This season has been a growing year and as such l haven’t been able to take more than one week away sailing at a time. I was determined to get two weeks away before the season comes to an end, at the end of October. So l decided to take the last week of August and the first of September.
The earliest we could get aboard was Saturday, the original plan was to sail to Cawsands on Sunday having stowed Elektra on Saturday but in the end we decided to leave Gillan for Fowey mid afternoon on Saturday. The forecast was west-northwest force 4 gusting 5 or 6. We needed to leave St Anthony beach before 1300hrs, we had so much stuff it was 2 dinghy loads and the tide was dropping quickly for the second one but l got out by rowing into deeper water. It took quite a while to stow everything and get ready to leave.
It was 1500hrs when we eventually cast off and turned Elektra for Fowey, as Vicki motored Elektra out to Carcroc buoy, l got the genoa ready to set. I rolled out a 3rd of the sail and we set off across Falmouth Bay at around 5kts. The tidal stream would be against us until 1900hrs but there was plenty of wind to help us along. After crossing Falmouth Bay where l estimated the wind strength as force 6 (lots of white horses) l let a little more genoa unroll to the first reef. Elektra continued to romp along at 5-6kts. There where plenty of yachts heading west but only us going east. But a big catamaran caught up off the Dodman Point, she when past us as if we were standing still, looking at the ais she was doing 8-9kts with 2 reefs in the main and a scrap of foresail. In under the shelter of the Dodman tge wind eased a bit but on across St Austell Bay was just as strong. Once past Cannis Buoy in in the shelter of Gibbon Head it seemed like we had slowed but Elektra was still doing 5-6kts right into Fowey harbour entrance. We started the engine and rolled away the genoa between the castle’s and motored her in and onto a swing mooring at 1930hr, having logged 23.5nm in 4.5hrs against the tide. The max speed showing on the GPS as 7.2kts.
Love Sailing 