Holed up in Pornic
We’re in Pornic. (more about Pornic)
It’s late. Sunday the 23rd August 2015
1950 UTC (the time zone the boat’s nav works on). 2050 BST. 2150 FST.
It’s dark.
A storm is brewing.
We’ve known it was coming for a few days.
The forecast had it peaking at F9 or F8.
Right now the wind is mid teens in knots. Roughly on the bow. That’s OK. The bow points to a huge wall about 70m away. To our left is the entrance to the marina, a substantial pontoon is between us the outside.
A nice view in nicer times almost a year ago is here:
View from rear of boat
Same spot
But tonight it’s not so nice.
Filibuster, contra to normal pontoon positioning now has 7 lines ashore. We’re expecting trouble.
This sort of trouble:
Orange is bad. Any wind speed beginning with 3 is not good. Things beginning with 4 are really bad.The forecast last night had something I’d never seen on this coast : beginning with a 5…..a different symbol appears because they’ve run out of toothbrushes.
Wind speed at 50kn+ is a Force 10. Officially not a Gale, nor a Strong Gale, but true sail ripping Storm.
So we’re holed up in Pornic. As I write the wind shrieks and howls around, the mooring lines creak and groan. it’s not nice out there. It’s not that nice in here either.
And it’s raining. Big time. Actually the sort of time where we feel smug that our full cockpit cover designed for Ireland and now working 100% in France, makes a lot of sense.
The storm.
It peaked a bit later than expected – stretching through a unpleasant Sunday night into a downright nasty Monday morning.
A recording of windspeed shows the accuracy of the forecast.Over this 10 minute period the wind speed was mainly in the 30kn range, often above 40kn and on 5 occasions 50kn or more.
The wind had come around to the beam – side on. the boat was heeled over against the pontoon and fenders with a nominal diameter of 30cm were squashed to 5cm thick.
The previously pleasant view became not so pleasant;
No one came in.
No one went out.
The storm blew all day.
A good day at the office?
If you have one, I’m sure it’s a nice dry place. But wouldn’t you be rather out and about in the fresh air on a Monday? Yes of course you would, who wouldn’t.
Now consider these pics of the waves breaking at the other end of the marina. There’s a test coming:
Did you spot the guys not having a good Monday? Click on the first pic: they are by the silver van and about to get what’s coming.
The weather didn’t improve much on Tuesday so we got on with all those exciting jobs that you do when stuck in port, like cleaning the cooker, cleaning the heads, writing blogs and so on 🙁
And finally – it looks like tomorrow there is a “window of opportunity” to push on to Ile D’Yeu. It’s not going to be that nice, but if we don’t take it then the next one isn’t until Friday, 2 more days hence.
PS (29 Aug)
We tried the window of opportunity. The wind blew It shut: a nice sail rapidly became a rough sail with 20+kn on the beam and rising. Boat speed 7-8kn with 2 reefs.
Exciting, but….
Prudence was heard saying “one accident and this could be dangerous” so we headed straight into L’Herbaudiere for 2 days (it rained most of the time) and we then motored all the way to Ile D’Yeu in zero wind ….you can’t win sometimes….
