Biscay Dismay?

It was one of the passages that we were nervous about. The good old Bay of Biscay, which has a fearsome reputation amongst sailors, and it was to be our first proper ocean voyage in Azimuth. Forget crossing the Irish Sea a few times, this was gonna be significantly longer, and we would be going offshore much further than we ever had been before.

We had been sat in Kinsale for a while, enjoying our time with Caleb. Everyday we had been watching the weather. It had been pretty much perfect all the way from Kinsale to A Coruna, apart from the last 50 miles, where a nasty acceleration zone rushes the wind around the northern corner of Spain, driven by a low inland. So it was a judgment call on when to go. This zone at times was predicted to low up to 40 knots (Force 9) and we did not want any of that thanks very much. Eventually, the wind gods started to look in our favour, and predicted a strong North Easterly for pretty much the entire journey, and this would remain steady for at least 4 to 5 days.

Time to go….

We had to say a sad farewell to Caleb as we put him on the bus to Cork, and a quick visit to the shop for supplies and the long trek with full rucksacks back to the boat. Six o’clock that evening it was time to pull up the hook and join the flotilla of sailing boats that also looked to be leaving Kinsale at the same time (for a race we think).

The first few hours were great, flat seas, and 7 to 9 knots on a broad reach as we headed out west to join the 10th Parallel about in line with the west coast of Ireland. Why go all the way out there I hear you ask? Well the Bay of Biscay is defined by the continental shelf off the west side of Europe. This shelf drops very steeply. Near France, it drops from 120m to about 4500 in the space of 10 miles. This natural underwater cliff face is what causes the horrible sea patterns in the bay itself, and can lead to very unpredictable wave patterns, and an uncomfortable ride. To avoid this then, you head west. Further west the continental cliff face is much shallower in gradient, and hence the sea state in principle should be less affected. Similarly, you spend more time in the deeper waters of the North Atlantic rather than in the Bay of Biscay, and the wave patterns should be more Ocean roller in nature with nice long wavelengths.

That’s the theory out of the way, so what was it really like? So we sailed through that first night, and unfortunately the wind dropped and swung more to the North (behind us). That morning we were eventually completely becalmed. It was a lovely sunny day, but we weren’t going anywhere faster than about 3 knots. Eventually, we had to fire up the engine, and we don’t do that lightly these days given the price of diesel! But we needed to get South because we were sure that there was wind there that would get us to Spain. 8 hours later, and it started to appear from the North East as predicted.

Off went the engine, out went the Spinnaker pole (the first time we had used this!) and the Genoa, and off we sailed. The wind built slowly throughout the day, as did our speed, 4 knots, up to about 6 knots. That night, the North Easterly’s kicked in, so we changed the sail plan, and now we were sailing on a port broad reach. The seas started to build ….

Over the next two days, that wind got stronger, until it was averaging over 25 knots. And the seas were around 3 metres on the port quarter. Time to surf! We battled our way through the fleet of French Fishing boats on the Great Sole Bank. We were entertained by pods of dolphins leaping out of the water in the sunshine. And we surfed our way down the waves as we crossed over the continental shelf and in to the Biscay Abyss.

By now, after 56 hours at sea, it was just a case of hanging on! Azimuth was in her element it would seem. Force 6 at times touching 7, and she danced and surfed through the waves, averaging 8.5 knots and on one huge surf, hitting 12.9! Both Ailsa and I were quite tired by this point, but definitely not dismayed, just hanging on!

That final day we negotiated Tanker Alley, the AIS screen at one point showed two lines of Tankers about 60 in total all heading to or from the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) off the North end of Spain. It didn’t really matter though, as we just straight lined through then all at 9 knots without incident. The worry now was that we were actually going to fast. We didn’t want to arrive at A Coruna in the dark, a place that we had never been to before. About 40 miles from the coast, bolts of lightening from a thunder storm inland dramatically lit up the sky and the Torre de Hercules (Hercules lighthouse) sent out its bean to guide us to the entrance to A Coruna. It wasn’t until we were with 10 miles of the coast that the wind eventually started to drop and we coasted in at a casual 6 knots towards the narrow entrance. The sky was just starting to lighten as we negotiated a fleet of tiny fishing dinghies and dropped our hook just off the beach in A Coruna bay. Of course we felt exhausted by this point, but we also felt a great sense of achievement at completing our first ocean passage.

Total Distance	609 NM
Total Time	84 Hours
Average Speed	7.25 Knots
Max Speed	12.9 Knots (Surfing!)
Max Wind Speed	30 knots (Force 7)
Max Wave Height	4 Metres (we think!)
Fastest Day	200 miles / 8.5 knots

So was their Biscay Dismay? No! It was a very satisfying experience, and a massive confidence builder. Roll on the next stage!