Some photos of the voyage to Scilly

Our week ended with rain and wind but luckily we were safely back in Dartmouth before it got too unpleasant and we left Maunie today before the Force 8, perhaps Severe Gale Force 9 arrives tomorrow night!

So back home (ah, well) we've a chance to post some photos of the last week:

Fergus helming in brilliant downwind conditions from Dartmouth to Fowey

Arriving at Falmouth - not much wind for the working boats' race (and they don't have engines!)

Crossing the shipping lanes off Land's End and we had to alter course to give way to this beautiful vessel,

which looks even better from this angle:

Once safely into the islands, this was our anchorage in Porth Conger:

The old lifeboat station is now The Turk's Head and the most south-westerly pub in the UK. 

We ate well there. The (inactive) lighthouse is our dream home.

Over on the exposed west coast of St Agnes, the views out to the rocks are spectacular and the boulder-strewn beaches an indication of the ferocity of the winter gales here.

Boulder-stacking seems to be a bit of a past-time here so this is our effort. Quite pleased with it!

More photos to follow! 

A shake-down cruise

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!

Sunshine sailing and a few more jobs completed

We've just had a great weekend with Rich Fetherston aboard. Rich raced on Graham's boat, Daily Telegraph, in the Round Britain Challenge way back in 2003 but has since sailed with us from Oban to Petehead, via Orkney, on our last boat. An all round good chap, so it was lovely to have him aboard Maunie. The last time he saw her was just a couple of weeks after we took ownership and, bless him, he spent a full day in the two huge and pretty filthy cockpit lockers, cleaning them up to full naval inspection standards.

No such hard graft for him this weekend - we had two excellent day-sails with plenty of good food and drink in between. La Farandole, another Vancouver 38 from Brixham, was in Dartmouth so we had drinks with owners Susan and Carlos on Saturday night and met them again for breakfast at the Cafe Alf Resco, a Dartmouth institution. The town was really busy for the annual Music Festival; we really enjoyed this classical Spanish guitarist playing on the 'double steps' pontoon.

Back to the sailing and we enjoyed near perfect conditions - bright sunshine and a steady Force 3. Ideal for Rich to hone his excellent helming skills...

 Dianne, meanwhile, adopted a supervisory role from the afterdeck:

Richard left on Sunday evening but we stayed aboard for a further day to complete some more jobs aboard. We installed a new cooker to replace the excellent but slightly old Force 10 that came with the boat and for which spares are no longer readily available (we could just foresee some nightmare in the middle of the Atlantic without a working cooker); the new one is much better insulated and uses a lot less gas. The croissants were certainly perfectly warmed!

An even more vital bit of kit is the new satellite phone so we made some mountings (offcuts of hardwood that were used for our garden hammock spreaders) for its 'brain' in the locker which also houses the autopilot computer.

The rest of the kit will be fitted next weekend, all being well.

Finally, a job we didn't want to do but had to... The diesel generator which produces up to 4kW of electricity to recharge the batteries, run the water maker and chill the fridges developed a water leak in its cooling circuit last year and I just couldn't find the source. So we called in the professionals today who unbolted the engine/alternator combinations and hefted up and out from its sound-proof cocoon, leaving just the base in the generator room:

It's currently being checked over in the Darthaven workshop and will, we hope be back aboard by the end of the week, restored to health. I suspect that the process won't be cheap!



 



First sail of the season

Maunie usually stays afloat through the winter, with just a weekend of hard graft on the scrubbing grid to clean and antifoul her bottom. So we get some winter sailing and enjoy that slightly smug feeling of watching everyone else struggling to get their boats ready for re-launching at Easter or even later. This year it's come as a bit of an unwelcome novelty, after all the winter work in the boatyard, to make our first sail as late May!

Actually we did think about it last weekend but the forecast was lousy and Dartmouth was hit by a full gale on the Saturday night. Anyway, our first daysail this weekend was worth the wait - lovely sunshine and a gentle but slightly chilly Force 3 north-easterly to allow us to remember how to sail. There were quite a few boats out and Maunie went very nicely indeed.

The only downside is that from on board we can't see her shiny new paintwork so we both did a slight double-take when mooring up alongside our new neighbour on the trot mooring. We climbed aboard 'Caicique' and looked down to see the new white hull where we're so used to seeing dark blue. We need to get some photos of her on the water!

Hands on safety training

We had a useful day at the Hamble School of Sailing a couple of Sundays ago, taking part in an Ocean Safety course. As well as lots of theory and discussion on how to deal with eventualities one would hope never to encounter, we got to fire distress flares and fire extinguishers. Useful stuff we hope never to need but another tick on the ‘things to do’ list.

 

 

Launch date!

Friday 13th passed without misshap and Maunie is now back in her natural environment; the engine started on the first push of the button and none of the new skin fittings leaked, which was good!

We launched just before high water at 11.00 and had to get a wiggle on to get down the river on a very low neap tide.

We're really pleased with the new colour scheme!

One Week to Launch

The countdown clock is ticking, so Easter weekend saw us removing Maunie's winter covers and refitting kit; a full-on four days! With a wash and polish, the dust and dirt accumulated in the yard has gone and Maunie is looking great.

We refitted the mainsail and book cover and fitted the new front boom cover that we made a couple of weeks ago.

We'll be back to Totnes on Friday to see if she still floats!