W

e’ve made it. After 103 days, 1,723km,

172 locks, 1,250 litres of diesel, 216

baguettes, 48 kilos of cheese, 562

cups of coffee, 366 nappies, 97 ice

creams, three aqueducts and two

divorce-level arguments, our fl oating

family home motored out of the canal

at Sète and into the Mediterranean sea.

It all started at the beginning of last year when my wife was

heavily pregnant with our second daughter. With a year of

maternity leave ahead of her and me being self-employed, we were

keen to use this opportunity for a family adventure. Initially we

thought about buying a camper van and touring around Europe

by road but a friend suggested cruising through the French canals

to the Med by boat instead. I wasn’t convinced we could fi nd a

boat and run it for the summer on our budget of around £35,000,

but in March we purchased Gemelle, a 1981 Birchwood 33, from

our local marina for £16,000, and a few weeks later Betsy was born.

The next few months were full on. Lena was looking after

a toddler and a newborn during the day and sewing new boat

cushions every evening. I was keeping up my usual consultancy

work while spending every spare hour I had refi tting Gemelle

(see MBY Sept 2017 for the refi t story). In order to fund the

trip, we let out our lovely home in Falmouth on Airbnb so we

had to pack our entire lives into boxes and smarten up the house.

To say we were exhausted would be a massive understatement.

CHANNEL CHALLENGE

Before we knew it, my planned departure date of Sunday July

2 had arrived. Thankfully, we’d decided some time ago that Lena

and the girls would join me on the other side of the Channel, as

the boat was still in bits. There were tools everywhere, we had no

nav lights, no toilet, neither the VHF nor the fridge were working,

the stern glands needed repacking and we’d only run the engines

once, for fi ve minutes on launch day. I have never been so

unprepared to go to sea, but when my old friend Garrick

arrived at 1600 to help with crewing duties, I decided it was

now or never. We had a three-day weather window in which

to cross the Channel and if we missed it, our departure could

be put back by weeks. There wasn’t time to stow away our gear,

so we just chucked it all below, started the engines and left.

We steamed south through Carrick Roads, rounded the

lighthouse and set a course east for Salcombe 50 miles away.

A few miles into the journey, a pod of dolphins joined us and

began to play in our bow wave. It was a milestone moment,

and I was gutted that Lena and the girls weren’t there to enjoy

it. However, as we approached Start Point six hours later, in the

dark and with a heavy rolling sea, I knew we’d made the right

decision for them to catch the ferry to France.

I used the coastal passage to Salcombe as a shakedown cruise

before attempting to cross the Channel. We gave the engines

a good run, got all the systems working, wired in the VHF

and, by the time the sun set, I had all the nav lights working.

We picked up a mooring in the gut at Salcombe at 0030 and

went straight to bed. Four hours later, my alarm went off and

at 0500, we steamed out of the harbour and set a waypoint off

Cherbourg on the plotter. The cross tide in the channel was not

Lena and Toby

Budd with their

two daughters

Betsy and Bonnie

64

TRAVEL

The bimini’s up

and it’s time

to get cruising

Gemelle makes it
safely across the
Channel to France