The Sadler and Starlight Owners Association had arranged a rally over a few days. The plan had been to enjoy the first day of the firework competition in Plymouth on Wednesday, then sail to the Fal River via Fowey over 2 days for the second half of the rally on the Ruan Pontoon in the Fal River on Saturday.
These sort of plans quite often dont work as intended but the basic idear came together. The members in Plymouth had a great socal in Sutton Marina on Wednesday followed by enjoying the fireworks from Plymouth Hoe. The next day came strong southwesterly winds and everyone stayed in Plymouth, followed on Friday with almost no wind. The members who headed west for the Fal River had to motor all the passage. And we did the same across Falmouth Bay, we could of sailed in the Carrick Roads but by that time I had packed the sails away, so we just continued to motor north. On the pontoon were already 2x S34s, SL39, 2x SL35s, Moody, our S29 and later arrived another SL39 and S32, in the early hours of the following morning arrived Peter in his S26 from Scilly. The evening followed with drinks and Chris had made chilli for everyone including vegetarian chilli. Then when we had drunk enough, Mike and Miles got their guitars 🎸 out and singing!
The following day Chris had arranged one of his notorious walks! Everyone else went but Vicki and I stayed on the pontoon, l had some maintenance to do and Vicki isn’t able to walk very far. It seems that everyone made it to the pub for lunch but half of them came back on the bus
Then that evening followed with more drinks, chatting, food was cheese, ham, dips etc. Just as it was getting dark it tipped down with rain and we made a hasty retreat to our yachts.
In the morning each of the crews left as and when they were ready to do so. 2 had already left before we got out, l believe Peter sailed his S26 from Fal River all the way back to the River Exe, about 100nm in one hit before the next blow. Chris and Julia sailed for Plymouth because Chris had work on Monday. We left about midday and sailed back to Gillan on Elektra’s genoa. Once back we had a few jobs which needed doing before getting back ashore at 1700hrs.
Love Sailing 