We’re on an 8-day shake-down cruise; our last extended sailing trip before we head for the Canaries at the end of August. It’s been a great opportunity to check that all the things we’ve added or changed over winter work ok and to plan how we’ll stow everything aboard for our big trip.
So far, everything looks pretty good aboard Maunie. The generator was refitted, its water leak sorted, though we now find it has a small fuel leak to be attended to when we get back to Dartmouth. The installation of the new water-maker is nearly completed (I’ve been doing an hour here and there to plumb it in) and the new chart-plotter (a free upgrade from Raymarine after we suffered various faults with its predecessor is brilliant. More importantly we’ve had some fantastic sailing!!
We were joined for the first weekend by Fergus, who’s signed on as crew for the ARC in November. Incidentally, Rich, who came for a weekend’s sail as described in the last blog, has also signed up for the ARC so we’ll be a crew of 4 which will be ideal. Fergus is a great sailor (he and Graham raced Laser 2 dinghies at Oxford and did a couple of memorable bareboat charters in Turkey together) and the Saturday forecast of Force 6-7 easterly was a perfect introduction to the kind conditions we may experience on the Atlantic crossing, complete with Dolphins but without the 15ft swell. We had a superb reach and run down to Fowey, with Maunie taking the downwind conditions in her stride, even when the anemometer showed a few Force 8 gusts around the headlands.
After a meal on the mooring in Fowey we turned in early for a 6.30am departure the following morning, to catch the favourable tide. The wind wasn’t favourable, however, more nonexistent so we motored the 25 miles into Falmouth, arriving just as a fleet of Falmouth working boats were ghosting along in a race just off St Mawes.
Fergus returned home by train and we headed on west. Our original plan to sail to Brittany was aborted by a forecast for three days of light or southerly winds so instead we decided to take advantage of the settled weather to go to the Isles of Scilly. On Monday we did a six hour passage to Newlyn then had a 5.15am start of Tuesday to cross to Scilly in light winds, motoring for much of the passage, anchoring in the beautiful Porth Conger between Gugh and St Agnes at 11.00. The afternoon gave us the chance to explore St Agnes which is delightfully unspoiled; the weather-beaten rocks and boulder-strewn beaches on the western side give you an idea of the effects of winter storms here. Recreational stone-stacking seems to be a bit of a pastime here so this is our effort:
Wednesday saw the settled weather continue so we motored over to St Mary’s harbour to get provisions in the islands’ capital town before anchoring in St Helen’s Pool which is between Tresco and St Martin’s, surrounded by rocks and accessible only by crossing sand bars at a suitable rise of tide. A few boat jobs completed, we dinghied ashore onto the uninhabited St Helen’s to climb the hill to take in the view then circumnavigated Tean before supper.
Finally, so far, yesterday we had one of those sails that will definitely go into the Top 10. We left Scilly at 9.00am for return to Falmouth, the spinnaker went up at 10.00 and stayed up for over 7 hours until we reached the Manacles Rocks buoy on the way into Falmouth. We had a consistent Force 4 on a beam reach (the fastest point of sailing) so clocked over 8 knots regularly with a peak at a whisker under 9. Now for those of us used to motorway speeds, 9 knots (about 10mph) may not seem fast but for 14 tonnes of boat (the weight of a sizeable laden lorry) powered only by sail, it’s a very good result!
Sorry, slightly dodgy internet connection so can't upload the photos at the moment - hope to get them loaded at the weekend!
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