Since my last posting Mad Dogs & Englishmen I have sailed Eclipse back to Liverpool. The trip got off to a poor start when my Hydrualic steering fell apart in a force 10 about 400 miles out from Cape May, New Jersey unable to make it back to the USA with the emergrncy steering we made landfall at Shelbourne Harbour, Nova Scotia for repairs. The true seaworthyness of this design was put to the test as we lay ahull in winds that reached 67 knots and seas of 7 metres the motion was suprisingly comfortable given the conditions and very little water made it onto the deck.
We set off for the Azores after repairs the leg took about 16 days, on arrival we proceeded to leave our mark as is traditional in Horta and after a couple of days R & R set off for Jersey, Channel Islands this leg took about 10 days, the French customs boarded us off Brest and carried a thorough but good natured search. Finally i single handed from Jersey to Liverpool taking about 4 days to complete this final leg, really enjoyed being solo and found the boat was suprisingly easy to manage despite some fairly heavy going crossing the English Channel. I will complete a few trips to Ireland over the next couple of months and then haul out for a major refit over the next two years getting ready to live aboard and do some serious cruising from 2011 onwards.
Mick Fogarty
1 comment:
Some weeks ago we were told by the club manager that he was expecting a Vagabond to come to the Dartmouth Yacht Club because they were having some kind of hydraulic problem. Later we found out that the yacht found what they needed in Shelburne. You would have been right in our club had you come to Halifax and we could have exchanged ideas on our vessels and we could have had you over for a meal and a bath/shower. Had we only known it was you! You could have easily driven down to get you for the time you had to wait for the parts to come in etc. Sorry, we had no idea it was you!
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