20/02/2008 : "Aventous" was launched in Loctudy Marina (Brittany) after intensive work to get her "sailable". Unfortunately, the dense fog and the lack of breeze did not allow any sailing. Thanks to my cousin Antoine for a great help in keeping the work on track.
16/03/2008 : My dad has been working on the boat sorting out cosmetic details and optimizing existing features (manual water pump, outboard engine, mainsheet center block...). His efficient work is saving me valuable time and the crossing towards Ireland is still on schedule weather depending (leaving Loctudy around the 7-10 April). I am unfortunately very close to exceeding my initial budget (more repairs than I thought and not enough time to do them myself!) so any help is most welcomed.
06/04/2008 : finally some sailing! in the last 3 days, a lovely 8-12 knots breeze settled in the Loctudy-Bénodet area allowing a gentle couple of outings single handed. I could test all repairs and small improvements. I havent pushed the boat yet but I already managed a max speed at 11 kts with the small kite up. More small ajustment have to be done, but now I am waiting for a good weather window to bring the boat in Ireland...
10/04/2008 : A good 40 miles solo sail yesterday! Finally a few photos with the sails up (nothing extraordinary as it was taken from the marina, thanks Mum!). I did several manoeuvres. If my tacks, reefing, taking reefing off and optimizing the speed upwind is improving fast, my downwind approximation with the kite up costed me my first gear failure! Oops. The pool did not like my jibe... Mistake understood and pool under repair (epoxy, carbon and radiator. lol). Should be ready Saturday for some breeze sailing with my sister and Antoine.
At first, we had to deal with a North Westerly in the nose for about 8-9 hours, but then the wind shifted left and as we timed our tack off Penmarch in anticipation, we could keep a straight line towards Kinsale. Unfortunately my cousin Antoine who had volunteered for the crossing started to feel sick after the initial afternoon, I decided to take it easy a pack up the spinnaker. After crossing the Ouessant shipping lanes (stressful) early at night, I managed to get some rest while Antoine forced his nature to stear for a while. I then took over for the rest of the day while he tried to sleep. Passed the Scilly Ireland about 15 miles off (no sights!) and we were welcomed in the celtic sea by large waves and a fairly active front (up to 30kts) in the early hours of the night. After playing the waves and trying to beat my personal speed record, I had to give up exhausted... full reefing and 2 hours
of pilote later, I was back on business to sail fast the last 80 miles towards Kinsale. Antoine joined me in the morning feeling a little better and we could optimise our speed in the 15-20kts breeze and it is in a lovely 25kts we entered Kinsale at almost 10kts of speed. God that pint was nice! And thanks to Cathy for the warm welcome.
27/05/08 : The boat is still in Kinsale awaiting a good window (wind & work) to sail up to Fenit.
Katie Gambier Ross and Ali Dix joined me for the first leg of the journey to Schull with a stop over night in Glandore. The winds started light from the south but started to veer towards the west increasing as soon as we passed the Old Head. After a 9 hours sail we decided to take a mooring in Glandore and start again the following day. If the sun and a lovely 14-15kts were back on the tuesday, unfortunately it was a perfect beat to go for Schull. The boat sailed very well and it took just over 6 hours to pick up our mooring in Schull (thanks Robert to let us use his!). Ali did a superb navigation allowing us to take all the short cuts East of Clear Island. I left the boat overnight and went for a good sleep as the forecast was bad enough. With the girls needing some rest in order to prepare the Optimist Munsters, Jordan Hunt took over the crewing job for the rest of the trip. We left Schull around 3pm on the Wednesday with a 15-18kts North westerly. Seas were big and fairly lumpy so we decided to tack early and go close to windward of Mizen Head and just about cleared Sheep head. This allowed us to go deep in Bantry bay away from the waves and taking full advantage of the tide. Still on a beat, our progress was not the fastest towards the target and we cleared the Bull Rock in the dark around 2am. With the wind backing west a little and a good speed over the ground we targeted for the outside of Grand Skellig to take it safe, but with day light coming early, we decided to bear away and take the inside about 3 miles off and aim straight for the Blasket sound. We arrived there too early and had to fight light air and the tide for 3 hours before we finally could bear away and sail alongside the Dingle Peninsula. Straight line but not pleasant as the seas were disproportionate to the wind and I had to keep pumping the main to keep a good speed. With the last jibe perfectly planned, it took only an hour from the Magharees to Fenit with an average speed of 7.5 kts in a lovely sea breeze that had picked up to 10-12 kts (Jordan on the tiler!).
16 sept : I have not managed to sail much this summer to my despair! I went for a few short sails in the bay and did 2 club races. Patrick Daly crewed on the first one and Erica Ruigrok on the second one. I also went for a few practices single handed with unfortunately some gear "surprises" on most of them. Nothing major but keeping me busy with Carbon work. I still got to go up the mast as the large spinnaker halyard got stuck in the top block (Daniel Browne came down the marina to give me a hand and went up to free the kite but the probleme is still upthere). Oh by he way, not the easiest to park the boat in the marina with the kite up. LOL! So slowly, I am making plans for my new deck layout to optimize efficiency (winter work). I am getting sharper with good reaction times single handed but there is still a long way.
funds have melted big time and the project definitely needs a second start to survive and just in case there is someone wishing to take over, the boat is for sale at 22K€.