The Trials and Tribulations of the Centenary Rally in Brittany

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times!
Firstly the worst of times. I borrowed my son's car, which is bigger than mine, to drive to La Trinite. I was booked on the 0800 ferry from Portsmouth to Caen on the Thursday and originally planned to wake up early and drive down first thing in the morning. Luckily, I decided late on to drive down Wednesday and stay in a cheap hotel in Portsmouth. After loading all my kit into the car I had lunch and got into the car. Everything was dead. I couldn't start the car. After a quick conversation with my son I persuaded my wife to drive me to his place of work where I reclaimed my car, made quick calls to change the insurance over, moved my kit to my car and drove into the rush hour traffic on the M25. Eventually I arrived in Portsmouth and met Anne Billard and Anne Le Verrier Bizzey who were coming to La Trinite with me. The rest of drive to La Trinite was fairly uneventful apart from a planned stop to visit the Pegasus Bridge memorial site and have coffee in the first building to be liberated at about 0030hrs on D day. An overnight stay was planned in Avranches. 

Friday 24th July.
We arrived in La Trinite at around 1400 on the Friday afternoon where we met up with other members of my crew, Roger and Donna Clapp who are Corinthian sailors. Paul Banks and Dirk van Heck arrived a little bit later which meant nearly all of the crew was present. The 2 Annes were a little concerned because they were sailing on Mahina and AIS showed her some miles north of La Trinite, sailing very slowly down the coast. Would they have a berth that evening? The only person missing from my boat was Maude Lawrence, another Corinthian, who should have landed at Charles de Gaulle at 1300. Unfortunately her flight was delayed and she was somewhere over the Artic circle at that moment. Then there was yet another comedy of errors. Whist we were enjoying the cocktail reception at Tony Vlasto's Villa, Tony arranged for a taxi to meet Maude at Auray station. She alighted the train at Vannes! Unsurprisingly she couldn't find the taxi. She eventually joined the boat at around midnight to 0100hrs.

Saturday 25th July.
Now the best of times. The boat I had chartered was a giant Beneteau 45, 13.4m in length. As a sailor of advancing years I decided I needed some comfort down below. What I failed to consider is that large yachts have large freeboards and climbing aboard was similar to scaling Mount Everest! Having slept on the boat Friday night, the official handover was at 0900 so after a quick dash to a cafe for le petit-dejeuner we went through the handover procedure. Half the crew then disappeared to the local supermarket to provision the yacht and, as I had my car there, I drove to meet them to ferry the provisions back to the boat.
The first day's sail was a leisurely 6 mile sail to Port Haliugen, less than an hour in our massive yacht so after another leisurely lunch (sorry, I keep using the same adjective but these days of advancing years it corresponds to my sailing philosophy) in the marina. If I remember correctly, we tied up on pontoon B hammerhead. The pontoon party was being held on Mahina which was moored to pontoon A hammerhead. A quick walk to pontoon A and then the drinking could begin. 

Sunday 26th July.
The plan was to sail to Ile de Houat. Unfortunately the wind forecast was not too good with north to west of north winds of Force 5 or 6 forecast. The anchorages of Houat are exposed to those winds and most boats decided to go to Port Crouesty. Here we rafted to Strumpet and then arranged to go for dinner with her crew at Le Cap Horn. An excellent restaurant recommended by Bill and Anne Lewis. My American crew were rather bemused by rafting 4 boats together in Crouesty. Something that isn't done in the Chesapeake!

Monday 27th July
The next day was just a short hop from Crouesty to the River Auray in the Morbihan. Here, I planned the tides just right and entered at slack water. The Americans didn't understand why I had checked and double checked and triple checked the tidal atlas and diamonds. We picked up a buoy in the river opposite a fish reatuarant, Oysters Ahoy. Unfortunately we had forgotten to turn on the VHF that morning.  Actually it was due to a minor mutiny! Half an hour before the morning lesson was to be read i asked for the VHF to be turned on but the rest of the crew didn't want to hear the random broadcasts over VHF as a result we missed the warning that low water exposes deep, glutinous mud on the foreshore by the restaurant. We had a relaxing afternoon onboard but couldn't understand the fleet of rubber dinghies going backwards and forwards from the LSC fleet to the shore. We went ashore at around 1900 when the tide had started to fall for an evening meal. The restaurant staff were excellent and made sure our "assiettes de fruit de mer" were served in double quick time and we escaped back to our boat before the glutinous mud could claim anyone.

Tuesday 28th July
Dawned with hardly a breath of wind but soon the peace was broken by the sound of an outboard motor and a "French type" appeared in a dinghy. He informed us that our boat was too big for the buoy we were on and if we didn't move he would "taunt us again"! This was several hours before I wanted to leave but we motored south towards the entrance to the Morbihan. The tide was a lot worse than I feared, rushing between the islands and out through the entrance to the Morbihan. I had seen the new film "Odyssey" the week before and the tides in the entrance reminded me of the Whirlpool of Charybdis. Never mind, we had a big powerful engine in Iona's Pearl and we powered through the torrent which only lasted a couple of hundred metres before the water calmed down again. A day or 2 later the starboard genoa winch obviously need a good service because it sounded like the song of the sirens when used. Unfortunately we didn't have any soft beeswax to plug our ears on board so we all had to endure the torment. 
Our destination today was Ile d'Arz, one of the two non-privately owned islands in the Morbihan. We anchored in a bay on the eastern side and experienced a stunning red sunset to the west and the full moon rising in the east. I must, however, comment on the commodore's yacht displaying a distress signal whilst at anchor. (a flag over a ball. Annex IV paragraph g of the IRPCS 1972). Maud Lawrence, our late American arrival prepared an excellent supper on board

Wednesday 29th July
A passage to Vannes. The gate and bridge over the canal up to Vannes didn't open until 1730 and it was less than an hour's sail. That meant we had time to explore the island so the dink was brought into action and all crew went ashore. On Bill Lewis's recommendation I found the Crepe shack and enjoyed a Breton Crepe and "bowl" of Breton Cidre. 
A westerly wind then allowed us to sail along a winding route, clearly marked by buoys past the famous "pink house" to the start of the Vannes canal. The bridge and gate were all open. I say all, even though I've only mentioned 2 objects because we passed about 4 sets of green, green, white arrange vertically  lights I'm not sure what the others were for! We were one of the first boats into Vannes on that tide and I decided to turn the boat round so that we were facing outwards. I was concerned that there would be no space to turn when the harbour was full. Once again we rafted to Stumpet and right alongside the marina office and all the facilities.

Thursday 30th July. 
A lay day and a chance to explore Vannes Later in the afternoon Barrie Martin held a birthday party for "A Day at the Races", his 60 year old ex Owain Aisher yacht. This was followed by "the Last Supper" in the restaurant above the marina office. The menu was 5 loaves and 2 small fishes!

Friday 31st July. The last day. Our chartered yacht had to be returned by 1500so as soon as the gate and bridge opened we needed to go. Nothing interferes with French harbour master's sleep, lunch etc, not even the tide, so the gate/bridge didn't open until 0830, only 15 minutes before high water. This meant that by the time we reached the more exciting parts on the Morbihan the tide would be in full ebb. We reached the first obstacle to see 3 reds but after a few minutes the gate open, 2 greens and a white were displayed and we could proceed. Looking behind I could see 5 or 6 yachts following us down the canal.
As expected we had an exiting ride through all the pinch points of the Morbihan seeing SOGs in excess of 10 or even 11 knots all the way until we were spat out into Quiberon Bay. From there it was a quiet sail back to La Trinite where we returned the boat. 
Roger, Donna and Maud had rented a place for  four of us Friday night in Vannes and so I drove them there. We were later joined by the crew of Strumpet and One 15, who had stayed in Vannes marina, to finish the wine and beers we had left

Saturday 1st August.
Now back to the worst of times. I dropped the Americans off at Vannes railway station where I met the Bizzeys and Anne Billard who I was giving a lift home. Everything was fine until we reached Ouistreham and had passed through passport control and customs. We were waiting to board the ferry, our row of cars was waved forward to board but my car refused to start. The dashboard just flashed up HEV fault. we sat in the car watching the ferry disappear over the horizon. A breakdown truck was summoned which immediately broke down. A second breakdown truck arrived, ignored my car and started to repair the broken breakdown truck. It turned out that the car had lost the coolant for the hybrid battery which ahd overheated. We all caught the 2330 ferry home arriving in Portsmouth at 0615 the following day. Once repaired I had the problem of retrieving it but that's a story for another day.