Home at Last

With one week to go before the open of the Dublin Bay racing I really needed to get Warrior home. It was difficult to find crew at short notice so my two brothers volunteered (neither having anything but the most basic sailing experience - Niall, the most experienced, was last on a dinghy about 25 years ago) for the 280nm passage from Plymouth to Dun Laoghaire Dublin. I sent the passage plan to the Dublin Coast Guard on Wed night and we flew out from Dublin Airport on Thursday evening for Exeter arriving at the marina about 11pm 18th April. We got up early on Saturday morning and the two boys provisioned while I prepared the boat. We let the line go at 11:00 and headed for the fuel pontoon. The harbourmaster said we should head around the pontoons and over to the fuel berth where they would be waiting for us. So foolishly I simply followed his instructions to the letter (not checking the charts) as I was simply berth hopping ! - we motored around and there was a power boat taking on a large amount of fuel. I watched on as I thought thank goodness I was not paying for that fuel load. To the right of the fuel berth were the floating pontoons - anchored about 25mtrs from the fuel pontoon. We had come inside them rather than around them as it seemed the direct route to the fuel pontoon. As we had to wait I decided to motor around them and come back around to fuel. It was about 1.5hrs before high tide. As we passed the pontoon we ran around (softly on mud). GREAT. I noticed the guy on the fuel pontoon waving for me to head back the other way. GREAT. I got my brothers to heel the boat over to port and eventually we managed to motor off in the direction we came in. At this stage the fuel berth was free and we tied up. I said to the guy fueling us that we were instructed to go around the pontoons to which he said "Thats correct - but I would not go around THOSE pontoons as the other side dries out" - he went on to say they were there temporarily while some new berths were being put in place !

Plenty of visits from Dolphins over the two days

We sailed out into a building F4 with forecast for F6-7. I just needed to get around Lands End before the tide turned. The weather started up with a vengence and but we were well reefed and once again Warrior handled herself beautifully. The two boys suffered a little from the battering but fair due to both as they weathered the storm well. The storm blew out by midnight and all changed to a glassy beautiful night with the moon lighting the sea for us. We started up the motor and headed up the English coast. About 9am we noticed that the fuel guage was still showing full and we had 200nm of motoring to do if this weather stayed as is. With 60-70ltrs in the tank there should be ample but to be sure I called into Milford Haven (Milford Marina) to top up. We had about a 15 minute wait for the lock gates, and were in and out within a half hour. The Marina guys were brilliant ferrying us up to the office to pay so that we did not have to wait.

We motored for another few hours before the winds started to build again. F6 forecast to hit by morning. At this stage we were looking forward to some wind again (well I was). We had F4-5 most of the night and a lovely passage with the wind building to F5-6 for the last hour of the voyage. We tied up in Dun Laoghaire at 9:30 and were sitting in Avoca restaurant in Monkstown having a well deserved full Irish Breakfast by 10:30. A fine 46 hour passage.

Home at last - tied up in Dun Laoghaire Marina

And now to get a team together ...