Love Sailing

After a horrible 24hrs anchored in Cawsands, wet, windy and rolly! The electronics company had got hold of me to say Garmin hadn’t posted the units until Friday before the bank holiday weekend and they weren’t expecting them before Thursday. So we said we would carry on east and arrange something on our return west in about a week.

The forecast for Wednesday was westerly force 4 gusting 6. We thought that looked less wind than the last 2 sailing days. The plan was to sail to Salcombe, l thought about 4hrs away. I pulled up the anchor about 0610hrs and Vicki motored Elektra out of Cawsands while l stowed the anchor, cleaned the deck and did the first log entry. There didn’t seem much wind as we headed across Plymouth Sound towards Bolt Head, but only 10mins later l had stopped Elektra’s engine and logging 5kts on just her genoa. Things hotted up by the time we passed the Mew Stone off the  Yealm River, Elektra was logging 5.5-6.5kts SOG, the sea was big and rolling in from the southwest even with the westerly wind.

With in 2hrs of leaving,  l had decided with this southwest swell and Salcombe halfway through the ebb tide, l didn’t fancy going in the entrance, so had decided to carry on to Dartmouth.

We were seeing speeds of as much as 8.5kts at times, the tiller pilot couldn’t cope, so alot of the time l had to helm. Once past Salcombe the swell died away a bit but the wind was still blowing, 26-30kts! I had kept well south of the land from Bolt Tail to Start Point and it looked like l was sailing into the path  of a oncoming ship as we neared Start Point, but with a jibe and some adjustment to the sail, l showed her my intentions to keep clear. I expected Skerries Bank to be breaking white, but the sea had calmed down by then, even if the wind was still blowing!

On along beside the Skerries Bank and even when we turned towards Dartmouth the wind was still good into the Dart entrance. We were there by 1200hrs and started the engine having logged 34nm plus another 2nm to get moored to a pontoon by 1230hrs. I say what a passage, one to go down in my memories as to why we love to sail!

With another strong wind warning, skippers at the pontoon party were discussing what time each were leaving! The forecast of westerly force 4-5 and southwest 5-7 later. Most skippers were going east but Rob and Mandy wanted to go back southwest to Falmouth.

We were also going east to Cawsands and we were the first to cast off at 0610hrs. While Vicki motored Elektra south out of Fowey entrance l coiled the lines and retreaved the fenders and took over the helm from Vicki as we exited. I set up the tiller pilot and set course for Udder Buoy our first way point. Which we  passed at 0650hrs, the sea was moderate but not enough wind to sail by, so we continued to motor. By 0730hrs we were motor sailing to help stop the rolling. And 10 minutes later l had stopped the engine.

From there the sailing was very good with the occasional surfing waves and  seeing 6-7kts on the plotter. With the wind increasing after 0830hrs my last full entry in the log, the log got a little sketchy as l couldn’t leave the helm anymore. But Vicki jotted down that we passed Rame Head at 0917hrs. Vicki had to come out into the cockpit to the helm so l could pull the genoa though as we jibed onto a port tack to turn into Plymouth Sound. By this time the sea was very rough, but the jibe went well and we headed for and passed Day Stone buoy at 0950hrs. As we turned towards Cawsands the wind disappeared very quickly, we rolled the sail and motored in dropping anchor 4hrs after casting off in Fowey having logged 20nm.

Rob and Mandy motor sailed Sununu back to Falmouth over the same time period. Kevin also planning to head west stayed in Fowey for a few more days in his Sadler 26. But everyone else coming east to Plymouth area enjoyed the same good sailing. Afterwards on our WhatsApp group we seemed to all have enjoyed ourselves. I suggested another song for the pontoon party’s “rocking rolling riding” lol 😆

Vicki had a doctor appointment in Truro at 1530, we were hoping to get aboard and away from Gillan by 1900hrs, but l think we were wishing!

We had hoped to get away before the strong winds forecasted for Saturday 24th, but by the time we did get aboard it was 1930hrs and it took us another hour to stow everything by which time we both wanted a rest. The forecast for Saturday was westerly force 4-5 increasing south westerly force 6-7 later.

We had a Sadler Rally in Fowey to get to and so we planned to get away first light. The wind howled all night and l couldn’t sleep, so at 0400hrs before the alarm went off, l got out and got Elektra ready to leave. I told Vicki to stay put. Without starting the engine, l dropped the mooring at 0445hrs before first light, pulled out the genoa and set off for Fowey. With the tiller pilot in control, l started pulling out fenders and lines for later in Fowey and before the wind gets up! At times Elektra was logging 5.5kt sailing away from the sheltered shore, l was thinking this could get quite nasty later, but as the miles slipped by the wind didn’t get any stronger, in fact it seem to get less.

We had stayed off the Dodman Point because l expected to see overfalls with wind against tide and after turning towards Fowey the wind seemed to improve for a couple of miles. But once we started to cross St Austell Bay the wind dropped off again to 6-8kts. It was at this point in lumpy swells and only logging 2.5kts, l decided it was time to start the engine and motor. We motored past Cannis Buoy at 1005hrs and moored up next to Rob and Mandy at 1030hrs having logged 24nm.

After the end of the easterly winds we could finally move Elektra out onto her seasonal mooring in Gillan Harbour. With plans of getting away again from Friday evening, so over high water l moved Elektra out onto her mooring. It was a lovely day and l thought l would go for a sail.

With a forecast of north westerly 4, and the wind blowing from the west inside the creek. I pulled up the main with a reef and sailed off the mooring leaving the dinghy on the mooring for later. As l turned Elektra northeast around Carcock east cardinal off Gillan Harbour l set a reefed genoa. Leaving the tiller pilot in control l set the sails and after one gust rolled a little more genoa in. I had noticed the electronics had decided to work today and l was playing with them unaware that a modern similar size yacht was passing Elektra to windward. I can’t have that l thought and took the helm from the pilot, game on!

Modern yachts sit on the water, more like sailing dinghies with a cabin than Elektra which sits in the water. Modern yachts tent to be quick because of this fact. And this modern yacht also had carbon racing sails but Elektra wasn’t going let her leave her behind. Over only about 4nm Elektra didn’t let her go and Elektra was pointing so much better as when we got into the Carrick Roads the modern yacht was half a nm downwind. And before she needed to tack south of St Mawes Castle had decided to motor back to Mylor.

Elektra had followed a center cockpit Southerly 42 into the  Carrick Roads which l come from Fowey direction. We both tacked under St Mawes Castle and headed on a starboard tack towards Falmouth Harbour, tacking again by Falmouth Harbour breakwater, the next heading was towards St Just in Roseland, Elektra was pointing well heading for what looked like an anchored work boat, as l got a bit closer l could see it was working on a ships mooring buoy and flying a dive flag, so l gave her good clearance. Afterwards coming hard on the wind again, the Southerly still on the same tack and about 1/4nm ahead sailed quite a bit north of St Just before tacking towards Mylor. Elektra was pointing much better and sailed 3/4nm north of St Just before tacking. That little bit more made all the difference. The Southerly had to tack at the Mylor moorings but Elektra was north of Mylor moorings and could continue on nearly up to the coast before tacking again.

The Southerly couldn’t make it past Turnaware Point on her tack, so decided not to tack again, but started her engine and motored north. Elektra had a good line  and was following her towards Turnaware Buoy. But l wanted to get back to Gillan. So l rolled away the genoa and dropped the mainsail, packed away the main and then pulled out all the genoa and headed back south down the Carrick Roads. Much more sedately than before running on a broad reach south and then south-southwest across Falmouth Bay to Gillan Harbour. I picked up her mooring 3.5hrs after dropping having logged 18nm.

Then to pack up, it took me 1.5hrs to get ready to leave Elektra and by that time the tide had gone out, so it took me longer once ashore.

Vicki thought l was lost when l got home, like l said there’s normally 2 of us to pack up!

Just to prove the weather forecasters can get it right sometimes, the sun shone all day Sunday and we enjoyed it! With the east winds still bringing the cooling eliment, as long as we kept out of the wind the cockpit was a sun trap.

We needed to head back home on Monday, and with high water at 1015hrs and only 4″ depth of clearance under the keel in Carne Creek where Elektra needed to be because of the east winds, meant we needed to leave early. So before the end of the day, I lifted the outboard from the dinghy to the pushpit.

On Monday, I pulled the anchor up at 0735hrs, and Vicki motored Elektra back down the Precuil River and once out past the mooring at St Mawes, I just set the genoa, slow at first in the shelter of St Anthony Head, around 3.5kts we headed for Gillan, things soon hotted up once out of the shelter and Elektra was logging 5.5-5.8kts as we headed across the bay in moderate seas, Vicki said “who needs a mainsail in these condisions?” Not Elektra, that’s for sure!

Ever since buying Elektra and sailing her for the first time back in March 2017, she had impressed me. She can do 3kts though the water in 6kts of wind under full sail, she is a little tender in stronger winds and dosn’t need much sail to perform very well indeed, and fast, she will keep up with many yachts which are much bigger than her. Our last yacht a Hurley 22 was very stiff and it needed to be the top end of a force 5 before putting in the first reef, the problem with her was, in winds of less than force 4 we had to motor her, so her engine was used a lot.

Elektra crossed Falmouth Bay very quickly and we arrived in Gillan early at 0855hrs, I had woked out the earliest we would be able to get her onto her mooring in Carne Creek was 0915hrs, so rolling away her genoa Vicki motored her in slowly up the channel in Carne Creek before turning into wind towards the mooring, still only 0905hrs Elektra runs aground before we get to the mooring buoy. I tell Vicki to keep the engine in forward, all we could do was wait for her to float again, at 0915 bang on the time I had worked out she moved forward and I picked up the buoy up.

Vicki got busy in the cabin packing up and I lowered the dinghy off its davits, and engine from pushpit to dinghy. Once done used the joining line to pull the the stern strop onto her aft cleats. Then I help Vicki with the packing and lifting the bags into the cockpit. Within an hour of arriving on the mooring, we were leaving Elektra by dinghy for the shore and then home in pickup for showers.

Now into our 9th day aboard, the plan was to sail back to the Falmouth area. The forecast was NE force 3-4, then becoming E4 in the west. The tidal stream wouldn’t be with us until midday but as its a long passage we pulled up the anchor early.

Without a working depth sounder, we could only use the chart plotter as a guide to depth when we arrived last evening, we anchored in the 5m contour line and with a 4.5m high water had use nearly all the 40m of 8mm anchor chain. I have found out in the past, if anchored in depth of over 8m l need to use the windless to bring the chain and anchor back aboard. This was one of those days, normally pulling the chain up hand over hand, it’s a very quick process but using the windless is slow going with 40m of chain out as the chain has to cleared from the deck at the same time as its winched up. I knew when the anchor pulled out of the bottom as it suddenly got easier to turn the windless. The anchor had set well because it came up with a hole lot of sandy/mud stuck to it, so l plunged it up and down a bit to clear while Vicki got Elektra under way.

It was 0700hrs when l wrote in the log and 10mins later we were rounding Daystone and setting chart plotter for St Anthony WP 33nm to the west. I had pulled up the main sail while Vicki motored to Daystone and once turned onto track l set her genoa and stopped the engine. And went below to get the tiller pilot. Once set up Vicki went down below and slept a bit longer, leaving me to play with the sails. The wind was almost dead behind and l found the best speed was goose winged which l ran with for the next 3hrs on calm seas. By which time we had covered 10nm. But with the sea starting a swell and Elektra rolling bit, it was safer to lower the main and just sail on her genoa.

But by 1110 the wind had died away and we had started motoring in a rolling corkscrew sea. We could only motor at 4kts as the rolling motion was too much if going faster.

By 1310hrs an onshore breeze had developed from the south and we had started motor sailing to ease the rolling and by 1325, l had pulled the mainsail back up and we were sailing again, having stopped the engine. From there until 1600hrs when we got to our WP it was great sailing. By 1630hrs we had dropped anchor in the Precuil River having logged 37nm. Not the fastest passage but at least we sailed most of the way.

The evening was lovely in the cockpit, l was sleepy.

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.

We enjoyed the next day off in the Yealm River, while l arranged berth in Mayflower Marina for Elektra on Thursday.

Being a member of the CA, l could get 50% off one night every month, that was quite a saving off the full price of £41 per night.

I emailed Keith of PR Systems to say we were now in Plymouth area they had already agreed to do the work but we hadn’t fixed the day. We agreed on Thursday.

And so on Wednesday about an hour before low water we cast off at 1300hrs and slowly motored Elektra out of the Yealm River and once clear of the entrance set the genoa alone towards Mayflower Marina only 7-8nm away. There wasn’t any hurry and in the lovely weather, it was nice to be just doodling along. At 1500hrs l got on the VHF ch80 to the marina. Bit of a slight panic as l didn’t know the exact layout of the marina when the reply was “your on B26, fenders and lines to starboard” But zooming the chart plotter, l could see the layout and so Vicki motored Elektra slowly in the right direction will l got busy doing the lines and fenders. The marina guy was there to take lines as we arrived.

Since we last went in a marina, back in 2018, Vicki has become less able. I used to do the engine when mooring and Vicki would do the lines and fenders. But we the reverse roles, we were both very thankful of the marina help when we arrived.

The marina guy, handed me the marina guide, and we sorted Elektra out before going for showers and into the office to pay.

With water available from a hose, it was to big an opportunity to miss, and so l filled up her water tank! But with the free shore power, l didn’t hook up, because Elektra’s solar charging system does all her needs.

After my shower l was sitting drinking a pint in “Jolly Jack’s” waiting for Vicki to get back from her shower. And Keith emailed to say the marina guys will take your lines when you get here. I replied “all done, l am having a pint in Jolly Jack’s. We agreed time tomorrow for them to start work.

Next day we were planning to get to the Yealm River, the forecast was for the east winds to pick up from midday, so we planned to get away first light. We needed to get to Plymouth for PR Systems who fitted  Elektra’s new Garmin electronics during the winter, to get them working properly. It was more a case of getting there than enjoying the passage.

I got out at 0500hrs and rowed the dinghy over to a visitor pontoon and emptied the rain water from the night. Then back to Elektra and lift dinghy onto her davits. And get Elektra ready to leave. Vicki stayed in the bunk and l cast off at 0540hrs, motoring Elektra out of Fowey there wasn’t any wind, and so turning east we continued to motor passing “Udder Buoy” at 0620hrs and setting chart plotter for the Mew Stone of the Yealm River and letting the tiller pilot steer, we passed Rame Head at 0836hrs with 5nm left to go. I dropped anchor at Cellar Bay inside the entrance to the Yealm River at 1000hrs to let the tide slow a little in the River before making our way in.

Vicki cooked brunch which we ate before moving in at 1200hrs. Moored to a pontoon by 1220hrs we went for showers, after which we enjoyed the lovely sunny weather in Elektra’s cockpit  for the rest of the day. And l slept away some of the afternoon.