Friday 5th June
Not the best of weather for our next sail, the weather men were giving north west force 4 gusting 5 or 6. I raised the main with one reef before dropping the mooring, turning in Gillan on the engine and motoring out between Carcrock and the Dennis Head, l soon stopped the engine as the wind took over in the Helford river entrance.
Vicki was on the helm as l went below to write in the log, then all hell broke loose as Elektra tried to broach! I looked back up at Vicki who was getting back on her feet, she said she was okay so l set about picking up all the pans which had flung them selves across the cabin floor when the cooker door opened. Once sorted l headed back into the cockpit.
Elektra was racing across Falmouth Bay at over 6kts and Vicki was trying to hold on to her so l set about reefing the genoa more to get her balanced more. That’s better Vicki said there were still a few gusts which were knocking her over a little bit to far and l said l will reef it more. Vicki said she was okay now but l said we will be further off the coast in a bit with more wind.
We were heading for the bow of a anchored ship which was taking on bunkering fuel, we slipped by her in a few minutes and then things started to hot up! Elektra was in the grove with half the genoa out and one reef in the main she was still logging nearly 7kts SOG against the tide. We weren’t the only mad souls out sailing, a sailing school yacht came out from the Carrick Roads with small a jib and a well reefed main. We also past another yacht heading in our direction who just had her genoa out.
The wind eased a bit as we got closer to Pendennis Point which left us needing to go to starboard of Black Rock, we sailed on to the south cardinal buoy off St Mawes before tacking, with the wind a bit lighter l let out a bit more genoa and the starboard tack took us over to Falmouth Harbour before we tacked again on a line towards St Just in Roseland. Arriving there we rolled in all the genoa and motored north up the channel because it was low water spring tides. As we motored l lowered the main and packed it away.
We anchored in Channels Creek now lunch time, we stayed for 2hrs or so before heading back south again. This time just sailing on Elektra’s genoa and against the tide she was still logging over 5kts SOG. More yachts about now, we even saw a friend heading north, both of us waved.
Heading out into Falmouth Bay again, this time with no other yachts about, we had slowed a bit passing between Black Rock and Pendennis Point but we were soon off again logging 5.5kts across Falmouth Bay, 4nm to Gillan seem to fly by. When we picked up Elektra’s mooring we had logged 23nm in 4.5hrs.
With a forecast of more strong east wind for Thursday-Friday we waited for HW and then moved Elektra back up to Carne Creek and dropped anchor.
Love Sailing 