News Page

2011 NEWS -

Western Australia Tall Ship Officer joins ‘Hardiesse’ for the Summer Cruise 2011.

This year, we were lucky enough to have Angela Lewis, the watch keeping bosun of the TS Leeuwin from Western Australia, on the cruise. Whilst TS Leeuwin undergoes a major refit, Angela visited England and volunteered her services for the ‘Hardiesse’ Summer Cruise.

We always hope our summer cruise will be to Brittany and this year the wind was kind to us with gentle winds that led us towards  L’Aberwrach.   Among our voyage crew were  several old timers, trainees that have joined the cruise for several years, and two young first time sailors who adapted well to life on board. 

L’Aberwrach is a small, peaceful harbour, well guarded by reefs which kept the trainees busy  recognizing buoys on the approach.   After two nights in L’Aberwrach we set sail for Roscoff with a following breeze.   As ‘Hardiesse’ has a standing yard, this allowed the crew to set the raffees and square sail giving them a taste of handling square sails as well as the more usual fore-and-aft sails.   Roscoff Old Harbour was busy but Chris, our skipper, berthed the ‘Hardiesse’ against the harbour wall.

Roscoff is always a favourite berth as there is a market on Wednesdays where delicious food – bread, cheese, fresh vegetables and cooked food – can be found as well as plentiful supplies of ice cream.   Spare time was taken up by our visiting bosun renewing ratlines, with the help of interested trainees, who practiced their knots and splices on several repair jobs.

After Roscoff, our next port was Isle de Batz, across the channel from Roscoff.   Again we dried out against the quay wall and went to visit with old friends who always welcome the ‘Hardiesse’.   We looked round the Botanic Gardens, explored in the dinghies and dined out at the local Creperie.   Luckily the weather was mainly kind to us.

On Friday morning it was time to sail for home so after anchoring in the Chanel and having a quick swim we headed for Falmouth.   The traffic was interesting and ranged from container ships to a large cruise liner, fishing boats and a tug-and-tow.  Halfway through the return voyage the wind picked up and we had a tremendous sail with the wind on the beam and we arrived in Falmouth after a 20 hour passage. 

2010 NEWS -

Early in the year, we had a much appreciated donation from the locally based company, FugroSeacore, of two stainless steel water tanks.   We were able to replace our old  and corroded tanks during the winter refit and improve the quality of our drinking water.

At the beginning of the sailing season we had the pleasure of ordering new foresails and square sails for the Hardiesse as a result of a very generous grant from the Cornwall Community Fund Grassroots funding scheme.   The new sails replace worn sails up to thirty years old! and are of a size and weight that are easier to handle by a young crew.   The sails certainly proved their worth when we sailed to Brittany this summer.

We would like to thank both these sponsors for their generosity.

Handling the new square sails and raffees