In May of this year [I wrote in 2003], following a small refit and a hull repaint occasioned by the Loch Ness beaching, Mike and I were back again at this superb cruising ground with Bunny to participate in a week-long rally involving some 800 boats from tall ships down to cockleshells, most with some claim or pretension to tradition. To attempt a catalogue would be impossible and unnecessary – you name it, it was there; however the local ‘sinagot’ fishing boats, alarmingly lofty luggers with up to three masts, each carrying a passing imitation of a Roman imperial banner, are worth singling out. The fleet was divided into seven flotillas according to size and type, each starting out from a different one of the many small ports in the gulf, and spending each night at another, so criss-crossing the entire body of water. At each stop we would find entertainment in the form of local bands and singers, with freshly-prepared seafood on shore or at a variety of restaurants. Mike and I were camping at a fairly central location near Port Blanc, and ferried between boat and camp at the ends of each day by a special bus service. Throughout the week order was to be maintained by a large fleet of RIBs manned, unnecessarily as it turned out, by the CRS – the French riot police.
We were left to our own devices for the first few days and seemed to have the entire gulf to ourselves, but for bumping into sailing photographer and writer Kathy Mansfield, a near neighbour of ours and a fellow Henley Whaler, out on the water. This secured us that hard-to-achieve thing – a view of ourselves under sail, and obviated the need for the out-of-body experience which we came close to a day or two later. The organised sailing began mid-week. Although the event was ostensibly a series of races, the start and finish procedures were relaxed to the point of non-existence, and the liberal use of motors, and even shortcuts to the planned course, by our competitors slightly surprised Bunny‘s straight-batting crew.
The week was cloudless but for the last day, and the winds could have exceeded force 3 more often than they did; but the event was not without incident, particularly on account of the tide races from which this time there was no escape. In fact on the day of our arrival and launching at Larmor Baden I had forgotten to set my watch to French time; as a direct result I found myself rowing us flat out, but getting nowhere over the ground, as we attempted to pass through the narrows at Port Blanc against the by now considerable ebb, watched with polite interest by onlookers within chatting distance on shore. We were rescued from this embarassment by a tow from a local fisherman.
The tide came into play again a few days later as, along with a large percentage of the entire fleet, some hundreds of boats in all, we poured through the narrows known (by the English anyway) as the Gut, approaching the neck of the Gulf. With virtually no wind we had no steerage way, and with hindsight should have been rowing hard rather than using the paddles to little effect, other than to point us more or less where were were going. This probably contributed to a nasty incident when we, and another small boat bearing a very young family, were struck from behind by a briskly-moving and heavily built gaff ketch of some 60-70 feet; it was motorsailing to maintain some sort of control, but a bit faster through the water than was strictly necessary, I thought. Fortunately no damage was done to either of the boats or their crews, but the tiny girl in the bow of the other small boat will never forget the black gaffer’s stem towering over her and shoving her boat aside. Knowing what I now do of the tidal conditions at Morbihan I might have been tempted to take along our outboard motor, which would mount on the starboard quarter. But with hindsight, and the experience now gained, I am glad it remains, brand new and never used by the previous owner or myself, in my garage. Long may this continue – I suppose I should really sell it to remove temptation altogether.
Sailing downstream from the impossibly picturesque port of St Goustan a day or two later we succeeded in running aground in thick mud on a falling tide. Having failed to reach a passing CRS boat by throwing our tow line, I was instructed by its skipper to walk the line to him before we were completely high and dry; I had descended thigh-deep in mud and still not found my footing before I decided against it. We spent a very hot couple of hours in the shade of Bunny‘s scandalised main waiting to float off, and noticed the surprisingly long trail cut in the mud by our centreboard before we had even realised anything was up. As we finally floated off the CRS returned and offered us a tow, without which we would not have made the next stop, on the other side of the Gulf entrance, in time for the afternoon leg. This was accompanied by the earnest assurance that they were responsible for our safety so could not leave us unattended to regain our flotilla alone, a somewhat hollow statement as we would soon find out. The tow went well, and at considerable speed (a canoe yawl can indeed plane) until at the confluence of the arms of the Gulf it became clear that our guardians had no no idea where we were headed; once satisfied that we at least knew, they cast us off there and then to finish our journey alone. About this we felt comfortable, if slightly exposed to the fetch from the Atlantic on our starboard side, until almost immediately a strong gust carried us onto submerged rocks a few yards to port. Our centreboard had just made contact with them when another CRS boat came along, to which I quickly hurled our tow line, and a nasty incident was averted.
The highlight of the final Saturday was to be the Grand Parade of the entire fleet of 800-plus boats on the open Atlantic outside the gulf. With unregistered local boats turning out, 2,000 craft were expected, as in 2001. However a certain relaxation on the part of the bus company put paid to this as far as Bunny was concerned, as we arrived at the boat too late to keep the rigid timetable. Instead we sailed clockwise around the gulf from St Armel to Port Blanc to haul out, intending to watch the entire fleet sailing back on the flood through the adjacent narrows. As we approached the narrows ourselves at slack tide, suddenly windless and with virtually no steerage way, I noticed a large speed boat barrelling towards us. It soon became clear, too late to deploy the oars, that her skipper was too busy talking to his girlfriend to notice our yawl dead in the water ahead of him, broadside on and with all sail set. After some frantic seconds waving and yelling at the tops of our voices we were all set to jump for it when he looked up, noticed us, and steered around us with just yards to spare, a broad grin on his face.
Having picked up a buoy at Port Blanc, and fed and watered at the restaurant overlooking the moorings, we strolled along to the wall by the narrows to watch the procession of the major part of the fleet up towards the head of the gulf. Still virtually without wind, but this time on the strong flood tide, hundreds of boats of every size, description and indeed orientation were spat through the gap in a spectacle which lasted an hour or more. Once again the larger craft were obliged to motor to maintain control, and this resulted in at least one small unpowered vessel becoming hemmed inside the wake of one and before the bow wave of another. Her crew had no option but to row like mad to keep station, until the CRS noticed their plight, and rammed them unceremoniously out of harm’s way with their RIB. The entire show took place to the continuous sound of the tiderace and its satellite eddies, like that of a waterfall.
We recovered Bunny onto her trailer and, mindful of the pressure of numbers on the slipway, I decided to tow her slowly the couple of hundred yards to the car park before unrigging her. As we ascended the gentle slope I could hear a car horn and some verbal altercation behind me and, this being France, thought nothing of it. I was rewarded for this lapse with summary dismasting by an overhanging tree; a final hard-won lesson to be taken home. On the upside, the mast now stowed entirely inside the boat.
As we settled down to doze in the lounge aboard the ferry taking us back to Portsmouth the last image we beheld, in a large colour photograph on the wall before us, was of the very same gaffer which had nearly been our nemesis a few days before.
Bunny is a canoe yawl – there’s lots about them in TheCanoeYawl and Holmes of the Humber
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