Log date: 20 aug. 2020
Route: Roompot – Blankenberge
Time: 6h 56min
Distance: 35,4 nm
Average speed: 5,1 knots ( max 8.9 knots )
Wind: 16-22 knots
Weather: [X] Rain, [ ] Fog, [X] Sunshine, [X] Cloudy
Visibility: Great
Temperature: 20 C
We left Roompot with the tides and headed south to Belgium, we heard that the Blankenberge marina can be a bit tricky to reach during low tide so we had to get there before late afternoon.
Since the high tide turned really early we had to head out with the sun to make the most of it.
We had almost 2 knots of current with us when we headed west from the lock and a bit less when turning south west at lunch but we still managed to get 8.9 knots of of the lady with both our sails fully reefed.
It was great sailing the entire way, especially now when we learned our lesson and reef as soon as we think it might be needed instead of waiting till it’s really needed.
The day went on perfectly, spent a few hours fiddling with the windvane and we are becoming more and more friends so maybe we don’t have to hand steer across Biscaya.
We met a few big ones that didn’t run us down, they for sure tried but we of course outsailed them without any problem at all since our boat is superfast and agile like crazy. <– Lots of irony
Surprisingly we reached Blankenberge early afternoon, the marina is really nice and to make the skipper happy we ran off to grab a proper waffle-“fika” before we did anything else. And boy that was a good fika. They for sure know their waffles in Belgium.
They told us that it was ok to share the waffle, I wonder why? The only thing that was missing was the chocolate sauce but it wasn’t hard to manage without.
When playtime was over it was back to business, cleaning the outside of boat with freshwater to get rid of all the salt. We also prepared to rebuild the cooling system for the engine since it still overheats when it’s needed most. Like today when we entered the marina… O well, tomorrow we’ll replace some of the hoses and remove some unnecessary stuff to ensure that enough saltwater gets through.
One thought on “Sailing to Belgium”
Ah, jag ser en boatboy som fixar till däcket!