Bound for Ireland
The train shoots from Lille to Boulogne. At high speed, like the one from Brussels to Lille. "I love this train," I text my son. For us, it has become a symbol of a Europe not yet fully written. One that seemingly effortlessly, yet deliberately, connects cities and people. The concept makes me happy. The design delights me. The engineering impresses me.
A few days earlier I had made the passage with Spirit of Ostend from Ostend to Boulogne. With my spirited father, one of his good friends, my son and his best friend. Wind and tide behind us, we arrive in the evening as the blazing sun drops from white gold to copper red into the sea. Boulogne stinks. That typical rotten egg smell, a mix of rotting sediment stirred up by agricultural runoff and overflowing drains when it rains hard. New thinking needed to do it differently. Plenty of meaningful work for engineers. We lie at the end of a brand new pontoon, built in 2025 to receive racing yachts and larger vessels. Spirit sits well here. Ready for the leap to Ireland.
"You must be Jo?" Part of the crew who would sail with me had been on the same train. The rest arrives later that evening. We take a taxi to Spirit. It is quite a walk after all. She is still on watch, at the far end of that pontoon, claimed by gulls. The gulls were here first. They are endangered, though you would not think so from the noise. It is the gulls who allow us to be here. We dump our bags and walk to the Carrefour, stocking up for the passage. The few kilometres on foot make it a small workout. A farmers walk they do in the gym with weights, we do with heavy shopping bags. Everything gets stowed away, tucked into the large and small lockers hidden in the nooks and corners that make Spirit a cargo ship, as though she is inviting us toward an even greater crossing, to another continent. We set the tone with the first sailors stories. This feels right. These are people who live with love and healthy respect for nature. Later the rest of the crew arrives. Eight of us in total. Me as skipper and seven crew, all sailors, all different backgrounds. That evening around the large teak table in the wide belly of the ship we hold our first briefings and take the time to get to know each other. Tomorrow we prepare Spirit and ourselves. We want to leave around midday, with high water and a fair stream.
At 12:45 we cast off the lines. The current nudges us gently away from the pontoon. We motor out, against wind and a little current, toward that large white mark on the breakwater with the lighthouse, so as not to run carelessly aground on the shoal to the north of the channel. We steer along the breakwater, hard against the current now, punching through short steep chop. A proper washing machine. We hoist the sails, bear away to run parallel with the great shipping highway of tankers and cargo ships and kill the engine. We are away, bound for Ireland.
We have a plan. An ever changing plan. But we always have a plan. First we aim for Portland, then for Falmouth, eventually for Penzance in Cornwall. A good 300 miles away. We have predominantly northwest wind, so it will be hard on the wind, with a few extra tacks and beats to work our way to Penzance. We split the crew into three watches for the night. Everyone finds their preference and their rhythm and everything clicks together wonderfully, as though it could not be otherwise. A good 48 hours later we drop anchor in the bay of St Michael's Mount. The oilskins come off and the sun sets to work drying the lifejackets. The castle is impressive. The anchorage breathtakingly beautiful. Part of the crew goes ashore in search of fresh bread and a new impeller for the galley grey water pump. We fix a few small things and everyone tries to get some sleep. At 22:30 we weigh anchor again, to beat up to St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly and arrive there in daylight.
At 7:30 we leave for Ireland, threading between the rocks and islands and leaving the Scillies via the North West Passage. There is already some wind but it is the swell and the waves that make the impression. You feel the ocean. Everything becomes bigger and more magnificent. I am in my element. I am a boy again, carried by Spirit, that timeless graceful old lady dancing through the waves. We look after her. We start with a reef in, but soon shake it out. She can take it and she wants more. Twenty knots on this reaching course she handles without a reef. We give her the reins. Before dark we decide to drop the foresail and sail on genoa and mainsail only. The wind picks up further past 25 knots and eases further aft. We cover the 140 miles in just over 20 hours and arrive in a quiet Kinsale a few hours before sunrise. Without many words we tie up silently against the pontoon. The sleeping crew who were off watch come up briefly, surprised we are already there. A few fists bump. Men who have become brothers, slapping each other on the shoulders with contentment and pride. We can fall into a deep sleep now.
