| | Irish Sea Crossing
Dan and I were up at 3.30 am, and half an hour later caught the ebb down the River Liffey. It was 45 miles to Holyhead and so we needed to average a little over 2 knots to get there before nightfall. At first progress under sail was well above this but by noon the wind had faded. Rigging a boom preventer stopped the swell from robbing the mainsail of wind, and 3 knots became our going rate. It was a beautiful day as this photograph with Dan on the helm shows. At 6 pm we still had 20 miles to go and it was decided that mechanical assistance was required. Even so we did not get into the harbour till 11 pm. There was so little light, we gave up trying to berth on a pontoon and picked up a buoy instead.
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