Trouper’s Blog

Category: Pilotage

Back in England

We left Treguier at about 0930 on Friday and, once clear of the river (and all its off-lying rocks), set a course for the Cap de la Hague, the South Western tip of the Cotenin peninsular. The straight line track takes you a bit close to some rocks half way to Guernsey and then straight through the Big Russel channel between Guernsey and Sark. On the way you get a good sight of pretty much all the other Channel Islands. We arrived in the Big Russell as the tide turned in our favour and started to push us towards the gap between Alderney and the mainland, known as the Alderney race.

Tides are effectively a collar of water drawn out from the planet by the gravitational pull of the sun. The collar goes round the world and the planet rotates once a day resulting in two tides a day where there is open water. Every two weeks there are larger tides (springs) when the moon is in line with the sun and its gravitational pull contributes, and in the intervening weeks the moon’s contribution drops to a minimum when the moon’s pull is at right angles to the sun’s (neaps) before increasing again until it is in line once more. The magnitude of tides is further effected by the earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun – when we are closer to the sun (the equinoxes) the gravitational effect is greater, and the tides bigger, resulting in higher high tides, and lower low tides.

We’d had to wait in Perros Guirac because the neap tide had not been high enough to reach the level of the water in the harbour held behind the sill. The following day when it did open there was only 30 minutes of open time predicted, and when the sill did open there was actually a 30mm or so difference in height of water, resulting in a huge inrush of water as boats were manoeuvring to hold position in the queue to leave. I’d seen what was happening and tucked out of the way with a couple of others, but there were a couple of collisions, one of which sounded quite substantial, from boats being swept around in ways their skippers clearly hadn’t expected.

As the collar of water, that creates the rising tide, approaches the French coast heading east, the opening for it to pass through to get to the east narrows progressively, and then it hits the Cotenin peninsular and has to all work north to get around the top and on towards Dover. This creates the Alderney race where currents of 10 knots have been recorded.

Tidal streams in the Channel Islands

I’d timed our passage so that we’d ride the tide north through the race and maximise the tidal contribution, but that meant that we’d not get to Cherbourg till about midnight. I was quite pleased that aside from some collision avoidance course changes we didn’t change course from the entrance to the Treguier river till the Cap de la Hague – some 70nm. Our ground track describes a curved track as our passage over the ground is affected by the tide sweeping us one way and then the other. The shortest distance for us is the straight line, through the water, so there’s some satisfaction to be had from getting your sums and judgements right and not to having adjust your course.

Our ground track to Cherbourg

In Treguier I’d been a but puzzled at the large number of near identical aluminium exploration yachts, all in the 45-55′ range. Looking a bit more closely they were all made by Boreal, which turn out to be made in Treguier. They look like really tough go anywhere boats of a sort I find really quite attractive – lifting keels, unpainted aluminium hull and big deck houses providing a lot of protection to the cockpit, and a great view out from inside. Very different to Trouper, but would enable a very different kind of exploration.

We got to Cherbourg and were tied up for about 1130, having made better time that we’d expected. We we both tired and had a quick shower on board and went to bed. On Saturday morning we got up, I filled Trouper up with water, and did some nav prep whilst Kathryn made a quick sortie to the boulangerie for bread and patisserie. We then settled up in the marina and joined the queue for having your passport stamped by the PAF. They turned up bang on time at 1030, and we were clear by 1035 and back to the boat which we then took to the fuelling berth and filled up with diesel (there was little wind in the forecast) and were away. It was about 1130 by the time we got out of the harbour, about an hour or two out of Cherbourg the wind filled in and we got 3 or 4 hours under sail before boat speeds started to drop and we needed to motor once more.

Our track from Cherbourg to Poole, showing the effect of the tide.

We made Poole harbour entrance with the rising tide as I’d planned and had enough water to safely get over the shallow patch off Brownsea Island and into South Deep, which is a favourite anchorage of mine. We met some good friends sailing another Swan who’d anchored there on their way from Salcombe back to the Solent. We anchored nearby and they came over by tender with a bottle of rum that they’d started earlier. A couple of very pleasant hours passed and the rum was dispatched and some of Trouper’s gin stocks were also depleted. They left Poole in the morning heading home and we took the rising tide round the corner into my favourite corner of South Deep. I blew up the SUPs and we spent another night there and left on Monday afternoon, following more SUPing, heading for the Solent.

South Deep looking to the South East.

South Deep, looking to the North with Green, Furzey and Brownsea Islands.

Trouper in South Deep.

August 26, 2025
The Rose Coast and timetables.

We spent a single night back in Roscoff, having arrived via the passage inshore of Ile de Batz. This was a recommendation from my friend Andy who had enjoyed my account of getting caught out on the outboarnd journey, having done exactly the same himself. With a decent rise of tide the passage is simple, but you don’t want to be plugging a foul tide, as it fair whistles through the gap. Once we’d got in I found a nice description of the passage in the pilot book. I’m pleased to report that that is exactly what we’d done, figuring it out from the charts.

Ile de Batz, and the inside passage

We headed on on Thursday morning for Perros-Guirac which we’d not been to before. It’s a lovely little town with a marina tucked behind a headland and with a newly installed automatically folding sill, to replace the old lock, that lets you into the inner harbour. The approach dries entirely. In the chart extract below the underlined numbers in the green patches are the height above the lowest tide that the land is, in meters with 10’s of centimetres in the subscript.

Perros-Giurec, and its approach

Friday was spent exploring ashore where we found an excellent butchers, supermarket and patisseries. I love that even the kerbstones are made from the local pink granite.

A place in which I could get comfortable (and fat)

Friday evening saw us eat a steak supper on board, and as I was wrestling with getting the VPN working (so we could stream Bookish to our little Samsung projector on board) Kathryn discovered that there was a free concert going on just across the street. We rather liked what we could hear so went to have a listen, and bough a couple of petite beers. The band were modern Breton folk, with a pair of pipers, as well as guitar and a couple of traditional percussion. I’m not sure that I ever thought I needed amplified bag pipes in my life, but they were rather good and there was a distinctly north African feel to aspects of their music. We didn’t enjoy the main act so much so returned to the now working VPN and Bookish (which was a Marina Hyde/Richard Osmand recommendation of their podcast).

Saturday, saw the wind blowing fairly firmly from the east. It’s hardly a gale but it would be hard work to go upwind in, and our next stop is around a headland with a lot of off-lying rocks that would need to be given a respectful distance in an brisk onshore breeze with a little bit of a sea running. Sunday looks no better, but Monday did. I went to the Capitanerie to pay for an extra couple of nights to discover that it will be three nights: there is not enough water at high tide on Monday to open the sill, so we’re stuck here. It’s very much a gilded cage though (see Patisserie above).

We do now have a bit of a timeline – we need to be back for the Saturday afternoon tide at Birdham in two weeks. Plenty of time, as we keep reminding ourselves: a whole summer holiday, but nonetheless we are now starting to plan to a timeline. The other constraint is needing to get to a French Port of Entry: there are a few options but the favourite option at the moment is Carteret on the Cotenin peninsular, and on to Alderney before crossing to Poole/Studland.

Sunday was lost to books (see bibiliography) and boat cleaning. On Monday we caught a bus to Lannion, and then another on to Citie de Telecom, and the museum set around one of the first satellite ground stations, built in 1961/2 for the original Telstar. It revieved the first TV satelite broadcast from the US. Telstar 1 (and 2) was a very small low powered microwave relay satellite that took in a revieved signal and rebroadcast it on a different frequency. It was on an elliptical orbit which meant it was only in sight for 25 minutes every 2.5 hours and was spinning to stabilise itself, meaning that it could not have directional antennas. The result was the very weak signal from a fast moving source, which necessitated a very large antenna to focus the signal of a receiver, and that antenna had to track the satellite with great precision, from horizon to horizon in 20 odd minutes.

Kathryn’s picture of the dome.

The resulting machinery was in use for 20 years or so, before it was retired and declared a national monument in the late 1980s. I’d love to know if the machinery still works – our French isn’t good enough to have established it on the tour. It does look as though it might. France Telecom have a number of other ground stations near there, many retired, but still maintain a large R&D facility. The dome is clearly visible from the sea, and we’d known about it as we’d spotted it on the outbound trip and looked it up. The dome is huge enclosing a large horn shaped receiver and tracking gear. In order not to have any physical dome support structure, that might interfere with the signal, they had built the dome out of a plasticised fabric, which is held in place by air pressure. Effectively a big balloon. During the tour they were at pains to demonstrate the airflow, and you could only leave or enter via air lock type arrangements – one neatly integrated into a rotating door. Until the pressure is equalised you physically cannot open the inward opening exit door.

Inside the dome, with the huge horn shaped antenna, and machinery.

It’s a rainy Tuesday at the moment, and our current plan is a head out at 1530, when the sill opens (only for 30mins today, due to the small tidal range) and head round to Treguier, where we’ll likely spend two nights.

August 19, 2025
Glenan and the Raz with company

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 school

Walkway to beach over dunes

Verdettes 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 alongside

More dolphins at the bow

And 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.

August 12, 2025
Starting to Head Home

We left Trinité-Sur-Mer on Tuesday heading for Etel. Etel is to the North of the Quiberon peninsular and this marks the start of our progress back towards home and the end of our trip. But that’s not till the start of September so there’s no time pressure and we plan to meander our way back.

Etel is interesting as the entrance to the river has a shifting bar and there is a huge tidal flow that can create difficult conditions. The deep water passage moves around too much to be marked in the conventional way, with buoys, so they have a novel system with a semaphore tower. The tower is manned when there is enough water in the channel and talks you in by radio, though they retain the old pointer system for boats without radios.

Semaphore Tower at Etel, note the big red pointer on the rear tower.

The guy was very friendly and helpful, apologising that his English wasn’t great. It was better than my French – using a radio in a foreign language adds a whole new set of specialist vocabulary, and is a bit intimidating.

We had a lovely couple of days in Etel, with a nice meal out, where Kathryn had her first ‘fruits der mer’ of the trip. We took the tender across the harbour to the beach on the other side of the entrance on the second afternoon (whilst the morning’s laundry dried), and Kathryn had a swim in the rather chilly water.

Etel is a holiday town, with a long fishing history, and still has a fleet of tuna boats that head out into the Atlantic. It’s not a big racing centre, but a measure of the French obsession with offshore racing is that even here, in the fishmongers, there was a framed set of foul weather gear from a Vendee round the world race, in much the same way that you might see a football shirt in the UK.

Waterproofs from PRB’s 2020 Vendee Globe

Entertainingly I use the same foulies (probably OTT for my use) and picked up the matching jacket in Trinite-Sur-Mer where there was a North Sails store I could try them on in. North’s run a mainly mail order model and it’s hard to get the sizing right and pick over the features. I was a bit concerned that the jacket didn’t have fleece lined handwarmer pockets, which are much loved on my existing Mustos as they weren’t listed on the features, and the pared down racing ethic might have gone too far for my tastes. Happily I was able to establish that there were hand warmers, and that I needed a large (normally a medium) so a purchase was made. The colour is not to everyone’s tastes but it’s chosen to be visible in the water.

North’s are primarily a sailmaker (and made our funky high tech moulded seam free sails) but have an apparel line which in the last few years has started to include foul weather gear. Until then, in my view the best kit was made by Musto, who used to be a sailmaker (Musto and Hyde) in the 70s and 80s before the sail and clothing businesses split. My first generation HPX (their top of the line, and the first Gore-Tex sailing gear – normal Gore-Tex can’t cope with salt water) from 2000 has arguably lasted better and is more robust than my later stuff (which is a bit lighter weight, which has its virtues) and I still use it in London on the Thames. Keith Musto, the son of the founder, who I think had been an Olympic sailor, ran the clothing business which had been an awesome firm to deal with – their service team in Southend put new cuffs on my first HPX jacket in the mid 00s when I wore through them for about £30. Famously HPX came with a lifetime warranty – which has replaced both trousers and jacket of my second set when they delaminated. Manufacturing later moved abroad and in my experience the quality dropped a bit, ultimately Helly Hansen bought up Mustos in the late 2010s at some point. Last time I looked both were actually onwed by a Canadian teacher’s pension fund. Keith Musto has however reappeared, presumably after some non-compete clause had expired, as the designer of the North’s range, complete with his trademark collar system that keeps water out and your ears warm. The Norths stuff feels like the next evolution – it’s very comfortable and pared down to keep it light without sacrificing the features you actually need (like the handwarmers!). A ludicrous purchase on a sunny day when it was heading for 30Deg C, but should last me a decade or more.

Whilst in La Trinite, on 1 August (the half way point), we finished the first gas bottle on board. This has been the source of some thought when coming away. Trouper carries two 6Kg Calor Propane bottles. You effectively buy the bottle and then pay an fee to exchange it for a full one when empty. Camping Gaz operates in a similar way across Europe using a mix of propane and butane, but does not have any bottles as large as 6Kg. We have a ‘universal’ gas regulator that will accept propane, butane or a mix – essentially it’s a compromise that does all of them equally badly. We have adaptors for different bottles on board, and could switch over to Camping Gaz. But I’m not sure there is room in the locker for both and I’m loath to throw away a Calor cylinder – they are expensive and it’s hardly very green. Gas is very dangerous stuff on boats and has led to a number of nasty explosions, including one in the 90s in Poole harbour that cost someone I used to know a little their lower leg. The problem is that the gas is heavier than air and if it leaks accumulated in the boat forming an explosive mix with air. Then it just needs a spark to ignite it. We keep the gas in a sealed locker (together with the outboard fuel) that has a low level drain over the side. There is a solid copper pipe from the regulator to the cooker, and an electrically operated isolating valve at the regulator that means that the gas pipe is only pressurised when the stove is in use. There is a gas detector mounted low by the stove and it is connected to an alarm that also cuts the gas at the isolating valve. Ideally I want to have one cylinder in use and to swap the empty for a full spare as soon as possible. But Calor isn’t available here, so I was relieved that the bottle that was in use for a few weekends before we left made it to the half way point. It should mean that we can get back to the UK without needing any more – though if it starts to feel too light I might pick up a Camping Gaz as a backup – I think I can stow it safely and the prospect of not being able to make tea (or cook) is unappealing.

We left Etel on the late afternoon tide, you’re advised to leave just before high water, after two nights there and headed 10 miles (all distances are in Nautical miles – the distance described by 1 minute of arc of latitude, so a bit longer than a stature mile and about 1.8km) or so down the coast to a bay just past Lorient that had looked like a good place to spend the night before heading on a further 20 miles to the Isle Glenan the following day. Sadly the sheltered bit of the bay was now full of mooring buoys, which all looked too small for us, and outside the shelter it was a bit rolly and wouldn’t have been a pleasant night. We had backup plans, either heading into Lorient or over to Isle De Groix. we chose Port Tudy in Isle De Groix, which was about 40 minutes away, and arrived early evening. The harbour master met us in little rib (tiller steered sitting on the sponson, or standing, as is the custom here) and led us into the outer basin where boats moor rafted secured fore and aft to mooring buoys. He said once we were alongside he’d run the lines for us, though we were towing the tender so we could have been self sufficient. However the gap he led us into proved to be such a snug fit that we ended up secured alongside on both sides connecting two rafts. There was no need for lines to the buoys, which was as well as with breast ropes and springs on both sides and one longer line tied up towing the tender I was running out of mooring lines. Those who have sailed with me will know that this is a bit of an extreme event – I do like to make sure I’ve enough rope for any circumstance, as indeed did the previous owner of Trouper. Whilst I’ve retired one of his lines due to chafe damage, I’ve only added two long lines in our ownership. Following this trip and a bit of chafe in places I think one of this winter’s jobs will be making up a new set of mooring warps.

Port Tudy, before another couple of people arrived behind us.

August 11, 2025
Morbihan

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’er

Some more of the fleet

One 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.

August 5, 2025
Baie de Quiberon (and Fastnets)

We left Concarneau for Lorient on Tuesday, with Trouper making an easy 6 knots in a gentle breeze. Lorient is a huge harbour, behind a narrow entrance and we elected to moor in Port Louis, tucked in on the eastern side of the entrance. There’s a water taxi into the centre of town and we spent a happy day on Wednesday exploring the town. There’s a big sailing exhibition in a building named after Eric tabarly the great Breton sailor who in many ways established offshore sailing, especially short handed in French culture. The museum is adjacent to the enormous submarine pens built during the Nazi occupation. They were essentially a huge maintenance facility for U boats that were engaged in attacking the Altantic convoys resupplying the UK from the US during the battle of the Atlantic. That made their maintenance facilities a bit of a target for Allied air attack. The German solution was to built them with so much concrete that there were effectively indestructible. Reportedly the roofs are over 7m thick steel reinforced concrete. They are very imposing structures to this day. After the war the French Navy took the site over and used it to support their submarine fleet during the cold war. In the 1990’s they moved out and the area was redeveloped with the pens becoming homes to a number of marine industries and a centre for the construction and maintenance of extreme high performance composite (mainly carbon fibre) structures. Now it is home to many of the most famous French offshore sailing teams.

As we approached the back of the submarine pens we came across a canteen style cafe with a queue beginning to form at midday in the ground floor of a nondescript commercial building surrounded by industrial units. The portions were huge, the prices very fair (about 25 euros for two with hot drinks) and the food was excellent. As we munched through our lasagne and green salad the queue grew and the t shirts on display became the who’s who of high end composites manufacture and offshore racing team. Nearly half, of the now extensive, queue had IMOCA class logos on their tops. It was a nice bustling place where people had convivial lunches together. We visited the museum, and then walked down onto the public access pontoons where most of the IMOCAs had departed that morning for England and the Fastnet Race. The race runs from Cowes to the Fastnet Rock off South Western Ireland, and then back to Cherbourg (these days, it used to finish in Plymouth, but was moved to accommodate the every larger number of entrants – over 400 this year). The race runs every two years and this is its centenary edition.

Charal remained with some work going on on her rudders, and we’ve been following her since on Marine Traffic – she left on Friday morning and by Saturday morning had been hanging around going in circles at 2 knots just south of the Needles Channel for some time – clearly waiting to take the tide up the Solent, start the race, and charge back out again on the west going tide. Fastnet starts are timed to get the west going tide at the Needles. For me the challenge was always if we’d carry the fair tide to Portland on the first night, or get stuck trapped by a foul tide at Portland Bill. If you thought you weren’t going to make it, and were beating into a south westerly (the prevailing wind) the tidal strategy was to get offshore, often almost to Alderney, to avoid the foul tide and the tidal gate. But that would mean giving up the acceleration from the fair tide over St. Albans ledge that can easily put you an extra mile or so down the track… As I write this on Sunday morning the big mulithulls are approaching the rock and the IMOCAs are passing the Scillies. When I’ve done it on rather slower boats we’d expect to have been somewhere between Start Point and the Lizzard by the first morning, if all was going well. On slow races (2005) by the morning of the third day we were still off the Scillies.

Thursday saw boat admin – some laundry and I cleaned the bilges, which needed it – most boat smells can be tracked down to things lurking in the bilge. We did round the day off with a trip to a local restaurant – which has a Michelin star. the food was very good: three fixed menus, and no a la carte. We had the cheapest, 65 Euro menu and a couple of glasses of very nice wine. With the two amuse bouches there were 5 courses, though the main was too shellfish based for my tastes. Presentation is what you’d expect, and the savoury pea ice cream was exquisite.

From Lorient we headed South East on Friday, mainly motor sailing as we were heading dead downwind in a gentle breeze, until we rounded Quiberon and once through the gap between the off-lying rocks and Ile de Houat we hardened up a bit and had a nice sail in towards Port du Crouesty at he entrance to the Gulf du Morbihan. Whilst I’ve tried not to set deadlines and fix a timetable for this trip in order to luxuriate in the freedom of the time off – to Kathryn, the inveterate planner’s frustration – the Morbihan has been a target from our earliest research. It’s a bit like Poole Harbour, in that it’s a big harbour with a narrow entrance and islands, but it has much stronger tidal flows, and much more deep navigable water, and many, many more Islands (at least 60, I’m told).

We spent a night in Crouesty, meeting a French friend, we know from London, who has a house nearby, for dinner. It’s vast, congested and industrial, but had a good supermarket. We were allocated a berth rafting on alongside a big, unoccupied, Bavaria on the end of one of the hammerheads. It would have been a 2k walk to the marina office, but the harbour master boats (there are at least three) will act as ferries, and gave me a lift both ways. Dinner was in a restaurant overlooking the entrance to the gulf.

We left on Saturday morning for the entrance to the Gulf, aiming to be there at low water, and to carry the rising tide up the Auray river, on the western arm of the gulf to an anchorage off Le Rocher. We found a spot in a little pool just clear of the moorings and got the hook down and set, with a tripping buoy as I was worried about the possibility of fouling the hook with something on the bottom.

The entrance to the gulf.

After a few hours, and a turn of the tide, I was confident that we were secure, which was the cue for some locals to tun up on a small mark laying launch and make it clear that we couldn’t anchor there, despite the pilot book’s recommendations. We pulled the anchor up (it hadn’t fouled anything) and Kathryn held us alongside an empty mooring a little further up river whilst I managed to post a mooring line through the eye on it’s top by lying on the side deck at full stretch. A little while later a guy turned up to charge us for the mooring for the night, but who was also concerned that the mooring wasn’t big enough for us (which was one of the reasons I’d anchored in the first place – you never quite know what’s under a mooring buoy). He showed us to a more substantial mooring, adjacent to where I’d anchored in the first place, and helped run the mooring lines from his rib – which at least helped with all the stretching.

July 30, 2025
Weather

The weather has dominated the most of the last week. Douarnenez was lovely but the swell into the visitors’ pontoon for the second and third nights resulted in lot of groaning warps, if no actual discomfort (Kathryn might disagree as the groaning warps kept her awake). On Wednesday we left reasonably early and headed out for a passage through the Raz du Sein. It was a long motor sail to windward to get to the headland and drop south through the Raz. The Raz du Sein is a notorious tidal race, but other than a bit of slightly confused seas on the approach we passed through smoothly – though we did test out our newly recanvassed cockpit spray hood – which provided a very warm an snug spot in the cockpit. It only saved us from one wave’s worth of spray – but that’s quite enough for it to have earned it’s keep.

We ended the day in Loctudy, a marina in a small town south (and east) of Pointe de Penmarc’h. The pilot books and almanac all observe that the Pointe de Penmarc’h is the gateway to better weather as you move into South Biscay. It was glorious in Loctudy though the first morning we were there is was very foggy ’till about midday.The marina had nice facilities and an excellent chandlers that had stock of all sorts of specialist parts: needless to say they had the belts that I’d been looking for, and had several interesting looking brackets for clamping onto stainless tube, and lengths of tubing. I was hopeful I’d be able to cobble some sort of temporary starlink mount, so I took the bits of the broken one in, and with a fair bit of gesticulation explained the issue. This is when things took a turn for the better: the bits were whisked off into a back office, there was a bit of a discussion, a man in overalls appeared and joined in. I was led into a workshop behind the chandlers where they clearly fixed outboards and the like and went someway to explain the stock: these were people who made things… 20 minutes later my new friend in overalls had drilled a hole though the fitting and installed a nice big bolt to hold it together. With the addition of a little glue to stop it rotating around the new bolt the job was done and our Starlink is back in its spot on the aft rail.

Starlink back in it’s spot

On Friday we hopped across the bay to Concarneau. There was little sailing to be had, as it was very still, and there was a little bit of a deadline to get there before the market shut down at 1300. This is also a TransEurope marina (a federation of independent marinas that offer a 50% discount for up to 5 nights to berth holders from another member), which was sort of planned as it looked like we’d be staying a few nights, to wait out some weather. It’s been moderately windy, but has rained hard on and off for the past few days (I write this on Monday afternoon) and there has been some serious (over 5m) swell offshore. We’ve explored the town, it’s fishing museum in the island citadel in the centre of the harbour, and taken the bus to Pont Aven on a sightseeing trip whilst dodging the worst of the weather. Assuming the weather forecast delivers then tomorrow should be fine, a bit on the still side, but will let us move on to Lorient and towards the Baie de Quiberon. This bay looks like a truly lovely spot with lots anchorages and the Gulf de Morbihan, an inland sea full of islands accessed through a narrow entrance which has been on my list of places to visit ever since we started researching the trip.

July 21, 2025
A long weekend

Friday evening saw one of Kathryn’s former work colleagues and her new partner join us for a few days – carrying two very welcome spare belts for the engine. Whilst chasing the coolant leak I’d noticed that the belt that drives the coolant pump and engine alternator was looking a little frayed and discovered that I’d not, as I thought, got a couple of spares on board. In the end the simplest solution was to have a couple delivered to them.

We’d moved the boat into one of Brest’s main two marinas on Friday morning and after a bit of boat admin had set off across town to have lunch in a restaurant I’d booked via the Michelin guide. It didn’t have a star, which I can find to be a little too fussy, but did have my favourite designation: bib gourmand (or Happy Michelin in our house). Fair to say it was stunning; and extraordinary value at 35 Euros a head, including all drinks, plus an extra 5 Euros for a glass of wine. If they did this in London there’d be a queue to Brest! We ate at a bar facing into the kitchen and watched them prepare our meal. It was stunning. Kathryn took some pictures:

Happy Michelin

Starter: Seared water melon with frozen ricotta

Main: Hake, green beans, mash and sauce with capers

Desert: Baked apricot with apricot and thyme sorbet (amongst other delicious things).

If you’re ever in Brest try and visit Peck and Co: you’ll not be disappointed. The afternoon was all glamour with the laundry to do before our friends arrived. The boat just ahead of us in the marina was another Swan – a Frers designed 53′ from 1988. One of the crew had had a chat earlier in the day, and it turned out the nice woman I’d befriended at the laundry earlier was the owner’s wife. The owner popped round to Trouper as we we all sat in the cockpit and we did reciprocal tours. His boat is a beast and cosmetically it needs some work. He’d only bought it last week, it having completed the Ocean Globe (round the world) race in 2023 as ‘Sterna’, and all the important systems and structures were well maintained and in good order. They were taking her home to Finland over the next 3 weeks to tackle the cosmetics, get to grips with her, and then potentially cruise around the world in a year or two, as I write this they are in Guernsey, so making good progress.

Sterna – A Frers Swan 53

Saturday saw us leave Brest and head out into the bay where we had a lovely gentle sail to Morgat, where we anchored off in the bay and inflated the tender and SUPs. A trip ashore by tender saw us reprovisioned at the SuperU and allowed us to have a BBQ on board and a lovely evening in the cockpit rounded off by a game of Quirkle at the cockpit table. Morgat had a very busy beach and sailing school and was apparently established as a resort town by the founder of Peugeot as a holiday destination for is executives.

Anchored off Morgat

Sunday morning saw me dash ashore before the others were up (yes really) to obtain fresh croissants and bread for breakfast, before a leisurely sail across the bay to Douarnenez. After a quick explore ashore it became clear that there was a bit of a festival on that evening and our dinner plans shifted to sausage, tuna and moules (all with frites and Bretton Cidre), eaten at communal tables and benches filling the square whilst bands played. To round it off there was then an improbably long firework display, from a barge. It just so happened that our boat was perfectly positioned to provide the prime viewing platform for the fireworks.

On Monday are our guests left, heading back home, and we did some boat cleaning (a cockpit locker and some blocks). I was somewhat distracted by the very French, and excellent, sailing school operating around us with strings of optimists and a fleet of catamaran dinghies – it brought back lots of happy memories of spending summers working further south along this coast for Rockley Watersports in my early 20s. I also found and, I hope fixed, the source of the nasty smell in the forwards heads – the bolt that attaches the pump diaphragm to the motor system was loose and some effluent was dribbling out. So that was a bit more cleaning. In less good news the engine coolant level has dropped a bit further – which suggests I’ve not yet fixed the leak.

Optimists being towed out

July 14, 2025
Leaving the English Channel Behind

We left Roscoff after 4 nights on Tuesday, having waited out some weather – nothing too violent but some rain and it was a bit breezy). We spent one day doing boat admin and laundry, another exploring Roscoff (very good Crepes and local Breton Cidre) and then testing out the Bromptons with a cycle to the next town on Monday. The bikes did well though there were a fair few hills, and whilst it turned out Monday was the town’s closing day we had a nice amble around and found another supplier of excellent crepes. Our neighbour in the marina was an émigré Englishman who’d spent 20 years building his boat, which he had set up for long distance offshore single handed racing – we had a good chat about boats.

Tuesday could have gone better. After a couple days of stiff northerly there was a fair sea running into the bay, and the northern Brittany coast generally. From Roscoff we had to get to the north of Ile de Batz before turning west to get to L’Aber Wrac’h. I didn’t take the opportunity to unzip the stack pack and hoist the mainsail whilst we were sheltered by Ile de Batz and once outside it got quite bumpy and rolly rather quickly and it wasn’t really going to be safe or wise to try and unzip the sailbag (which is above head height). So we did without – it was mainly a light head wind so the sail wouldn’t provide much drive if we motorsailed, but it would have damped our motion a lot and it was distinctly uncomfortable for a while. We were joined at a couple of points by more solitary dolphins, who lifted the mood on board. We very happy to get behind the shelter of the rocks at L’Aber Wrac’h entrance, which is watched over by the most improbably tall lighthouse (Phare in French). At 77m tall it’s apparently the tallest in Europe. The French do really good navigation marks, and lighthouses – there are lots of stone towers built to either mark rocks or form part of a transit (a pair of things you can see, a reasonable distance apart, that when aligned lead you along a fixed track, allowing you to correct for cross currents).

Ile Vierge Phare, off L’Aber Wrac’h entrance

L’Aber Wrac’h river was gorgeous, the marina was friendly and helpful, though out of the main town, with just a sailing school and a few restaurants and bars. It did have what appeared to be nice clean showers, but with such a stench of sewage that without any real discussion we elected to shower on board. L’Aber Wrac’h was also the first new port of the trip: I’d never been this far west on the French coast before.

Dawn at L’Aber Wrac’h

We left at 0700 this morning heading west to Chenal Du Four. This is an infamous bit of water in sailing circles and describes a safe passage through a warren of rocks inshore of Oussant (Ushant) with huge tidal flows and what can be extremely rough conditions.

The Chenal du Four, and our route

Fair to say it didn’t live up to its reputation this morning when it was glassy calm, with no wind or really any waves. Which is as well as the computer navigation software lost it’s connection to our GPS somewhere off Le Four Phare and it took me a while to cobble together a work around, leaving Kathryn on deck with an ipad, with charting software and a GPS connection but without our planned track, and the remote control for the autopilot. She kept us in the right spot, whilst I got the location data back to the computer and from there onto the deck displays that show course and distance to the next waypoint. It’s the first time I’ve had such an issue with the software at sea in over ten years – normally it’s characterised by how reliable it is. Needless to say after resetting a few things once we got in it’s all working again.

Le Four Phare

Once we got round Point St Mathieu at the southern end we turned towards Brest and the outer approached of the harbour. Given that the Royal Navy kept the French fleet pinned in Brest for four years during the Napoleonic wars I was a bit self conscious flying our large blue ensign as we motor sailed in (the main went up early this morning – not making that mistake again). We elected to anchor in a bay to the north (we’re the green boat icon in the bottom right of the chart above) and, after lunch, went ashore by tender to purchase patisserie. I’m ashamed to say I think it’s the first time I’ve inflated the tender in about 18 months – it wasn’t used least season at all, and hardly the year before. It’s going to get lots of use this summer. I’m writing this at anchor, connected by a starlink dish lying loose in the cockpit, having had a steak dinner, washed down with Rose and finished off with the patisserie. The washing up awaits…

July 9, 2025
Grey in Roscoff

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.

Anchor Watch Display

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.

July 5, 2025