Month: June 2019


Welcome to Sailing 2019. The 6th June boat has been delayed.

We arrived at Arzal yesterday, provisioned this morning ready for departure this afternoon to Piriac sur Mer then Quiberon or Morbihan or L’Orient to meet up with friends John & Sharon who are travelling out on Sunday.

But there’s a problem.

Not a broken boat again I think you’re wondering. No it’s not a boat problem.

It’s a weather problem.

Map of shipping forecast areas

Thee BBC Map of the shipping areas. We are in Biscay.

Should you have listened to the good old Shipping Forecast you would have heard it open with the phrase “There are warnings of gales in Biscay, Trafalgar, Fitzroy”. We are in the former.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the forecast for 3am on Friday 7th June (4am UK, 5am France).At that time it won’t have made much impact at Arzal, but see those arrows with triangle on them at the bottom: that’s classed as a “Storm” with sustained winds of over 48kn /55mph.

You really don’t want to be in that.

(Here’s Wikipedia on the Beaufort scale)

 

 

Fast forward the forecast to midday tomorrow and the area we are in gets “Gale Force” or “Severe Gale”.

Filibuster is strapped down, extra lines should hold her in place. We are not going anywhere for a couple of days.

 

Unless the lines break…..

 

Is this an effect of Global Warming? Who knows, but 75 years ago to the day a similar storm delayed the D-Day landings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update on 8th June. Storm Miguel came and went.