say in public. As far as I’m aware it doesn’t translate pilot control messages, and at £7k ex VAT it would be a somewhat extreme fix to a broken remote even if it did.
Boats attract technologists and it should be no surprise that there is a large community of people building open source software solutions for sailing boats – from navigation applications through to autopilots and instrument systems. They have reimplemented N2k in software libraries that make it simple to use and implement on small hardware devices like Arduinos. There is a powerful Arduino with two CAN interfaces. There is some public documentation of the Fastnet protocol from a few people reverse engineering it. So I got to wondering: I’ve got all the bits to set up a test rig (all those spares), why not reimplement the Fastnet to N2k gateway with support for all the missing bits? It might be possible to get hold of some Fastnet documentation but if not reverse engineering it should be fairly doable, given what already exists. It won’t be a quick project, so I’ll get it touch with the guy in Croatia and see about sourcing a spare remote control. After I’d started drafting this a RemoteVision I’m trying to negotiate a sensible price for a spare on eBay. I’ll also have a conversation with B&G Support – if nothing else it will be worth checking that they aren’t willing to do a software update for the gateway…
As someone who has spent a lot of time teaching people to use powerboats safely it is interesting to see the French approach to risk management and safety. The UK has a sad history of accidents resulting in deaths and serious injury from using powerboats, especially RIBs. That’s resulted in an approach to managing them and ‘good practice’ standards that are far removed from what I see here. To be clear I see no evidence of the French approach being dangerous, and indeed I suspect that they don’t have our history of accidents, suggesting a higher standard of safety. But what I see would have many of my UK colleagues tutting: no kill cords in use, sponson riding, indeed driving the boats from the sponson and driving whilst standing, even with tiller steered boats. And yet the standard of boat handling is consistently very high with a casual and unconsciously competent displays of excellent boat control.
More generally I can’t help but notice that the French approach tends towards less physical infrastructure and more towards people being encouraged to be sensible. Walking on the wave screen wall at Trinite there was no railing either side – just an obvious edge. Walking around an old castle there was no fence to the drop into the dry moat, just a band of about a meter of larger pebbles to delineate where the safe footpath finished. I must confess I do like the approach of expecting a bit more from people, although I’d still favour the use of kill cords – once you’re used to them they really aren’t much of a pain and are a simple mitigation to a low probability, very high impact event (ie falling out and being mown down by your own boat and propellor).
When, in a former life, I did my professional training in Occupational Health and Safety we were taught a clear hierarchy of desirability of risk mitigations: safe place was far preferable to safe person. the thinking was that in a workplace you should not need specialist knowledge or equipment to stay safe. In a controlled environment that still seems to me to be the preferred solution: you provide effective dust or fume extraction, not respirators to anyone who enters the space. But I wonder if that culture has bled out from making factories and laboratories safer workplaces into the wider public assuming that their safety will be managed for them and that they don’t need to worry about it. That might be one of the reasons why the construction industry has long struggled with its safety record – construction sites are usually difficult to control fast changing environments.
There’s been a lot of research showing that risk perception can have an outsize impact on risky behaviours: across London railings have been taken down around pedestrian crossings, and pedestrian injuries have been reduced. Car drivers are slower and more cautious around exposed pedestrians, yet the old railings afforded little real protection to the pedestrians. I wonder if the French approach to boat handling and education is more effective. But then every town we’ve visited has had huge sailing schools taking all the local children out, so familiarity with the environment is deeply ingrained knowledge.
Cameret proved to be a nice little seaside holiday town that was having a Fete for the local lifeboat, complete with helicopter winching exercises off the quay a little after we arrived. The visitors berths a quite a walk out along the breakwater (no railings…) and the sanitary facilities are a bit basic. We elected to shower on board for the two nights we were there.
Whilst in the Morbihan we’d used the boat’s black water holding tank to capture toilet waste and then pumped out in Port Du Crouesty. The boat was built with a holding tank for the aft head, and you can choose to flush to toilet into the tank or over the side. When built the only way to discharge the tank was to pump it out (by hand) back through the toilet’s normal discharge over the side. For our trip to Holland some ten years ago I’d also fitted a deck pump out fitting allowing the tank’s contents to be pumped ashore. That turned into a bit of a mission. I couldn’t find a pump out deck fitting that visually matched the existing deck fittings for water and fuel. Finally I contacted Nautor, the makers of Swans, in Finland and they explained that the fittings on our boat were custom made to their specification. They offered to have a pump out fitting made to match. It cost about 500Euros in the end, but I felt it was worth it to keep the boat (and Swans of this vintage are sort of iconic) looking right. Anyway in the end it all seemed a little excessive as we never found anywhere on the Dutch canals with a working pump out station, despite all the warnings before we got there that it was mandatory to pump out ashore. I’ve never regretted having the option but had never actually used it before. We connected it up and pushed the button and could see liquid being extracted through the window in the hose. It took a good ten minutes to suck the 120l tank dry. Carteret saw the tank put back into service, though I pumped it out by hand once suitably offshore.
Bespoke Pump out Fitting from Nautor – it weighs about 4kg!
We had two nice dinners ashore in Carteret, and a much needed trip to their excellent SuperU to stock up before we left this morning to head North and up through the Chenal Du Four. After filling up with fuel (215l, the first since Brest) we sailed for a bit to start with before the wind died away. It was grey all day, though not at all cold.
Pte de Saint-Mathieu at the Southern entrance to the Chenal du Four.
By later afternoon we were working out way into Aber Benoit where we picked up a visitor mooring, put the kettle on and tidied up. The harbour master popped by, took 18Euros for the night and offered to take any rubbish ashore if we needed, which was welcome, though not needed.
Port Tudy drove home what I’d been noticing for some time: whilst Trouper is perhaps a little larger than average around the Solent but at 43′, she’s hardly large, and 50’+ boats are common; here we are definitely heading for outsize. When we had dinner with our friend’s brother in law, a lifelong sailor, the other week he’d suggested that there was no need for a boat larger than 10m (33’ish) south of Brest. Most ‘big’ cruising boats here are 30′-35′ and moorings are much more limited for boats over 12m (40′). Boats in the 20-30′ range are still common. This feels much more like my childhood sailing in the Solent in the 70s and 80s. At some point in the 90s boats started to get really big.
The last of my families ‘big’ cruising boats was bought in 1980, and sold in 1987 when I went to University and my father lost his crew, and was 26′. A family of four on board was snug. We had a single hand pump for a fresh water tap and no hot water beyond that the that kettle would supply. In those days a 32′ boat was a big boat and 40’ers were scarce. Given that Trouper was built in 1989 it’s clear that there were bigger boats around, but at 43′ Trouper was then far from the smallest boat in Swan’s range, and Swan were then, and still are, pretty much the definition the premium end of sailing boat construction. Swan have in the last couple of years introduced a new small boat into their cruising range at 48′ after years of not making anything much smaller than 54′.
The prevalence of smaller boats brings the costs down considerably and makes access to boating much more affordable. It is very noticeable that in my childhood boat ownership was affordable for people of reasonable means – at least two of my secondary school teachers had boats – but I can’t imagine a modern teacher being able to afford a boat in the UK these days. I suspect a combination of the early skill development and exposure to sailing, a national obsession with fishing, and more affordable boats makes mucking about in boats much less of a privileged elite’s hobby in France.
We left Port Tudy a little after 9 – when we had to go in order to let someone on the inside of the raft out. The timing suited us as I was very keen to have time in the middle of the day to have a good look at the Glenan. These islands are famous because of the sailing school set up there post war. It’s original aim was to rehabilitate former resistance fighters but it has grown and become the centre of a huge sail training operation. The Glenan’s teaching philosophy is set out in its sailing manual, that was available in the 80s and 90s in English translation, which is where I was first exposed to it by my father, who I think got his copy in the now sadly defunct nautical bookshop at Bursledon on the Hamble river. The approach is what I’d now know to describe as experiential: starting in dinghies and slowly supplying equipment such as masts, sails, centre boards, boom and ultimately rudder so that students developed a deep seated understanding of the forces that acted on a boat and the controls available. The RYA’s ‘five essentials’ in the dinghy scheme tries to deliver the equivalent knowledge. I suspect the Glenan’s approach could be resource and time intensive, but I’m sure it pays dividends – and I’ve seen plenty of sailing school groups using elements of it whilst we’ve been here.
The Glenan
We arrived in the Glenan late morning and initially anchored in about 3m of water to the west of Penfret. We had lunch and I fitted the outboard on the tender. I almost never tow the tender with an engine on, and take the engine off every night after a memorable childhood experience of waking on mid river piles at Bucklers Hard (now sadly pontoons joined to the main marina) to discover that the rear half of the Avon dinghy had deflated lowering the 2hp Yamaha 2 stroke outboard (a great little machine) into the water overnight. A fresh water flush and drying out and it was actually fine.
I took the tender up to Saint Nicholas, dodging fleet after fleet of sailing school dinghies – which felt odd given that we were are 10 miles offshore. It was a bit bumpy upwind against a small chop and with the boat on the plane at about 12-15 kts I had to sit on the floor, and play the throttle to stay secure and keep everything balanced. I was quite enjoying myself. Once in ‘La Chambre’ the moorings on the south side of the island the little chop, that was a little uncomfortable where we were anchored, eased up and, to my surprise for a Friday in August, there were many free moorings. So I motored the mile and a half back to Trouper and we lifted the hook and towed the dinghy (the first time ever with the engine on, I think!) up to the moorings. Once secure we took the tender ashore onto Saint Nicholas for a look around.
Once we’d clambered up from the side of the rough concrete jetty where we’d tied up with some other dinghies the first shock was the crowds. We got ashore as the queues started to form for the last couple of tourist boats back to the mainland, and there were hundreds of people queuing clearly keen not to miss the last ride home. Under foot it was deep soft sand which turned into wooden walkways to protect the delicate fauna once we got clear of the few buildings on the island. There were still lots of people around. After a lap of the island we retreated to the boat, had dinner and watched some of the Netflix documentary about the Tour de France – it seemed fitting.
Queue for the Verdette home.Bay on the North side with wing foil schoolWalkway to beach over dunesVerdettes queuing with dinghy fleet in the distance.
The following morning (Saturday) we picked up the anchor and headed to the east and then north of St Nicholas to regain the deep water. As we did it one of the big verdettes steamed past us heading straight for a row of rocks, only to confidently motor through a 30m wide gap at a steady 10kts. We stuck to a bigger gap.
Once clear we made our way across Benodet bay to arrive at Benodet with the start of the rise of the tide to explore the Odet river, which all the pilot books call out as very pretty indeed. Once we’d got under the 30m air draft bridge (our rig is a bit over 20m with the instruments and antennas on the top), we headed on up the river. There’d been no wind at all so we’d motored all the way, and in the process our nice big alternator has taken the battery from 65%, to over 85% at the entrance to the river. By the end of the afternoon the batteries were at 100% once more. We worked up the river on the tide and the wooded banks steepened and the river narrowed. We stopped for a late lunch on some visitors moorings but we were too big to stay there overnight and we carried on upriver to explore a little side creek, which the pilots reported as lovely spot for the night. It was gorgeous but with two other boats in there and not a lot of depth there just wasn’t room for us, so we headed back out to the main river.
Anse de St Cadou – our possible anchorage
We tried to anchor in the river nearby a couple of times but the bottom was bare rock scoured clean by the tide – there is a huge flow in the river – and we couldn’t get the anchor to bite. The muddier spots were either too shallow or occupied. So we headed down river as the tide started to ease and found a spot to anchor for the night just before the bridge. I deflated the tender and stowed it back in the forepeak, which is rather full of kit and toys. As an aside when I came to use the tender in Etel I checked the pressure of the tubes and floor with the new electric pump, having inflated them by foot pump and it very quickly got them up to the proper pressure. I’ve high hopes for the new pump.
We left at about 0715 on Sunday morning to head out of Benodet bay, past Pointe de Penmarc’h and out towards the Raz du Seine. We were motor sailing in very little breeze and what little there was was on our nose once we turned north at Pointe de Penmarc’h.
Our passage plan for Sunday
Most of the way to the Raz we saw evidence of pod of dolphins hunting: lots of dorsal fins breaking the water and turning rapidly with frenzied fish jumping to the delight of packs of gulls. We also had them come and join us repeatedly, and I finally got some photos and a video – we’ve seen them at some point most days this trip.
Pair of Common Dolphins alongsideMore dolphins at the bowAnd some more dolphins..And again…
We arrived, as planned at the Raz as the tide turned in our favour, but even then it was quite bumpy for a couple of miles as the tide whistles between the island and the headland, with a ridge of rocks extending out underwater.
Trouper doing her thing when faced by an unruly wave in the Raz.The Pointe du Raz
After that it was a relatively simple 12 nm or so north and round a headland into Cameret, just before the entrance to the Rade de Brest. We’d picked up a small vibration that you could feel through the boat and was very noticeable on the wheel. We tried going astern a couple of times and the vibration intensified. Clearly there was something on the prop. I was bracing myself to get a diver or a boat lift when we got in, and trying to justify it to myself as at least we’d get the hull cleaned too (reducing drag). Approaching the marina once the sails were down I tried going astern one more time, mainly to check that I’d got manoeuvring control and after a moment of more acute vibration the vibration stopped and Kathryn reported seeing some seaweed appearing in our wash. After that all seemed well, so hopefully that problem is resolved.
Sadly the remote control for the autopilot also stopped working during the afternoon: it turns on works when the battery cover is off, but not when it is on and the device is thus waterproof. Hardly ideal. I’ll have to see if I can get it repaired as it’s 20 years old and not readily replaceable – modern stuff works to a different set of standards and replacing the autopilot could lead you into replacing the whole instrument system as the current pilot is tightly integrated into the B&G H2000 Hercules processor. And the current displays won’t work with new processors so you could quite easily end up with a £20k bill to replace all of our, admittedly old, very high end instruments. However there is a firm in Lymington who I’m pretty sure will be able to help.
We’d chosen the anchorage on the Auray as it was the spot favoured by George Millar in his book Oyster River about a summer cruising the Morbihan. It’s a lovely read (though out of print) describing a summer on his 50′ wooden yawl sometime in the late 50s. Both he, and his wife Isabel, are extraordinary characters. He had been captured in North Africa during the war, escaped during a prisoner transfer during the collapse of Italy, and made his way on foot across France and Spain to escape back to the UK from Portugal. Once back in the UK he joined the SOE and was dropped back into occupied France to support the resistance. He’s spending the summer recuperating following a riding accident that left him with serious internal injuries when his horse fell landing on him… so they sailed from Plymouth to the Morbihan to take it easy.
Sunday saw us gently sail back down the river under headsail alone and across the entrance to pick up a mooring that was across the headland from Port Du Crouesty on the inside of the gulf. We’d agreed to meet our friend there in the morning, and to spend the day with her on the Morbihan.
Monday morning saw me in the tender picking her up from the slipway, before we spent the day doing a lap of Ile Aux Moines, following a lunch stop at the head of Ile Ilur. One of the innovations of Sunday afternoon had been discovering the SHOM Tidal Stream Atlas that covers the gulf could be purchased as a PDF online. Having navigated the checkout and download process in French we now had the tidal information that made Monday’s tour possible. The tidal flows are huge and being only a few minutes late or early for a turn of tide can stop you in your tracks – and it did on Sunday when we were a little early at the entrance and motoring at 7kts saw us stand still until we could slide sideways into slower moving water.
SHOM tidal stream atlas of the gulf – 1 hour before high water
We spent another night on the mooring buoy before heading up to Vannes up a river off the North of the Morbihan. It proved to be a lovely town and we spent a couple of nights there, we did some laundry, and had a great meal at another happy Michelin. On Thursday we headed down the river, across the gulf and out to Port de Croesty once more. Our local friend had picked up a new electric dinghy pump for us, as our current one had died when inflating the tender up the Auray at the weekend. The old one was ten years old and a bit of research identified had been rather overtaken by technology. The new pump of choice was stocked nearby and she’d offered to collect it for us. We met up on Thursday afternoon and she announced that we’d been invited to her brother-in-laws for dinner. He is a sailor and keeps a boat in the marina. We had a lovely evening in a French home, and drank a little too much.
On Friday we headed to Trinite sur Mer, which is only a few miles away and a yachting mecca. Our favoured pilot book (written by the late Peter Cumberlidge) raves about the marina, which is an oddity as the author clearly prefers a night at anchor whenever possible. We got a snug berth tucked behind the wavescreen which has pontoons for race boats on the seaward side. There are two Ultimes, an Ocean 50 trimaran, a 50′ Offshore racer of a modern scow design, an IMOCA and half a dozen Class 40s all tied up there. I’d been struggling with a cold for a couple of days and rather crashed for a few days. We have had a little wander around the place and it is lovely – there’s the gallery of the famed French sailing/sea photographer Philip Plisson and some great gear shops, as well as sailmakers and all the usual fantastic food shops of a French town.
Class 40s (all with Starlink Mini dishes)Scow bowed 50’erSome more of the fleetOne of the Ultimes moving into her berth (with Trouper just over the wall).
The local lifeboat has been busy. They are just down the pontoon from us and were out at 0130 on Sunday for a search, then again for most of the day on an exercise (seems like Sundays are lifeboat training days the world over), and then again on Sunday evening for what looked like a Medivac from Houat, one of the offlying islands. Today (Monday) they were out again in the evening to tow a boat back into the harbour.
Sadly I also got the news this week that after about a year doing battle with cancer one of my team back at work had died. He was a lovely man whose sense of fun belied his age: he was the antithesis of the grumpy old man. Murray Stephen: you will be greatly missed.
