In Falmouth, watching the weather fronts roll in

The 40 mile passage from Plymouth to Falmouth was pretty uneventful, after a very peaceful night at anchor. The wind was light so we motor-sailed for most the day, the engine running on economical revs with the mainsail just helping us along by harnessing any available breeze, and we arrived at about 18.30

The phrase ‘calm before the storm’ was amply demonstrated to us on Thursday night– we had a very still evening then at about 2.00am the weather front hit us. Not a storm, it has to be said, but we were hit by a wall of wind and heavy rain that had us straining against the mooring lines. As Friday wore on, the weather eventually improved and once again we had a calm evening, with a Force 7, possibly Gale 8 forecast for Saturday night, then a calm on Sunday then another gale on Monday.

We’ve all sadly become accustomed to a rotten summer but these low pressure systems aren’t what we need right now for our passage to Spain. So we’ll sit it out for a few days and watch the forecasts carefully! We’re in the very sheltered Visitors’ Yacht Haven, just across from the excellent Maritime Museum at the moment, but will probably move to a quieter and cheaper anchorage further up the Fal Estuary at the weekend.

In spite of a full load of water, fuel and all our kit, Maunie doesn’t look too low in the water!

Stunning aerial photos of Maunie!

We’re absolutely delighted with Joe Murtagh’s brilliant shots from the helicopter – he’s got some video, too, so we’ll hope to find a way of posting that onto the blog or YouTube. Thanks Joe!

The adventure has begun!

After weeks of planning, moving, storing and saying our goodbyes we're finally off on our big adventure. We left Dartmouth at 9.00am and sailed out into Start Bay to be greeted by sunshine and a good Force 4-5 westerly wind (coming from exactly the direction we wanted to go, of course, but hey, ho).

As we headed towards Start Point we had a visitation from our friend Joe who was on a photography job in a helicopter further down the coast. He asked the pilot to do a detour and circled around us a few times from not many feet up. We've yet to see his photos of the boat (and can't wait) but here's the man at work (well, he calls it work!):

We had hoped to be flying the new Yeo Valley spinnaker as he flew over but it was just a tad too breezy for us on day 1. We'd probably have been ok but in sailing we've learned that there's a fine line between looking good and making a proper balls up of it. Incidentally, the daytime international signal on ships for 'I have run aground' is 3 balls, one above the other, hoisted up the mast - could be the origin of the 'balls up' phrase!

Having waved goodbye to Joe we sailed on for our first overnight stop in Plymouth, some 40 miles or so. We were beating to windward the whole way but still had an excellent sail with 'Winnie' (the Windpilot self-steering gear) doing some of the hard work to keep us on course whilst we consumed hot Cornish pasties and admired the view.

We've anchored in the Barn Pool in the entrance to Plymouth, looking across to the Mayflower steps where the Pilgrim Fathers embarked on their great voyage. We're starting as we mean to go on by avoiding costly marinas whenever we can (though we still use their wifi). There are a few other boats here, including a rustic but well-used ferro-cement yacht. Ferro-cement seem an unlikely boat-building material but it was very popular for self-builds since you make a wire frame of the hull, cover it with chicken wire then dollop in layers of cement. The results are often a bit rough and ready looking but the hulls are very strong. Anyway our neighbouring cement boat is called Maid of Portland, which we rather liked.

Tomorrow we'll spend the morning in the continuing quest to find logical and memorable places to stow all our belongings (the aft cabin is a temporary dumping space at the moment) then will head off for Falmouth when the tide turns in our favour around lunchtime.

We've moved aboard!

After a pretty frenetic week, the house is empty and polished ready for its first tenant; we had a viewing on Friday so our fingers are crossed. It took us two car journeys to bring our 'essentials' down to the boat so we're now scratching our heads and wondering where we'll stow it all!

After last week's gale (apparently Thursday night was really wild with white water and wind-blown spray in the harbour) the weather has calmed down. We plan to spend the next couple of days here, sorting the boat and buying food stores, before heading down to Falmouth. There we'll meet our Best Man Simon, who's a GP in Truro, to collect our medical supplies then we'll watch the forecast with great interest to find a settled 3 or 4 days to sail down to Spain.

We've had wonderful messages and cards from friends - thank you all for your support. Just got to get on with it now!

A pre-departure celebration or two

We're now only a couple of weeks from the off (though you might not believe it from the chaos at home - boxes everywhere, packing at a frantic pace!) so we decided to have a little drinks party on board Maunie at the weekend. I think we probably broke some records for the number of people aboard - at one stage the tally was 16.

L-R: Jacqui, Neil, Amanda, Sean, Karen, David, Sue, Gerard, Dianne

L-R: Neil, Jacqui, David, Karen, Andy, Lucinda, Anita, Cora, Will, Sean

Andy, Dianne, Lucinda

Dianne, Cora, Tim, Will, Anita

With a glass or two of champagne to celebrate our voyage it was great to have friends aboard and it was a great opportunity to show people our floating home.

It's not been all champagne and strawberries though. During last weekend's sail we discovered a leak from the deck above the galley as we beat to windward with waves washing over the leeward deck. We found the source but getting to it involved taking apart the locker above the cooker and we then discovered that the microwave (yes we have one of those aboard!) was pretty rusty, indicating that this leak has been dripping gently for a while.

A new microwave cooker has been purchased and fitted and the leak sealed; a job we weren't expected but better to find it now than when we're in mid-ocean!

The Atlantic Crew Meet and the Parasailor Flies!

We've had a weekend with Fergus and Rich (the brave crew joining us for the Atlantic crossing in November) aboard Maunie. It was the first time they had met (luckily they seem to get on!) and on the Saturday we went out for a sail from Dartmouth in bright sunshine and a Force 4-5 north-westerly. This provided us with the first opportunity to fly the new Parasailor spinnaker.

As you'll see from the photos, it's a novel sail - part spinnaker, part paraglider. It has an inflating 'wing' across an open slot in the upper third of the sail which makes it very stable and generates some lift at the bow of the boat. The slot also allows any sudden gusts of wind to vent through it, making it much more resistant to the sort of conditions we're likely to encounter in mid-Atlantic.

The sail also has a certain logo that you may recognise! We really needed another boat close by to take photos of us.

We're really pleased with the sail - the boat was very stable and went like a train. The wind got up a bit so getting the sail down a bit dramatic. We had a long beat back to Dartmouth for a well-deserved meal at the Royal Castle.

Here's the crew

Rich

Fergus

Us

On-board pirate (made by our friend Jenny in the village)

We're now back home madly packing and sorting the house. All being well we will move aboard in a couple of weeks - yikes!

Progess Update

Well, we're in full-on preparation mode now! Maunie was ashore at Baltic Wharf in Totnes again for a few days to have some rigging work done under warranty. It was also an opportunity for us to inspect the antifouling capabilities of our new 'Coppercoat' after 4 months afloat - we're glad to report that all was well, with no nasties adhering to the hull!

Whilst we had access to some technical help at the yard, we installed a 60-litre fuel tank (one of the many bits that came with the boat) in an almost-made-to-measure space in the bilges. It now serves as a reserve diesel tank (with about 15 hours worth of motoring) but has its own separate fuel filter system; this will be a great safety feature since it allows us to switch over immediately if the main fuel filter gets blocked (it can happen if you're unlucky enough to take on contaminated fuel).

Filling the new fuel tank from a jerrycan

Maunie's now back on the mooring and Richard and Fergus (crew for the ARC transatlantic crossing in November) are joining us for a weekend soon. It'll be a great opportunity for us to get some sailing in, do a few safety exercises and plan how we'll run the boat. Not that it's a democracy, of course; the captain's word is law!

Meanwhile, back at home we're in the process of packing. We're incredibly fortunate to have access to some storage units whilst we're away so have done the first delivery runs with bikes, tools and furniture. Lots more to do but we now have one completely empty bedroom to use as a place to assemble all the things we'd like to squeeze into the boat!