Biscay in a Storm

Ectopic

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Just back from a great 2.5 weeks touring in Spain. (Car this year, not bike. Better fuel economy!)

lovely 36-hr journey from Portsmouth to Santander. The good old BBC Shipping Forecast for the return trip showed Force 8 and sea state "rough or very rough." They weren't kidding! From 4pm to 4am was horrendous. But by 8am it was all pretty smooth again.

Not sick on board, just scared of capsizing, though my current wife spent a solid 20 hours in bed as she feels better lying down. But weirdly, as I sit here typing this, I can still feel the motion of the boat pitching and rolling. Very weird. We had a similarly shite crossing (outward) in 2017 but I don't recall this feeling afterwards.
 
Ectopic said:
Just back from a great 2.5 weeks touring in Spain. (Car this year, not bike. Better fuel economy!)

lovely 36-hr journey from Portsmouth to Santander. The good old BBC Shipping Forecast for the return trip showed Force 8 and sea state "rough or very rough." They weren't kidding! From 4pm to 4am was horrendous. But by 8am it was all pretty smooth again.

Not sick on board, just scared of capsizing, though my current wife spent a solid 20 hours in bed as she feels better lying down. But weirdly, as I sit here typing this, I can still feel the motion of the boat pitching and rolling. Very weird. We had a similarly shite crossing (outward) in 2017 but I don't recall this feeling afterwards.
Click to expand...
I get that feeling after a long day sea fishing
 
Worst I encountered on BF in Biscay was a F10 to F11 about 30 years ago
I was truly horrendous and I thought we were going to sink or the bike would be a write off
Thankfully neither happened

What amazed me was the sheer depth of water in the Bay of Biscay

I studied the charts and info on the boat and 40-50 miles out of Santander there is a steep shelf that suddenly drops to a depth of over 15000 feet (half the height of M Everest IIRC)

It was mind blowing and no wonder the seas are so stormy with the volume and depth/breadth of water

IMG_0125.jpg
 
JohnnyBoxer said:
Worst I encountered on BF in Biscay was a F10 to F11 about 30 years ago
I was truly horrendous and I thought we were going to sink or the bike would be a write off
Thankfully neither happened

What amazed me was the sheer depth of water in the Bay of Biscay

I studied the charts and info on the boat and 40-50 miles out of Santander there is a steep shelf that suddenly drops to a depth of over 15000 feet (half the height of M Everest IIRC)

It was mind blowing and no wonder the seas are so stormy with the volume and depth/breadth of water

View attachment 429338
Click to expand...
Scary stuff !!
 
I had a real rough crossing last Sept on my way home from Bilbao. Spent 75 per cent of the voyage lay on my bunk, sick as a dog. The storm was so bad the captain apologised upon entering Portsmouth.
Vowed never to do the Bay of Biscay again.
 
JohnnyBoxer said:
Worst I encountered on BF in Biscay was a F10 to F11 about 30 years ago
I was truly horrendous and I thought we were going to sink or the bike would be a write off
Thankfully neither happened

What amazed me was the sheer depth of water in the Bay of Biscay

I studied the charts and info on the boat and 40-50 miles out of Santander there is a steep shelf that suddenly drops to a depth of over 15000 feet (half the height of M Everest IIRC)

It was mind blowing and no wonder the seas are so stormy with the volume and depth/breadth of water

View attachment 429338
Click to expand...
I dived a wreck in the bay of Biscay, called the SS Egypt.

It was was in one of the shallow bits, but still pretty deep. Black as a witches tit, and took 5 hours surface to surface.

Planned a week diving it, I think we got maybe 3 dives due to weather.
 
Only done the return journey twice and was pretty smooth both times - I don't think I want to push my luck a 3rd time :)
 
Ectopic said:
Just back from a great 2.5 weeks touring in Spain. (Car this year, not bike. Better fuel economy!)

lovely 36-hr journey from Portsmouth to Santander. The good old BBC Shipping Forecast for the return trip showed Force 8 and sea state "rough or very rough." They weren't kidding! From 4pm to 4am was horrendous. But by 8am it was all pretty smooth again.

Not sick on board, just scared of capsizing, though my current wife spent a solid 20 hours in bed as she feels better lying down. But weirdly, as I sit here typing this, I can still feel the motion of the boat pitching and rolling. Very weird. We had a similarly shite crossing (outward) in 2017 but I don't recall this feeling afterwards.
Click to expand...
It's quite normal... I used to do a lot of sailing... and it was quite common, once back on terra firma and having a shower... to suddenly grab the wall... as your brain was telling you that you were about to tack/gybe/fall over.
 
Sailed across Biscay in a three masted square rigged sailing boat (Lord Nelson) and caught the tail end of an Atlantic storm; the back of the boat was doing a figure '8' rising about 30'. I thought it was hilarious, but the off watch crew weren't too happy.

ps - I didn't realise it was that deep 😳
 
JohnnyBoxer said:
Worst I encountered on BF in Biscay was a F10 to F11 about 30 years ago
I was truly horrendous and I thought we were going to sink or the bike would be a write off
Thankfully neither happened

What amazed me was the sheer depth of water in the Bay of Biscay

I studied the charts and info on the boat and 40-50 miles out of Santander there is a steep shelf that suddenly drops to a depth of over 15000 feet (half the height of M Everest IIRC)

It was mind blowing and no wonder the seas are so stormy with the volume and depth/breadth of water

View attachment 429338
Click to expand...
It's not really the depth... it's the shelf that causes the problems... added to which the waves reflect off of the land to the east and south... so you have several factors that influence the waves.
 
oblertone said:
Sailed across Biscay

ps - I didn't realise it was that deep 😳
Click to expand...
Me neither
Bored on a crossing - I read all the data on one of the decks & charts etc
Then it dawned on me - there was 15,500 ft of water underneath me and M Everest was 29500ft
It was a quite incredible fact that the trough was half as high as Everest
That’s a huge volume of water to get stirred up and with prevailing Atlantic, no wonder it can get quite rough in Biscay
 
Helmed a 38 foot Yacht for a day and a night through a Force 10. 50 knots of wind in the Bay of Biscay, no one else on board would do it at least the Wife kept handing me the odd cup of coffee and making me a roll up now and then but I struggled to make them last. Given the roll ups up know and I would have to think hard before sailing across it again.
 
September 2021, return sailing from Santander, within an hour of leaving port, I was horizontal and sick as a dog and it wasn’t overly rough, perhaps a 2-3m meter swell, but it sure rocked the boat enough to make me go 🤢.
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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