On Thursday we were sailing back to Gillan before the forecast of strong southwest winds on Friday. The tidal stream wouldn’t be with us until 1230hrs, so again there wasn’t any need to rush away.
I pulled up the Rocna anchor at 1145hrs, it was well dug in and difficult to break out, it takes a while to trust a new anchor but l do trust this new anchor now! Vicki motored Elektra out and around the back of the Mount, l set GPS for the Lizard Point, l unrolled the genoa and we set off at 1155hrs towards the Lizard 12nm to the southeast, the wind was northwest so it was a dead run Elektra’s genoa over the next 3.5hrs. This sort of sailing almost feels like almost standing still but the miles go by and by, Vicki was on the helm for about 1.5hrs before I set up the tiller pilot.
We rounded the Lizard Point around 1530hrs very close in to the rocks in almost completely flat sea, we hadn’t ever seen the Lizard Point as calm but neep tides and both wind and tide stream going east, (this now our 18th passage around the Lizard over the last 16 years). After Bass Point, I pulled up the main with one reef and we speeded up to 5.5kts, now on a broad reach Vicki took the helm again and we enjoyed the sailing passed Black Head and on to Manacle Buoy. A group of yachts were just coming up to the Lizard Point from the west just after we rounded the Lizard, two of them passed us off Black Head under spinnakers. The wind shifted a little more to the north and we were almost hard to the wind between Black Head and Manacle Buoy. The two yachts under spinnakers, turned east and lowered their head sails and only just pass Manacle buoy ahead of us.
After Manacle buoy at 1725hrs I knew it was going to be a head wind and so I started Elektra’s engine and motored towards the Nare Point, rolled away her genoa and set the tiller pilot going again. We picked up the mooring in Gillan at 1815hrs having logged 28.5nm. Then we worked hard packing up to get away off Elektra before the tide dropped away too much to get the dinghy into St Anthony and home for a shower.
Love Sailing 