On Thursday 30th of May Vicki dropped me back in Fowey with a bag of clothes, water proofs and some stores. I also had 5lts of coolant, when l then dropped into the Harbour Masters office to pay for 2 more nights, Elektra had arrived last Friday and l was going to sail her home a Friday later. The forecast for Thursday was northwesterly force 6, but Friday had it easing off a little to a northerly force 4-5. As l crossed the river to Elektra in the dinghy, l was glad it was mainly down wind, or would have been very wet coming the other way.
I was glad to get aboard Elektra and the wind increased though the rest of that day, with white horses showing in the Fowey river. I refilled the coolant, Anthony said it holds about 5lts but l only needed 3lts to top it up, so it wasn’t completely empty. I started and ran the engine for a while to check it all out, everything seemed fine, ready for the passage home. The wind was forecasted to ease from 09-1000hrs tomorrow so my plans we’re to leave Fowey at around 1200hrs on Friday which would be against the tide until 1550hrs but near slack around the Dodman Point. I cooked myself some dinner and because l was feeling quite cold, went to bed early.
I awoke suddenly at 0500hrs on Friday and thought, l might as well leave with the tide since l was awake. So l got out and made Elektra ready to leave, the tide was with us from 0352-0952hrs. I cast off the mooring at 0600hrs and pointed Elektra towards the sea, l unwrapped the mainsail and motored out the entrance but just set the genoa on coarse for Cannis Buoy. Elektra was only logging 3.5kts to the Buoy, but as we left the shelter of Gribbon Head things soon hotted up! With the need to help the tiller pilot keep Elektra on coarse, l need to reef the genoa once, then twice! Elektra was on a broad reach to the Dodman and then a beam reach from Dodman to Gillan, with just a piece of genoa she was logging over 6kts most of the time! The slow parts of the passage was from the mooring to Cannis Buoy and crossing Falmouth Bay at the end of the passage, over the last hour when the wind eased and l should have let more sail out. The fastest speed recorded on the GPS was 7.5kts. Elektra had covered the 22nm from Cannis Buoy to Gillan in 4hrs. And the whole passage from the Fowey mooring to anchored in Gillan, 24nm in 4.5hrs.
I motored Elektra slowly in and dropped anchor off St Anthony to get a bit of shelter as our swing mooring was open to the wind and swells. I had already called Vicki to say l was on the way and called her again to say l had arrived. Vicki drove down from home later in the day and we spent the weekend at anchor there in lovely sunny weather.
Love Sailing 