Cruising in Europe

I had an opportunity to crew on a boat sailing from Portugal to Ireland. The boat was a Sabre 42, a racer/cruiser that the owner had sailed around the Mediterranean Sea for a few years before deciding to move it to the west coast of Ireland. The crew consisted of the owner, a friend from Seattle, and myself. The plan was to coastal cruise from Faro, Portugal, up the Iberian peninsula to Spain, then cross the Bay of Biscay to France, and finally sail to Ireland with a short stop in England. A departure date of May 1 was set in order to avoid the stronger northerlies that typically set up during the summer months. We allowed a full month for this approximately 1200nm passage to account for land days where we would wait out weather. The images below show the boat and our route.

Portugal

Departed May 1 on a 2-day passage from Faro to Lisbon. Light headwinds had us motor-sailing most of the way. We stayed at Marina De Oeiras which was a few miles from central Lisbon and spent several days touring Lisbon and nearby Sintra.

Spain

After 3 days in Lisbon waiting for the northerlies to die down, we departed for A ‘Coruna, Spain. A planned stop in Porto was aborted since we had favorable winds that allowed us to sail some, but mostly motor-sail on this 3 day passage. A ‘Coruna was a lovely small town with great bakeries, restaurants, and site-seeing. It got very busy whenever a cruise ship entered the harbor, and returned to quiet when they departed. During our 5-day stay, we rented a car and drove to Porto, Portugal for a day to do some wine-tasting and see the sites.

France

Crossing the Bay of Biscay would be our longest passage. We encountered the strongest winds we would see on the entire trip, and some rainy conditions on day 3. Engine trouble (a broken belt caused the engine to overheat which led to a high-pressure hose failure) caused us to sail the final 50 miles to the river entrance then get towed up-river to the marina in Brest. Brest was another lovely town with great bakeries and restaurants and site-seeing. We were also able to find a hose to fix the engine problem.

One of the few streets in Brest that survived WW2 bombing

England

After 4 days in Brest, we departed for a group of islands off the Southern coast of England. This 2-day passage had the best sailing of the trip so far. The boat moved nicely with just 10 knots of wind. We anchored in a bay on St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly. What we thought would be a quiet anchorage for the 3rd week in May turned out to be quite busy as a weekend festival was going on.

Ireland

A 2-day passage crossing the Irish Sea was mostly uneventful, except for a visit from a winged friend. We made landfall in Baltimore, a small town along the south end of Ireland. From there we had three, single-day passages along the south-west side of Ireland, stopping at harbors in Derrynane, Dingle, and our final passage to Kilrush on May 30. We had some fantastic sailing on some of these day trips, and the weather was unusually warm and sunny for Ireland!