With my wife Vicki having been taken to hospital and had emergency operation on 29th April, and I visiting her there every day until Vicki was discharged on 11th May. My days had been full with no thought of sailing, Elektra had been left at anchor in Carne Creek, but this wasn’t a long term option, so I arranged a seasonal swing mooring with the local boat yard.
On 12th May after looking after Vicki’s needs in the morning, I had planned to move Elektra from where she was anchored in Carne Creek to her seasonal mooring in Gillan Harbour, HW was 1415hrs and I was down on St Anthony beach by 1330hrs, I checked with David J that my mooring strop had been attached to the mooring, it hadn’t but he would do it right now. I launched the dinghy and motored it out to Elektra, climbed aboard, Elektra was only just floating, I got her ready to move, switched in the insurments, floating in just 0.1m of depth under the keel, started her engine, removed the tiller cover and lashing and walked up on the bow with winch handle. I almost never use Elektra’s hand windless, but I knew from before, her 10kg Rocna digs in and hold very well and I might not be able to break it out of the bottom without either the windless or motoring over the top, to pull it out now after being at anchor for 2 weeks. So I wasn’t suprised when I had pulled all the chain in, that I still couldn’t break the anchor out, so using the mechanical advantage on the windless, I was able to break it out, but it looked like a ball of mud! as Elektra was now being blown by the wind towards the shallows, I went back to the cockpit and motored Elektra in oposit direction into the wind away from the shallows. Droping the engine out of gear, I walked back up onto the bow to clean and stow the anchor.
Once back in the cockpit, I turned Elektra towards the channel and motored her slowly out of the creek and into Gillan Harbour and out to her swing mooring, turning into wind i managed to hook the pick up buoy first time and pull the strop aboard onto the cleat. Then I removed the anchor from the bow roller and stowed in the anchor locker, as the bow roller would be needed for the swing mooring strop. Back to the cockpit to untie the dinghy painter and pull forward to attach to the mooring. Once back in the cockpit, I got the tiller pilot out and fitted ready, filled out one of Elektra’s log sheets, put on my lifejacket, walked up on bow again and dropped the mooring, by the time I was back in the cockpit Elektra had already turned to port and driffed half the distance to the mooring behind, so I very quickly put her in gear and motored forward away from the boat behind.
The forcast was northwest force 4-5 and I hadn’t bothered unwrapping the mainsail, thinking the genoa would be plenty and I wasn’t wrong! Elektra was soon logging 5-6kts on her ear northeast across Falmouth Bay, too much wind for the tiller pilot to cope with, so I rolled the first reef into the genoa, this didn’t slow her any but the tiller pilot could now cope, so I could go below and check on a few things. It was lovely to be out sailing, I didn’t let the tiller pilot have all the fun! Both Vicki and me love to helm in great sailing conditions. I turned Elektra around at Pendennis Point and headed back the way I had come and I was back on the mooring 1.5hrs after droping having logged 8nm.
Love Sailing 