Here the tide turns about six
'clock and runs southeast down the channel. They would follow this tide
to a point considerably below Boulogne, where the current sweeps again
to the east and flows into Boulogne harbor, which they hoped to reach
about three in the afternoon, making a distance of sixty miles."
"At five o'clock in the morning, when daylight came, everything was
going well and the exact course indicated by the pilot had been
followed, except that the start been about twenty minutes late. Boyton
now paddled alongside and called for his sail, which he adjusted to his
foot by means of an iron socket without getting out of the water, lit a
cigar and struck out again. The little sail instantly filled and
commenced pulling him along in fine style, making a very appreciable
difference in his rate of speed. At six o'clock they were off Goodwin
Sands, a little short of the point that it had been planned to reach.
The tide now commenced turning and they were soon running down the
channel under a very favorable breeze; but a nasty sea and thickening
weather. Nearly in the middle of the channel, there is a sand bank
called the Ridge or, by the French, the Colbart, which splits the
current in two, throwing one along the French coast and the other along
the English.
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