After our plans to go to Scilly were aborted because of a bad forecast, we had come back from a weekend away and moored Elektra on her gale/east wind trot mooring in Carne Creek. The forecast turned out to be wrong, there had only been one windy wet day not the three-to four days. But we still couldn’t go sailing because Elektra was neeped until Saturday. On Friday I used the day to try and seal up a leak we still had from a U bolt fitting on the side deck, I had resealed both port and starboard fitting during the winter but only the starboard U bolt sealed.
On Saturday I needed to take a template of our alterered bow roller for another S29 owner, being that it would be easier to do while Elektra was high and dry, I went to her early around 2.5m of depth I rowed out from St Anthony to the narrows and up the channel to where Elektra was aground, I pulled the dinghy up the side of the bank and made a cardboard template of the bow roller. The tide was coming in but being neep tides, quite slowly. I climbed aboard to find a line for the dinghy, attached the line to the dindhy painter and made the other end off to Elektra, then climbed aboard and started getting Elektra ready to leave. It was going the be very little spare depth to float Elektra, I normally think we need 4m for her to float here, but of course depth is afected by bar-pressure, today the high tide was 4m and the pressure 1012, so I was hoping we had enough water to get out! She sinks into the botton a little when she dries there is floating, but we need enough to clear her over the bottom, to mover her. I started her engine half an hour before high water, the ground ahead of her is slightly heigher, so I needed to reverse her out into the channel. I linked the two buoys togerther before dropping the bow mooring strop, then pulling aft with the stern strop I dropped over the side and put the engine control lever in reverse. Elektra was moving astern but her port side bilge keel grounded, so she turned to port, turning her bow towards the channel, so I moved the control lever to forward and gave her a blast of forward, she quickly moved into the channel and the sounder was showing 0.3m, I had managed to get her out.
I had thought a sail would be nice but I hadn’t made her ready, so I motored her out to her swing mooring thinking I would pick up the mooring and then get her ready before leaving the dinghy attached to the mooring. But when I arrived another yacht was on our mooring, the skipper was aboard, I explained it was our mooring. I said he could stay but could he take my dinghy and attach it to my mooring as I was going for a sail. Then I pulled up the mainsail and went sailing for 2hrs before returning to the mooring as I needed to get home
Love Sailing 