With the forecast of northerly force 4-5 decreasing to force 4. I thought ideal weather to head back west. From here in Talland Bay the direction was more west-southwest. And so the northerly wind would make it a broad reach.
The wind seemed very strong when I first tried to pull up Elektra’s anchor, l just couldn’t so went back to the cockpit to get the winch handle to use Elektra’s manual windless. This pulled the chain back aboard no problem, just needed to continue to move the piles of chain from the deck into the anchor locker. Well the anchor was still dug in, Elektra stayed still, but once it broke free Elektra was being blown out to sea, as quickly as possible l pulled the rest of the chain aboard hand over hand and cleated the anchor off. Then went back to the cockpit and motored Elektra back into the cove. Once in close to the shore, l walked back onto the foredeck and stowed the anchor and the rest of the chain.
Once back to the cockpit again, Elektra was already halfway out of the cove again! I then engaged forward gear, turned her and headed out, unrolling the genoa as we went. I soon stopped her engine. And the wind let me know how strong it was blowing by rounding her up straight away! So l rolled away the genoa upto her second reef and no mainsail up, the wind instrument was telling me it was force 6!
It took a bit of adjusting of the sail before the tiller pilot could cope, but eventually l managed it and could go below to write in the log, over the next three hours the wind gently eased down to northerly force 3 and as it did l unrolled a bit more sail to keep her speed up. Arriving off the Dodman Point there seemed almost no wind but because of the tide stream running our way Elektra was still logging 3.5kts SOG. Then almost as quick as l had realised that, the wind died and the sail flops! So l rolled it away and started motoring on what was now a mill pond. Then within half an hour the wind picks up again from the northwest and l unrolled the genoa and started motor-sailing. Within half an hour the engine was off again and Elektra was logging over 6kts just on her genoa.
I continued to sail as far as Zone Point before starting up her engine to avoid tack north into the Carrick Roads. Instead just motored north and then northeast inpast St Mawes and up the Precuil River to drop anchor.
Love Sailing 