Trouper’s Blog

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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.

Cap de La Hague and its Phare

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
Lifeboating won’t let me go

I stood down form the RNLI lifeboat crew at Tower after over 20 years on the crew last month. As we left for Cherbourg we found a young man at about 0615 in the morning swimming well over 2 miles offshore. He was struggling a bit and was glad of a ride back into Chichester… so we turned round and went back the way we came.

I phoned the coastguard to report what we’d found and try to arrange some sort of reception for him when we got ashore – he’d set off from West Wittering beach at 0430, and all his clothes and possessions were still on the beach. We could only land him at Hayling, and it’s a good two hours by car from one to the other, around the harbour, and all he had were a pair of swimming shorts. As I was speaking to the coastguard watch leader he wasn’t initially sure what to do as the guy seemed fine and was just in need of a taxi (and some clothes), but as we spoke he got a report in that a suicide note had been found by the police that related to the guy. That urge had clearly passed, as whilst a bit cold and glad of a cuppa, he’d been swimming for shore, was glad of the assistance (and very apologetic) and borrowed my phone to try and call his dad (though he didn’t get through). We headed into Sparkes marina and waited for the cavalry to arrive. They had trouble raising me by phone as it was so early my phone was still in sleep mode…. Sussex police turned up first, followed by HMCG’s rescue team (well one of them in a truck). The lovely woman police office from Sussex was torn between trying to make sure she did the right thing, ie keeping the guy safe, and the logistical problem she had that whilst he’d set off from Sussex we were all now standing in Hampshire, which has a different constabulary. She put the young guy in the back of her Sussex Police car with one of the coastguard’s blankets, and we left them to it. Only to find that the tide had now dropped too far for us to get out of Sparke’s marina… well we got out and then ran gently aground in the channel 20 minutes before low water, about 10 feet from a channel mark where we waited… The deep water turned out to be about another boat length ahead of us.

After an otherwise uneventful passage motor-sailing we tied up in Cherbourg at about 2130 local time – several hours later than we’d aimed for with our 0500 start. We spent a day recuperating and taking it easy (we’re both fighting off colds, and had been cooked in the sun on Monday) and I discovered that the engine coolant levels had dropped a fair bit on the trip. The engine had run hard for over 10 hours, but it’s meant to be a closed system. None of the local chandlers had the right coolant (and I’d not quite got round to buying any spare before we left) but on Wednesday I found a motor factors round the back of Carrefour with the right stuff (G12, if anyone cares). I think that the leak was from one of the hose joints on the engine, and that with such a slow dribble (we’d only lost about 300ml) it had all evaporated in the hot engine compartment. The hose clips are all a bit tighter now.

Tuesday wasn’t a great day: we were both feeling a bit grotty, and slightly grumpy; I had found the coolant problem; and then when taping up the split pins on the backstay to stop them cutting anyone using the boarding ladder I knocked the starlink dish only to have the nice 3d printed mounting bracket I’d made it fail. In hindsight, its good that it happened then, as it was clearly going to fail, and at least I was able to recover all the parts and not drop anything in the harbour. It didn’t feel like it at the time. To round things off I dropped a nice Wera stainless allen key in the harbour whilst unbolting the bracket. Amazon will have a nice new one waiting for me in London, but I had to buy a ‘cheap’ set in the chandlery to finish the job… I made the bracket as I just couldn’t find a commercial solution that did what I needed so there isn’t an easy replacement which leaves us only able to use the Starlink when at rest and able to perch the dish safely in the cockpit. The cables, that I’d so carefully run on Sunday morning, are now fixed and rather limit our options.

I did get to have a look around one of the French SNSM lifeboats though. It was Goury’s boat and on Tuesday they’d launched at 0400 to a British sailing boat that had been in collision with a small freighter, presumably somewhere off Cap de la Hague. They’d towed the boat into Cherbourg and put it straight into the slings of the travel hoist, as there was a decent sized hole on the starboard quarter right on the waterline. There were two decent sized pumps on board – one the lifeboat’s (looked like the same big diesel pump that the RNLI use) and I think the other from a helicopter (it had a big lifting lug on it) who I suspect had also recovered the crew, as they weren’t about. One of the helicopter crew turned up in a flightsuit, presumably to recover the pump. The lifeboat moored up astern of us as the crew headed off for a well earned brunch (it was mid morning by then) but on their return one of them was asking about Trouper and we got into a conversation, and then I got the tour. It was a very nice bit of kit, only a year old, aluminium, slipway launched, and 17m long. It carries a tender under the aft deck and has a big hydraulic towing reel as well as powered bollards that would be the envy of many an RNLI crew. The deck provides a decent sized well protected working area – it seemed really well thought out, though I’d swap its props for water jets. The cabin was air-conditioned too which was very welcome on Tuesday.

So a mixed start to the trip, but a life saved (and Kathryn’s first) and a nice meal tonight make it seem rather better, and a lovely text message from the parents of the guy we fished out rather reframes things.

July 2, 2025
Trouper’s Atlantic France Trip Preparations

Over the last few years I’ve invested a lot of time, effort, and a fair bit of money into getting Trouper set up for extended cruising. We’ve installed a new engine, a large Lithium Iron Phosphate battery bank with a large alternator to charge it, and a hostable array of solar panels. Our plan has been to spend a couple of months away this summer, partly as an end in itself and also to test out how we might like spending months at a time on the boat at some point in the future.

The last few weeks have seen a slightly frenzied sprint to the line. Inevitably I finished some parts of this this morning as we got ready to leave the marina. Last week saw the very just in time delivery of the new bed linen, the renewal of the sprayhood canvas and some fitted cockpit cushions. The previous few weeks have seen some repainting of the coachroof’s blue stripe and the fabrication of a bracket to hold a starlink mini dish on the stern of the boat. Completing the starlink install, and reassembling the outboard motor’s mounting bracket (with some new bits) were the last jobs this morning.

We slipped our berth at 1515 today (29 June) and left through Birdham’s lock at free flow (the top of the tide where both inner and outer gates are open at once). We motored a whole mile to anchor in the harbour in the Thorney channel. We aim to leave at about 0530 tomorrow for Cherbourg – I’ve send the French PAF their entry form and completed the UK online departure notification – so hopefully all the admin will go smoothly.

June 16, 2025