On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 sacha wrote:

On 2013-10-28 08:20:39 +0000, David Rance said:

In message , Sacha
writes

Good luck riding the storm guys.
Hope there are no calamities where you are.
The title of the Mastermind theme-tune seems appropriate.

We're returning from France tomorrow afternoon (Caen/Portsmouth).
Hopefully things will have died down a bit by then.
You might want to check that, David. A lot of ferries have been
cancelled.
Thankfully (I think!) our sailing is ok. The two ferries on our
route, the Normandie and the Mont Saint Michel, both arrived at their
respective ports on time last night. The Portsmouth to St. Malo
crossing was late this morning but it seems that it sheltered in the
lee of the Cotentin for a time. Brittany Ferries have a page on their
web site where you can track the movements of the ships.
During the night we had some pretty strong gusts. It's quieter this
morning and sunny. No damage to speak of, just dead branches off our
trees. There was an electricity outage during the night but I don't
know how long for - probably only momentary. But further to the west
there are areas without power so we were lucky. Saw the BBC news this
morning and it seems that the West Country has also had widespread
power outages.
David

Breakfast news yesterday said that 6000 homes were affected. We weren't
one of them for which we were very thankful as the outage started at
midnight and was still being repaired at around 8am. The only
difference we noticed was that our papers were delivered a bit later
than usual!

Well, as you can see from the sig, we got back to Reading safely. The
crossing was a bit bumpy but nothing worse than we have experienced on a
number of occasions in the past. And, as we approached Portsmouth at
around 7 p.m. yesterday evening, the wind had dropped almost completely.

The ferry was packed as Brittany Ferries had cancelled a sailing (a
fastcat) from Cherbourg and we had all their passengers as well.

Heard on the news this morning that parts of the outskirts of Reading
were without power but they didn't specify where. Wasn't us!

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK

On 2013-10-29 11:51:27 +0000, David Rance said:

On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 sacha wrote:

On 2013-10-28 08:20:39 +0000, David Rance said:

In message , Sacha
writes

Good luck riding the storm guys.
Hope there are no calamities where you are.
The title of the Mastermind theme-tune seems appropriate.

We're returning from France tomorrow afternoon (Caen/Portsmouth).
Hopefully things will have died down a bit by then.
You might want to check that, David. A lot of ferries have been cancelled.
Thankfully (I think!) our sailing is ok. The two ferries on our route,
the Normandie and the Mont Saint Michel, both arrived at their
respective ports on time last night. The Portsmouth to St. Malo
crossing was late this morning but it seems that it sheltered in the
lee of the Cotentin for a time. Brittany Ferries have a page on their
web site where you can track the movements of the ships.
During the night we had some pretty strong gusts. It's quieter this
morning and sunny. No damage to speak of, just dead branches off our
trees. There was an electricity outage during the night but I don't
know how long for - probably only momentary. But further to the west
there are areas without power so we were lucky. Saw the BBC news this
morning and it seems that the West Country has also had widespread
power outages.
David

Breakfast news yesterday said that 6000 homes were affected. We weren't
one of them for which we were very thankful as the outage started at
midnight and was still being repaired at around 8am. The only
difference we noticed was that our papers were delivered a bit later
than usual!

Well, as you can see from the sig, we got back to Reading safely. The
crossing was a bit bumpy but nothing worse than we have experienced on
a number of occasions in the past. And, as we approached Portsmouth at
around 7 p.m. yesterday evening, the wind had dropped almost completely.

The ferry was packed as Brittany Ferries had cancelled a sailing (a
fastcat) from Cherbourg and we had all their passengers as well.

Heard on the news this morning that parts of the outskirts of Reading
were without power but they didn't specify where. Wasn't us!

David

Glad to hear you're safely - and comfortably - back on dry land! The
cats won't go if it's lumpy because they just can't handle it. The sun
is out here, there's a gentle breeze and it's a really lovely day!
Matthew has gone sailing but probably only within the length of the
Dart!
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On 2013-10-29 14:25:19 +0000, Martin said:

On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 14:04:38 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

On 2013-10-29 11:51:27 +0000, David Rance said:
snip
Well, as you can see from the sig, we got back to Reading safely. The
crossing was a bit bumpy but nothing worse than we have experienced on
a number of occasions in the past. And, as we approached Portsmouth at
around 7 p.m. yesterday evening, the wind had dropped almost completely.

The ferry was packed as Brittany Ferries had cancelled a sailing (a
fastcat) from Cherbourg and we had all their passengers as well.

Heard on the news this morning that parts of the outskirts of Reading
were without power but they didn't specify where. Wasn't us!

David

Glad to hear you're safely - and comfortably - back on dry land! The
cats won't go if it's lumpy because they just can't handle it.

The wave height limit on Harwich Hoek High Speed Catamaran Endeavour
ferry was 4 or 5 metres. It was more than that on the North Sea far
too often, so they transferred it to the Irish Sea. That was the end
of us being able to take our car to England in 3.5 hours. The
catamaran ferry from Ostend to Ramsgate was stopped for the same
reason. Endeavour had bits of GRP knocked off by large waves. It also
lost two cars and a large truck carrying tonnes of fish and the cargo
door, when Endeavour accelerated at the start of a crossing. Somebody
didn't chain down the truck and the driver left the truck in neutral
with the hand brake off. There were fish washed up on beaches.
Endeavour uses diesel engines to leave port and switches to gas
turbine engines for the crossing.

The sun
is out here, there's a gentle breeze and it's a really lovely day!
Matthew has gone sailing but probably only within the length of the
Dart!

The cats from Poole/Weymouth to the CIs run all summer, except in very
rough weather but they stop in winter. Then it's the long 8 hours to
Portsmouth. We tend to avoid that one!
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk