Ep 156 High Wind Docking, Oyster Regatta, Sail to Guadeloupe

• April 11, 2024 by Sailing Talisman |
• Language: EN
• Play Time: 00:11:29
• SAILING YOUTUBERS

This is a bit of a mashup of footage we took while at our home base of Antigua, W.I. Starting with a rather pedestrian 2 mile motor-sail from Falmouth Harbour over to Nelson’s Dockyard, we find ourselves entering the land of clustered superyachts that almost defines the location. Falmouth and Nelson’s are so close to one another that you can (and must, pretty much) walk over from one to the other.

But Nelson’s Dockyard has its challenges. The big boats on the superyacht dock splay their chains out at about thirty degrees to either side and usually choose to go as far out as they can. This necessarily means that they overlap with the recreational private yacht area abutting the Nelson’s seaward quay. We ended up counting ourselves lucky that we had also gone very far out, near the limit of our chain, in order to overlay the other chains. It should be noted that when leaving, we motored out to the as close to our anchor as we could get before lifting it. One of the mistakes cruisers make, and I see it frequently, is to retrieve 2/3rds of their anchor chain before driving either over the anchor, or backing against it. These actions will drag the anchor along the bottom, picking up whatever other chains happen to be nearby.

As we arrived we found ourselves preparing to Med moor with anchor in 10-15 knots of crosswind. This is a scenario that scares novice skippers, and cannot be taken lightly by experienced ones. We start by backing up from our anchor location, deploying chain as we go. But midway through we suffer a BMS (battery management system) shutdown. This was the situation documented in our previous episode to this one, and left us unable to continue deploying chain until the system reset. It wasn’t a long time, but was enough to require us to realign and try a second time.

We also suffered from poor planning when it turned out that our volunteer crew wasn’t properly briefed by us on the overall plan for docking. In short, we never explained the concept of throwing the windward stern line first, how to properly throw the line so it makes it to shore, how to take up extra line and cleat it, etc. These are big elements of a successful docking, and in the end I’d give us a 60% rating. Not out best attempt.

From there, we did the Oyster cocktail circuit, before heading out on a 42nm passage to Guadeloupe.

























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Ep 156 High Wind Docking, Oyster Regatta, Sail to Guadeloupe Locations

• Antigua (17.0746557,-61.8175207)

Sailing Talisman

We're cruising couple Kevin and Wendy, and we're sailing the world in our completely upgraded Oyster 485. We packed up everything, rented the houses, and headed for Troon, Scotland where the boat was located. We closed in late 2017 and following a major electronics refit (the first of several) headed south to the Mediterranean. One season morphed into a second, then a third. And then the Caribbean beckoned. We participated in the 2019 ARC, and have been cruising there since. The adventure continues ... Kevin Kelley - RYA/MCA Yachtmaster Offshore #56489 200T Master, SRC-RSR - Contact via Sailing Yacht Talisman Facebook Messenger or email below Wendy Kelley - RYA/MCA Yachtmaster Offshore #69223 200T Master, SRC-RSR Merch coming soon 🔥

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