Black Pig & Bouncer go to Dublin

Pikey Dave · 15 July 2015, 11:50

As the annual Dun-Loaghaire trip got downgraded to a jolly to Holyhead, Mick, Deano (Rocknrolla) & I decided to go it alone. So last Friday night, we made the trip down to Ty-Calch in the Friday night Manchester traffic

Deano had to cancel at the last minute due to family matters, so then there were 2. We had been watching the weather for the previous week & it looked "Ok'ish" for the Saturday & improving for Sunday, with a blow passing through on Saturday night. The forecast for Saturday am, was 3-4 sw, with significant wave height around 0.7m, yeah right

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Saturday morning saw us knocking on Chris' door at 07.30, we were on the water & heading to Caernavon bar at 07.50. We negotiated the bar & reached the (non-existent) safe water mark, & off we went, straight into a 5-6 westerly. The crossing to D-L was "interesting" to say the least, not particularly big seas, but lots of it; the confused, short sharp, hard seas that are difficult to read & the boats never get into their groove. We were down to 13kn for about 20 miles. The sea started to ease at about 30nm out from Caernavon & we upped the speed to around 20kn. We didn't make the traditional cake & coffee stop at the mid point due to the conditions

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We eventually made it into Dublin bay, some 4.5 hours after departing. After negotiating the yacht regatta we were safely in D-L Marina, where the staff couldn't have been more helpful. We refuelled, I used 63l for a 70nm crossing in difficult conditions, which I can't complain about. Unleaded was 1.60euro/l which is around £1.20/l, so no complaints there either. The marina staff ordered us a taxi (25 euros from D-L to the city centre) to take us to the Jury's Inn in the centre of Dublin. All the hotels in D-L & Howth were fully booked due to the regatta, so we decided to go for the touristy bit & stay in the city centre. We were checked in, showered & hit the streets for 3pm. A quick call into the "Winding Stair" restaurant by the Liffey had us a table booked for 6pm, so just time to nip down Temple Bar to sample the best that Dublin had to offer. We had a very good meal at the Winding Stair (Highly recommended) & by 8pm were dead on our feet, we wandered the streets & stuck it out until 10pm & had to admit defeat, we were knackered.

Sunday morning saw us back in the marina after a full Irish, & we were on our way by 11. What a difference a day makes!!!, we cleared Kish Bank & it was flat seas all the way. We averaged 25kn all the way back, hitting 30kn in places. Mid way we had a coffee & cake stop, we could see both Ireland & Holyhead from the mid-way point, wall to wall sun & blue skies. A couple of dolphin'ish type creatures were briefly glimpsed as we sped by.
We were back at Ty-Calch by 14.45 & thanks to Chris' usual efficiency were on the road by 15.30, good time had by all.

Thanks to Mick & Hannah for their good company & many thanks to Chris at Ty-Calch for looking after the cars & trailers for us overnight.

jambo · 15 July 2015, 12:09

Well done you two!! Great to have such belief that the conditions would be ok. You sound as if it was great but very tiring. Bet you slept well on Sunday

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Pikey Dave · 15 July 2015, 12:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambo

Well done you two!! Great to have such belief that the conditions would be ok. You sound as if it was great but very tiring. Bet you slept well on Sunday

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Cheers Billy. As long as the wind stayed in the west, I was happy that we'd be ok. It was always going to be worse going out than coming back. If we got there, I knew we'd get back ok. If it got too bad going out, we could have turned around & had the wind & sea behind us.

.....sh1t happens.......

Black · 15 July 2015, 12:40

Shame I didn't see you arrive, I was racing at the regatta. You're right the Sunday conditions were much more settled than the 32 knots we had on the Friday!

One of the photos below has a background image of the Redbay the Royal St George Yacht Club were using as one of the safety boats at the regatta. One of the other yacht clubs had a fleet of what looked like SR4 and SR5.4's.

DL was a great place, and if you go again outside of regatta, the Royal Marine Hotel was convenient.

We'd taken the ferry from Holyhead on the Wednesday and it was rough! Very calm on the Sunday night coming home.