Unexpected early end of 2020 season in Cherbourg, 24 August...

We had a nice stop over in Cherbourg, moored close to the "Cité de la mer", a fascinating museum where the visit of the Redoutable submarine is  really worth.

We stayed in Cherbourg until 22 August, and after careful planning using Windy and the maps of currents by hours in the area, we decided to leave at 1:00 at night, with WSW winds 14-16 m/s, to benefit from the currents pushing us out of the English Channel along the French coast where they are strongest, then tack towards SSW in order to make it to Brest. But it did not work this way...

The night part of the journey went fine under trinket and 2 reefs, supported by strong currents related to high amplitude tide (105 coefficient) but in a well formed sea with broken short waves resulting from the wind opposing the current. As we tacked close to the England coast, we realised that with the current now against us, we would not make it to Brest in one tack, and therefore we would probably get stuck in Roscoff, with a gale announced with winds up to 20 m/s. Our Furuno chart plotter was calculating a 5.7 knots lateral current in the Channel, preventing us to make any progress towards the West.

We therefore decided to head back to Cherbourg at record speed of 10/11 knots on the ground, thanks to the currents. Then the currents reverted again and we had to get very close to the coast in order to continue progressing using the close-to-shore counter currents.  

Given the coming storm and the time pressure on the crew, we finally called an end to the journey towards the Sables d’Olonne for this season and prepared the boat for wintering in Cherbourg. End of the 2020 sailing season, after 1750 nautical miles (3236 km)!

If you have not seen it before, it is worth looking below at the fleet of "La solitaire du Figaro" getting stuck in Aurigny in such a situation in June 2019. A good illustration of tacking against the current in these waters!

Then, back to Cherbourg...

The visit of the Redoutable, the first French nuclear submarine is ver interesting. I will not develop much, but if you ever have a chance, it is worth a visit!

Interesting shape of the propeller...

In yellow, the propeller shaft, cut to make place for a passage for the visit...

The 16 nuclear head missile launchers...

Interestingly, the communication with the missile launch stations is done through old type speaking tubes equipped with copper cornets. This is for electronic stealth during operations...

Speaking tube cornets

The torpedo room, mainly defensive.

Buoy maintenance in Cherbourg harbour

The UK bloat below looks funny with a very short aft mast. In fact, the mast is not broken, but uses a spritsail on a long sprit.

Funny UK boat close to Belisama.