On Wednesday 14th, I had planned to do some boat jobs and clean the stainless steel work. The tide was in all day so no real hurry to go to St Anthony. I loaded the pick-up with diesel in cans and a gas bottle and drove down about 1000hrs. Parked in the best parking spot, launched the dinghy and transfered the diesel and gas to the dinghy and pushed off, starting the engine and motoring out to Elektra. I lifted the fuel and gas aboard and climbed up myself. It was lovely weather and there were lots of other boat users coming and going, it was nice to be on the water again. Having opened the cabin the first thing to do was top up the diesel, I had already filltered the fuel back in the workshop, so just needed to remove the cap and put funnel in to then pour the fuel in from the cans. Easy enough you would think but motor boaters seem to forget that they cause wash (my pet hate!) And don’t look behind themselves as they motor into moorings causing havoc! Next the gas bottle we stow in the anchor locker because it is self draining, but because sea water gets splashed around the foredeck to clean after anchoring, Vicki made a canvus bag to keep the bottle dry, stop the rust.
After that was done, I looked at the instuctions on the can for cleaning the stainless. sitting there in the cockpit looking at the sailing boats it being “Falmouth Week” and thinking it would be nice to go sailing! Then I thought, why not? I can clean the yacht when it’s too windy to go out!
So, I set about getting ready to leave, got the cockpit custions out and the tiller pilot ready. The forecast said NW4-5 becoming W4, I filled out a log sheet ready, uncovered the mainsail, attached the dinghy painter to the mooring, fitted the bridge deck chart plotter, lifejacket on, jobs done, I was ready to let go. Standing on the bow I let a motorboat get into the moorings before I did so Elektra didn’t swing into her path with the wind blowing her east. By the time I got back to the cockpit Elektra had swung around about 120 degrees and was heading for sea on her own. I pulled out about a 3rd of the genoa to help her along and getting east to Carcroc Cardinal Buoy I gybed her around and let out all her genoa. Then heading north-northeast across Falmouth Bay towards Falmouth, Elektra sped up quickly to 5.5-6.1kts, it was great to be out sailing! The genoa alone as normal was plenty of sail for the amount of wind and too much sail for the tiller pilot to handle as Elektra started to round up. So I took over the helm to keep her on track and driving forward, I turned her about just before Black Rock and headed back in the oposit direction with a bigger yacht slightly in front on mailsail only, Elektra soon caught her up. Then a ship coming into Falmouth Bay with pilot escort boat crossed out track and so I altered to pass behind the ship. By the time we started crossing Helford River again the other yacht was quite a bit behind. Nearing Gillan I thought, I like the this and turned Elektra towards Falmouth again! Sailing halfway back to Falmouth for the 2nd time almost up the ship stern which had just anchored, just in time I noticed the bunkering tanker coming in from her aft to refuel the ship, to avoid any problems for her captain, I put Elektra about and headed in the oposit direction and away from the ship. From there I sailed Elektra back to Gillan, picking back up her mooring 2hrs after dropping having logged 11nm.
Love Sailing 