As lovely as the River Avon was, the forecast was for strong east winds by the weekend and it now being Thursday it was time to move on. I was out at 0700hrs and had breakfast and before the tide started coming back in, l climbed down the boarding ladder to check Elektra’s bottom. All looked ok apart from her prop which was covered with barnicals and stiff to rotate. So l climbed back aboard and got a wood chisel to scrap them off. Maybe not the best use for the tool but it did a good job and seemed sharper afterwards? The prop shaft now turned smoothly without any friction.
As the tide started coming back, l learnt something new, dry sand floats. I knew sand moved, but l thought that was with wave and in the tide flow. No wonder it had made it’s way so far up this River from the sea.
With low water at 0700hrs, it was 0830hrs before the tide turned and started coming back in. Elektra floated at 0950hrs but there wouldn’t be any way of leaving before 1200hrs at the earliest because of the incoming stream, we had to wait until it at least slowed down a lot as at the narrows can be going at 4kts.
Not wanting to wait any longer, l dropped the mooring at 1200hrs and motored her down the channel towards the narrows, Elektra was doing 3kt SOG and getting to the narrows, l upped the revs to 3000 and Elektra went through the narrows at 3.5kts. After the narrows Elektra speeded up to 4.5kts SOG, until we got out of the channel into the sea. From there having turned her onto the course, l never dropped the revs again until we motored into Polkerris in St Austell Bay 33.5nm to the west. It had been a boring 6hrs of motoring, but it puts us in the right place to get home tomorrow before the strong east winds.
I’m hoping to be able to sail tomorrow, but we’ll have to see if the weather forecasters have it right?
Love Sailing 