We had bought Elektra in November 2016 when she was 32 years old. Since then we had steadily been updating her. She came with Stowe instruments which were mainly working when we bought her but had slowly packed up one at a time since then. Last winter l had Elektra pulled out of the water for work ashore and new Garmin electronics was one of the jobs. The boat yard had arranged with “PR Systems” of Plymouth to do the work because the boat yard had found them reliable. I was happy as, l hadn’t found anyone reliable!
I bought a new Garmin sail pack early in 2024 and a 9″ Garmin chart plotter off the Internet in September 24 and Keith from PR Systems had fitted the System by the end of November 2024. But obviously it was quite a few more months before l could try the new electronics out. The first test was when l left the boat yard at Gweek at first light on the 31st of March 2025. Nothing was really working except the chart plotter which l used to guide Elektra back down the channel, the depth would have been nice but we didn’t run aground so all was good. The depth started working once we got into 6ft of water under the keel.
So a long story short, in the main the new instruments hadn’t worked all season so far except for one weekend when for some reason they worked fine. I had decided it was a connection issue and wanted PR Systems to look at it. They wanted power, so, we agreed l would sail Elektra to them to look at to save them travelling time.
I found Keith a nice man and got on with him well, and as arranged he arrived at 0930hrs on Thursday with a youngster. Once l had shown Keith what was needed, Vicki and l went for showers and to Jolly Jack’s for breakfast. Afterwards l went back to Elektra to peg out the towels from showers. Keith was on the phone to Garmin as apparently the controller boxes where faulty. When he got off the phone, he told me, Garmin had agreed to replace both control boxes under warranty and pay Keith’s travelling to our mooring in Gillan to fit.
After that Vicki and l got a taxi to and from supermarket and by 1350hrs we were casting off and leaving Mayflower Marina. We were off to find an anchorage. We looked at Barn Pool, but it didn’t look sheltered there and so we sailed over to Jenny Cliff but it didn’t look sheltered there either at which point we decided to sail back to Cellar Bay in the Yealm River Entrance. Elektra was only sailing on her genoa as we didn’t think we were going far but sailing along beside was a 30ft Moody with full genoa and one reef in her mainsail and Elektra was holding her own. Next time l looked Elektra was pulling away! At Cawsands there were a lot of anchored boats, so we decided to take a closer look, and motored Elektra into a space between the anchored craft and from out of nowhere a motor boat appears and dropped anchor, and so we had to move to another space before dropping.
There was a little swell movement in the anchorage, possibly more than we would normally put up with, but Vicki didn’t want to go any further. Out of the 12 or so craft anchored there when we arrived only 3 where still there as darkness came in. It was a little rolly overnight, but it didn’t keep me awake.
Love Sailing 