Almost the title of a good and famous Icelandic movie, Reykjavík-Rotterdam.
Beginning of July 2016, it’s time to go. After a big month being on standby waiting for a good weather forecast, Neptune gives us green light. 6 days of good weather with favorable winds to go to Fastnet witch is 900NM in straight line from Reykjavík. It’s almost 200NM by day, almost 8 kn average speed, Kata Lind should be able to do that even if we get 24 hours will really little wind in the middle. The route taken will take that in consideration to minimize this low wind. Anyway we have to, because in 6 days, the next low pressure will hit Ireland and we will get 35 to 40N south wind, so against us. Nope, not an option, we have to arrive and turn Fastnet before.
So one evening, when the actual low pressure has passed Iceland, wind turns from east to north, we go. Getting out of Faxafloi is a real pleasure, finally we are gone and 15kn side wind in this protected bay makes Kata Lind going easily more than 10kn average speed. Rest of the voyage will not be with flat sea unfortunately.
The passage will be quite easy actually. North wind most of the time, 0 up to 39kn. The sea was up to 3-4 meters waves. The sea was always crossed, always unfortunately. Sunny weather most of the time. We sailled Kata Lind always under-powered to be safe. I want to write a word about that. Actually few words :
Kata Lind is a fast cruising boat because she is light, really light because she is built in 100% sandwich epoxy. She weights only 10 tonnes fully loaded witch is really light for a cruising catamaran of 15m. In the market, you will only find pure carbon catamaran lighter than Kata Lind. And these kind of boats are not made to travel far or live inside. Other cruising catamarans from the market are few tons heavier for the lightest to double the weight of Kata Lind. The point is, why building a boat super light, almost as fast as a racing boat to cruise? Not to go super fast actually, but to sail under-powered and still go fast. Actually faster than most of other cruising boats. Why under-powered is important? It’s much easier, much less stress for the boat and people inside, much safer… why going fast is important? First passage with Kata Lind (Reykjavík-Brest) gives already the answer, the rapidity of Kata Lind will make us avoid the storm that a « normal » cruising boat will have taken during the passage because normal cruising boats can’t do the 900NM in 5 days. And it’s always good to avoid storm. Going fast means also having a boat able to sail in low wind. With 5kn of wind, I sail with the sail up and no engine, in a perfectly quiet and nice condition when most of other cruising boats use the engine…
Back to the passage. We have seen a lot of dolphins. All kind of dolphins. They were playing with Kata Lind. That’s really amusing and distracting to see. Can’t get use to that. I even touched one dolphin when hanging on the front beam of Kata Lind.
We haven’t seen a single boat during the all passage to Ireland. Not a fisher man, cargo ship, nothing at all. Strange stuff, we haven’t even seen a single plane in the sky. We were completely alone.
Then the light house of Fastnet appeared in front of us, marking the end of the dangerous part of this passage. We arrived 5 days after departure, as planed. The storm came the next day at this exact place. Fastnet light house is really known in the sailing world. It marks a place that is not friendly most of the time. And it’s a beautiful light house actually.
The rest of the passage was made in a really light wind pushing us to Brest.
In Brest, we arrived for the big festival Brest 2016. It’s a big show that takes place every 4 years where plenty of really impressive and beautiful boats all over the world are displayed. But that will be in the next article.
