Day 30 - Lochmaddy - Lochboisdale - 36 miles

The day was better than expected, and after breakfast and a bit of hesitation we decided that we would head South down the Uists with a view to making Lochboisdale as a good place to sit out any bad weather.

Westbound Adventurer was over at the pier taking on water and diesel when we left and headed off goosewinged down the loch with two reefs in the main - reefed for the weather forecast rather than the actual wind at the time. Once we got out of Lochmaddy and turned onto our course of 195 degrees we had 21 knots over the deck and a long swell, and with two reefs and a full genoa we were able to point high enough to make our course and make five and a half knots over the ground. Behind us we could see Westbound Adventurer following us, and a couple of hours later she passed us, providing both crews with a photo opportunity.

It was an excellent sail for another hour or so - close hauled but relatively comfortable and with blue skies. Then the wind began to fall away, and we hung onto the second reef for too long. Off the top of South Uist we lost the comfortable long swell and the seas became short and steep, slowing our progress further. Reefs were taken out then put back in as the wind refused to blow constantly, and we were forced further offshore.

When we tacked in on what we hoped was our final approach to Lochboisdale the wind increased to twenty five kots so we ended up with half the genoa rolled away, reducing our pointing ability to a pitiful thing and resulting in a series of short tacks up to the visitors moorings. We had not had many windward passages on this cruise so far - and this experience made us thankful for that not so small mercy. I vowed to get an inner forestay and blade jib for next year, and to take the sheets inside the shrouds next time we were beating with the genoa deeply rolled.

Westbound Adventurer was swinging on a visitors mooring, with Lawrence ferrying the crew ashore to the pub. There was one spare mooring - but someone had left a dinghy on it. We enquired of another one of the moored yachts and they told us a fishing boat had left the dinghy there in the morning. We decided to risk the hassle and picked the mooring up anyway.

Lawrence came over from WA for a cup of tea and a look at Fairwinds, and shortly afterwards the guilty fishing boat turned up . . . in fact it was a dive boat, out for scallops, and they had the decency to admit that leaving their dinghy on the mooring had been a bit of a cheek. They were completely forgiven when they gave us a large bag of scallops by way of reparation. We were already in the process of cooking, so they went over the side for storage until breakfast.

4:18 PM - Aug. 12, 2005 - post comment

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yachtfiona - 5:46 PM - Jul. 12, 2006

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