Love Sailing

The alarm went off at 0330hrs and I climbed out of the bunk, dressed and put on my waterproofs, Vicki said do you think you will need them? I said I expect the decks will be all wet with due and it might be cold at this time! Out in the cockpit, the Durgan anchorage was calm as we got ready to leave, we picked up our anchor and motored out of the Helford River at 0355hrs, I sent a text to our shore contact with our plans and eta of 1600hrs and we headed for the Nare Point which we passed and headed Manacle buoy which we passed at 0448hrs, from here we set the genoa and stopped the engine, sailing down wind at 5kts. We had a forecast of NE-N4 which is excellent for out passage south down the side of the Lizard to Lizard point and west to Scilly.

At 0630hrs we reached our waypoint off the Lizard Point having logged 15nm, now we turned for Scilly 44nm away. Vicki went down below to make a coffee, she poked her head up and said I think the gas has run out! Vicki came up again and took the helm while I went up on deck to the anchor locker (Elektra was logging 9kts SOG at the time) to get the spare gas can, back in the cockpit now to change the gas over, not the best place off the Lizard Point! Gas changed, I took the helm again and Vicki went back to make the coffee.

We soon decided more sail was needed and up went the mainsail with one reef and off we sped at 6-7kts, all was good until we got as far as Wolf Rock at 1035hrs, from there the sea became rough for crossing the entrance to shipping lanes, we were sailing and keeping up with a Southerly 45-50 footer with a ship south of us lining its self up for the north bound lane. I felt he waited for us to cross because his bow wave didn’t show until after we had crossed his line.

Soon after passing the ship we reefed the genoa as will, watching another ship coming down the south bound lane but this one turned sharp to port after exiting the lane passing north of us in the opposite direction.

The islands came into view from around 8nm away at 1300hrs, shortly before entering The Cove, St Agnes, I sent a text to our shore contact to say we had arrived as I know there isn’t any mobile signal in The Cove. We dropped anchor at 1430hrs having covered the 60nm in 10.5hrs, our best ever passage time to Scilly. After checking we were holding we both climbed into the bunk and fell fast asleep for a few hours.

When we awoke Vicki started to cook dinner and I pumped up the roll-up dinghy ready for getting ashore in the morning. It was early to bed that evening.

After a hard week at work I arrived home at about 1700hrs, I needed to do some bookwork, shower, load truck and have dinner before driving down to the beach. The earliest we could get out to “Elektra” was 2100hrs due to the tide, we could see her  bounding up and down in the northeast wind.

Out in the punt to “Elektra”, Vicki climbed aboard and I passed aboard the stores for a week away. Next thing was the punt engine, not an easy thing to do with the swell which was running into Gillan but taking our time we managed to do ok. Now for stowing the stores, bounding up and down on the mooring we knew we would have to move to get a nights sleep.

Once the stores were stowed and our punt was attached to the mooring, we dropped and motored out of Gillan and headed for a sheltered anchorage, it was now dark, we motored into the Helford River and anchored off Durgan for a quite night. At 2300hrs we turned in ready for the 0400hrs get away next morning.

 

15-17th June

We are planning our summer cruise, with jobs building up we decided to spend the windy weekend doing them ready for our get away.

On the Friday evening after work we loaded up the punt and headed out to Elektra, once loaded and stowed we motored her in to Flushing Cove and anchored off the beach ready for doing some of the jobs on Saturday, once anchored we settled down for the evening and had a game of Scrabble with a bottle of red.

In the morning after “Full English” I got Elektra ready for me to climb the mast, I had seen a week or so ago the tri-colour was on back to front, I needed to get up there and put it right. We have a mast ladder which slides up the mainsail grove, I had also bought a new harness for a safety line. On my 1st attempt I got up as far as the spreaders before I noticed the safety line was the wrong side of the lazy jacks so came down again, 2nd time I was to the spreaders again when my sailing friend David asked me to save his dinghy which had blown away from the beach, so down again and into my dinghy to chase down his punt. Saved and bought back to the beach, David told me he and his wife Sue were going off for a few days, Fowey, Plymouth.

3rd time lucky, I got to the top of the mast and turned the tri-colour the right way round, wile I was up there I un-twisted the spinnaker halyard and on the way down cleaned the radar reflector and the under side of the spreaders. Only when I was down again could I see that the halyards still were not right. I decided I would go back up again and change the spinnaker and genoa halyards over. This done and back on the deck now I could clear up and put away the gear but first because Elektra was now dried out I needed to check out the stern gear after our problem with the rope last week. All good there was a small offcut of rope jammed in the rope cutter but apart from that all was ok. Back to clearing the decks and coiling the lines, once done I checked out the engine and topped up the oil.

We had topped up the water tank the weekend before. The fuel tank was low but I had bought 20lts of diesel out with us in cans but having poured them in the tank was still not full. We decided to stay aboard another night and I would go and get some more fuel in the morning. Vicki went for a sleep and I checked all the lights were working before sitting down for a rest.

On Sunday morning after coffee I set off in the rain to buy more diesel, not that far to go but it still took nearly two hours before I was back with another 30lts having picked up my water filter funnel from home on the way, I thought it would be handy for filling the tank since it was raining. Back aboard for another “Full English” before topping up the tank and motoring out to our mooring, next we needed to wash-up but we mist the tide for getting ashore so we stayed aboard and played Scrabble in the afternoon before heading ashore at around 1700hrs.

 

The weather forecast for Monday was variable 1-3 with a northerly wind set to come in by 1600hrs but Vicki wanted to get back to Gillan and home not to late.

This was a hot summers day even the wind was warm so just the best weather to be out on the water. So it was 1245hrs when we picked up our anchor and motored slowly south from Channels Creek as I pulled up the main sail. Sticking to the channel we motor on into the wind down where the channel turns back to St Just in Roseland before setting sail, wind was light but we were able to log 2.5-3kts SOG. We tacked three or four times before the wind died off Falmouth and we had to motor. After Pendennis Point we sailed again for a bit before the wind died again, back with the motoring again! Then the wind filled in from the north, about F4 and we could sail again but the mainsail was taking the genoa’s wind, after trying different things I rolled the genoa and we sailed the last mile or so just on the main getting into Gillan at 1545 having logged 10.5nm.

In the morning looking over the stern I could see the bottom an hour before low water, the aft had swung around towards the shore, I thought it cant be very deep. Checking with Vicki who was still in bed, I said I thought I could get down in the water and clear the prop but wanted a standby helper, Vicki was ok with it and got out while I dug the keg anchor out of the cockpit locker. Our keg is a folding claw and a bit on the heavy side for lobbing very far! But it did the job and over the stern I went in shorts and a T-shirt, testing the depth with a boat hook I could see it would be at about my waist.

The water was a bit on the cold side (I always say if you see me in the sea in the UK, I have fallen in!) But needs must, getting down and reaching in to the prop I was pulling handfuls of chopped up line from around the prop and rope cutter, when I was happy I had removed all the line I climbed the ladder back aboard and almost straight away started feeling hot, I dried and changed, picked up the keg and pulled “Elektra back out into deeper water using her bow anchor.

As we had to move Elektra anyway before the next low water we decided to motor across the Fal River to Channels Creek before dropping anchor again. the rest of the day I spent sleeping and dozing in the sun, lovely R&R at last!

After 80hrs of work over the last eight days it was time to get out and use “Elektra” again, some sailing and hopefully some R&R which I needed.

With high water not until 1400hrs the tide was not going to be high enough to get “Elektra” out of Carne Creek until 1300hrs, the wind was from the east and we planed to leave our punt on our mooring in Gillan Harbour before sailing across Falmouth Bay. The HW not being very high, I suggested Vicki motor out the south channel with more water under the keel (we normally use the north channel). I was on the bow stowing the anchor when Vicki motored over the submerged mooring line which stopped the engine dead! I quickly dropped the anchor again and jumped over into the dinghy to find out what the problem was.

With the aid of a boat hook, I found “Elektra’s” prop was fouled on a line, pulling on the line it parted and Elektra swung around on her anchor to face the wind, then to get the rest of the line off! I had hold of the end of the line and asked Vicki to start the engine again, started ok, I then said put her in reverse, the line un-fouled itself and I had hold of a big wad of twisted, cut and mangled rope, we were free again! We motored slowly out of Carne Creek and headed for our mooring.

The mooring was another problem, stopping to pick up the buoy in the 3-4ft swell, I quickly moored the punt and let go again before we motored out and set sail across Falmouth Bay. I had thought of setting a reef in the main but the mooring was no place to do that, so we motored out of Gillan and set just the genoa.

As it happened, it was plenty of sail on its own as we crashed off across the bay though the swell at 5-6kts with quite a bit of slamming! At times Elektra was will above 6kts pushing 7kts none of the other yachts out there at the time could catch her (Moody 376, Hallberg Rassy 34 and a She?) or just didn’t want to in the conditions. Arriving off Pendennis Point we could ease out the genoa for a more leisurely sail north up Carrick Roads. As we sailed north I went down in the cabin and could hear a bump, bump from the stern, we must still have some rope on the prop! Putting the engine control lever in to reverse stopped this, looks like we will have to dry out somewhere to clear the prop I said. We continued to sail north slower and slower until the wind died altogether just south of Turnaware Point Buoy, we rolled the genoa and motored in and anchored close to Turnaware beach where I knew I could drop the anchor on a muddy bottom, we had covered the 9.5nm in 2hrs.

The forecast for our return passage on Monday was very little wind again and it was right! We stopped twice to try to sail but where only logging 1.5kts SOG with about 1kt of tide, so we mainly motored leaving at 0830hrs and getting back into Gillan at 1250hrs having logged 23.5nm. Being a nice day we both went to sleep in the sun during the afternoon before packing up and going ashore in the punt at 1730hrs.

 

There had been a change of west country SSOA chairman, unlike last season where I was encouraged to arrange a Fowey weekend, the new chairman didn’t want it and would of stopped it if he could. I was asked by members to arrange another Fowey Rally this season but didn’t want to undermine the new chairman. But it sort of gained a momentum of its own, I thought I would contact the new chairman, to say he wasn’t happy would be understating it, we had lots of heated emails back and forth before I thought I had managed to calm the waters. Only to have the new chairman then contact the Fowey Harbour Master behind my back and tell him it was not a SSOA Sadler Rally, the HM got hold of me to say all still booked but he had changed the name of it to “Carter’s Cruise”

In the end the new chairman excepted it was going to happen but asked me not to advertise the event anywhere on SSOA website or facebook page, the word spread and I am glad to say we were not the only Sadler yacht on the pontoon.

There was a Starlight 39, 3x SL35s, Sadler 34, 2x S29s, S290, S26 and a Moody S31 all members of the SSOA but it wasn’t allowed to be a SSOA Rally. On Saturday evening all 26 of us went ashore to the Gallants SC for a meal. As far as I can tell all members enjoyed the rally.

I am hoping we will be able to make this a yearly event over the spring bank holiday weekend included in the SSOA calendar.

 

 

 

This weekend there was a planned Sadler Rally in Fowey but the wind was looking a little light, the tide stream was with us 1345-1945hrs.

Having waited for the tide to come in to get our punt out we stowed the gear and dropped the mooring at 1250hrs as crossing Falmouth Bay there was no help from the stream. We sailed for over an hour and logged just 5nm before deciding to motor sail as the chart plotter was telling us it would take until 1700hrs to get to the Dodman Pt just 9nm away.

At 1540hrs 2nm short of the Dodman Pt the wind died and I rolled the genoa and motored on a glassy sea towards Fowey, we passed Yaw Rock at 1605hrs and headed for Cannis 5nm away. Just motoring on I thought there was a wake coming in off our starboard side until I looked again, it was a large pod of Common Dolphins in line heading the other way, I dropped the control lever back to idle and Vicki and I watched them, too far away for photos but nice to see just the same.

The yacht which was following us, was now off our port side and I could see it was Chris and Julia Heath in their Starlight 39 “Etoile Filante”, I had seen them first off of Portscatho some hours before but a mile or so to the north of us, we both had to go around the Dodman Pt.  I left Vicki in the cockpit and went to the heads, then there were two VHF shouts for “Elektra” from “Etoile Filante” and “Elly Two” and when I got back to the radio they were talking to each other!

Having past Cannis Cardinal now motoring behind “EF” I had sighted the bridge of a ship heading for Fowey entrance from the harbour (towards us) I turned to starboard and motored towards the cliff, I don’t think Chris saw it but when it came into sight around the point we were both heading for the cliff.

We moored on no1 pontoon in Pont Pill at 1730hrs having logged 24nm.

We would have liked to have sailed a little longer on Sunday but we had to get back to our mooring and into the shore via our dinghy before 1400hrs due to the tide, so we just sailed across Falmouth Bay in a southeast 3, 6.5nm in 1.5hrs.