By Brian Bell

Second time lucky! We had tried to get to the Canaries the previous year but had been beaten by the weather.

But first things first. My wife Vi and I bought "Small World" in October 1995 and, having done some long distance sailing, the idea of crossing the Atlantic in my own yacht gradually took hold as Small World was proving to be a good sea boat. She is a Westerly Galway bilge keel ketch, sail number GY8 and was launched in 1977. There were four variants of the well-known Westerly Conway 36 foot yacht - Conway, Solway, Galway and Medway. The Conway and Solway had centre cockpits and aft cabins whereas the Galway and Medway had aft cockpits and stern quarter berths. The Conway and Medway had fin keels and the Solway and Galway had twin bilge keels. Any of the four variants could be sloops or ketches. Several hundred Conways and Solways were built but there were only a few Galways and Medways. Interestingly, of the 12 Galways built, 3 are in North Wales in the UK - NAC (GY1), Famous Five (GY11) and Small World (GY8).

However, there was much to be done to prepare the boat for such a venture - I made mast steps and put them on both masts, put in extra fuel and water tanks under the saloon floor, put a Hydrovane self steering on the transom, had all the standing rigging replaced including 2 backstays instead of the divided single backstay (and insulated both of them for use as aerials), installed a ICOM 710 SSB radio, mounted an Ampair 100 windmill generator on the mizzen mast, installed a holding tank, made a new switch panel and replaced much of the wiring, and put in a total of four 90 Ah batteries. Having had an unpleasant experience with the jib roller reefing jamming in a strong wind, I decided to remove it and installed twin forestays instead so that two jibs of different sizes could be hanked on ready for use.

After much thought, we decided to join the ARC, crossing in November and December 1998. There was four of us, my son Michael (a keen dinghy racer as well as having as much long distance cruising experience as me), David (my cousin's son), and Mike (retired like me). We set off from Conwy in North Wales at the beginning of September, intending to sail direct to the Canaries but when we got about 130 miles south of Ireland, a Force 9 SW wind hit us (it was actually the remains of American hurricanes Danielle and Earl). After nearly two days sailing with just the no 2 jib set and making no progress, and with the forecast indicating no improvement, we ran back to Cork to wait for the weather to get better. By the time it did, a week later, Michael and David realised that they would not have enough time to get to the Canaries, so I had no choice but to abandon the trip. It was extremely frustrating, though it proved the seaworthiness of the boat, and the Hydrovane was worth its weight in gold having steered throughout the bad weather.

Part 2

Visit the Searoom Store
Visit the Searoom Store
DVDs • Videos • Books • CDs • Clothing • Nav Aids