Thursday 19th September
With east wind on Wednesday and Thursday with a easterly gale forecasted for Friday it was time to head back to the Falmouth area. The forecast for today was easterly 4 increasing 5 in afternoon and 6 in evening. The tide stream wasn’t with us until 1215hrs but I didn’t want to wait that long so we motored out of Fowey at 1010hrs and set all the genoa with one reef in the main.
She could have taken more sail but with the forecast I wasn’t willing to shake the reef out, so we sailed across to the Dodman Pt at about 4-4.5kts, other yachts past us on passage but they were all bigger by 8-10ft so we would never have kept them behind us anyway.
At the Dodman Pt I had to pull the mainsail down because it was taking the genoas wind, from there the wind picked up and 5 or 6kts was seen on the GPS at times. The nearer we got to Falmouth the bigger the sea got and the more Vicki found Elektra a problem to steer, so I took over the helm. Somewhere in my past I learn to steer in these quarter rolling seas and I don’t need to think about it much and can just do without thinking. By the time we got as far as the Roseland the sea was very rough with white crests rolling Elektra on to her side quite a lot. I had kept a good way off the Roseland trying to keep in deeper water until I let Vicki take the helm so I could jibe the genoa though onto the other tack, having winched in the sail I took over the helm again until we entered the Carrick Roads and shelter.
As the wind died away in the shelter of the Roseland I started the engine, Vicki went back on the helm and I rolled the genoa in, motoring into the Precuil River we dropped anchor at 1500hrs having logged 23nm.
Love Sailing 