5 Sailing from Holland to England in a gale

This shows how we crossed from the Netherlands to the UK in late August during an overnight gale. We were sailing in an 8m Catalac. The gale started at around 2:00 in the morning about 4 hours after passing through a weather front. It continued until it got light as we neared the mouth of the Thames Estuary. The only significant damage was breaking the shackle connecting the main sheet to the track. This happened when we turned downwind and - mistakenly - jibed when negotiating the shallows at the entrance to the Thames Estuary. Apart from that, we shipped quite a lot of water, mainly through the windows as the waves broke over them. And then as a sting in the tail - as you’ll see at the end of the video - we discovered the next day that the waves coming over the foredeck had damaged the dinghy.