Monday 11 March 2024

Of chopsticks, power boats and crowded bars

So, Saturday morning was the usual hour of karate, followed by lunch in town with Nikki. Nothing fancy, just Wagamama, but it's comfort food and I get a kick out of chasing stray noodles around my bowl of ramen with a pair of chopsticks.

Then home to change the strings on a couple of guitars and then out to a gig at The Star in Wotton-Under-Edge. We played there last summer, out in their garden as part of their beer and cider festival. I remember there wasn't much room, and a dire need to keep the noise levels down so as to not upset the neighbours. but despite that, it turned into a crowded, lively and energetic gig.


This time around, it being March, we were indoors. A quick search on google tells me that the pub dates back to around 1572. It's a deceptively large pub, but with lots of nooks and crannies and corners and walls and interconnected rooms. At first sight, not the most conducive place to set up a four piece band for a gig. The back wall of the area we were playing in was two or three meters away from the front line of our PA, at most.

Despite that, they crowded in and we all had a great night. Really hope to play there again. Although with only a couple of Saturdays still left free in the band's diary for this year, it might have to be next year now.

It was also a late night; with the band coming off the stage a shade before midnight, an hour to pack up and forty minutes to get home, I didn't get to bed much before 0300.

And was up and back on the road again for 0900 Sunday morning.


I haven't spent much time at the sailing club this year. A couple of weeks ago, I put a Sunday aside from my regular trips down to Plymouth to take the Albacore out with Amanda. In the week leading up to that, the club committee collared her, and suggested that as she'd already sailed a race in the Chilli Dogs series, she should take a turn at running one. 

Which would've left me without her company and, potentially, without crew for the Albacore. So we agreed a trade. They found somebody else to run the race, Amanda sailed with me, and in return I took a duty this weekend running the Safety Boat.


Other than the discomfort of dragging myself out of bed after just a few hours sleep, it was no great hardship. The company was good, the racing, as always, interesting to watch, and the rain held off until after we'd put the boats away and were heading home.

South Cerney have increased the duty commitment of racing members that don't "buy out" of their turns to five duties a year. It feels like a bit of a burden; essentially, I'm down for Safety Boat every Wednesday evening from the beginning of July through to the beginning of August, so if, as is likely, I'm away or otherwise committed through the weekends of those two months, I won't actually get to sail my Laser or our Albacore for over a month through the summer.


The club is having trouble filling the duty roster, so I understand why they've done it. But I do wonder how much of an impact allowing members to "buy out" has on that. They also have quite a heavy racing calendar, with regular events on a Wednesday evening, Saturday afternoon and all day on a Sunday through the summer. The Saturdays and Sunday afternoons are not heavy on attendance. It occurs to me that they could lighten the duty roster load by dropping them, with minimal impact.

I shall see how this year goes. If the new boat in Plymouth impacts my weekends as much as I expect she shall, I might look around at the end of the season for another club with less of a duty commitment, that preferably doesn't allow it's more well-heeled members to buy out of the obligation.

Which would be a shame, because I like South Cerney.  



Thursday 7 March 2024

three balls up


Photos started appearing on social media earlier this week of a ship aground on the sands of the Severn Estuary between my old haunt of Lydney Yacht Club and Sharpness.

photo: kris upfold

According to local news (Gloucester Live), the EMS Servant, out of Santander in sunny Spain, misjudged her approach to Sharpness Dock on Monday and ended up aground on Saniger Sands. The bank and therefore the channel has, according to local knowledge, shifted recently. As sandbanks in the Bristol Channel are wont to do.

photo: kris upfold

It would be inane to suggest the estuary is forgiving, but the sands are soft. Initial attempts to tow the ship off failed, so she sat there, intact and unharmed with the crew remaining aboard until she could refloat. Tuesday was a neap tide, so she was stuck a couple of days, but I read this morning that she's now safely in Sharpness.


The cargo ship is 325' long. And there's I worrying about manoeuvring Petrella's 36' of length in and out of her berth.


I've blatantly lifted the above photos of the ship from a Facebook Group called Dursley Matters where they were posted by a Kris Upfold. I've not troubled him for permission but hope the credit and link back will suffice, by way of apology. The remaining photos are, of course, my own, from various past visits to Lydney, looking out over the sands where the EMS Servant ran aground.

Monday 4 March 2024

Petrella: for the simpicity of a bucket


Weather looked lovely for Sunday morning. After a bleary start but an easy drive, Dad and I made it to Plymouth for 0930 to find blue skies and a dead calm, but a promise of wind (and showers) later. There had clearly been some weather across the last couple of weeks though, as the snubber on the stern line had failed. QAB is hard on snubbers.

The original hope had been for a couple of hours sailing in the Sound, but on getting to the boat, we quickly noticed we had a problem with the forward heads. It's a standard Jabsco, a marine toilet with a very basic hand pump that sucks water into the bowl and then, at the throw of a switch, reverses and flushes the contents out.

Unfortunately, it was pumping out, but failing to pump in.

So the promise of a couple of hours sailing turned into a morning, and then an afternoon, of servicing the heads. Without much success. Amusingly, what we first thought to be a hairline crack and therefore likely cause of our pumping woes, turned out to be a stray dog hair.


We had a service pack, with requisite o-rings and replacement valves amongst the ships spares, and Dad, armed with a screwdriver, attacked the project with the requisite enthusiasm. Being an engineer's son, I'm not allowed to drive the screwdriver unless he's not about, or the job requires work at heights, or, in extremes, access to particularly cramped spaces involving an unseemly degree of flexibility, contortion and acrobatics. 

Otherwise, it's Dad domain and my role is reduced to occasionally handing him said screwdriver, holding a torch, or working out where he put the spanner he was using.

I'd like to say the operation was a success. But valves and o-rings duly replaced, the pump unit spewed water out of all its seams, anywhere in fact, except into the bowl. A disassemble and reassemble and a short while later, the same result. And so went the morning into the afternoon.

By the end of the day, we were back to where we'd started, albeit with new valves and o-rings. We did, briefly, clear what appeared to be an airlock in the intake and have water pumping in, only for the seal on the pump to fail again, and for it to spray everywhere but where it was supposed to go.

Then, after leaving it briefly to stand, the intake failed again. So we're left with a forward heads that can pump out but can't pump in. Which is vexing.

Oh for the simplicity of a bucket. Which is what we might be reduced to if we can't find somebody to fix it before we're away to Fowey for the weekend in a couple of weeks time.


In other news, I did use the time between handing Dad his screwdriver and looking for his spanner, when I wasn't needed to hold the torch, working on an arrangement for our stern spring. It's an idea I've stolen from an older gentleman in Brixham, after watching him take his lovely 36' Hallberg-Rassy out and then later bring her back in single-handed.

Anti-chaffing hose to make a fixed loop at the working end, a length of pipe to provide some rigidity to the affair, then a bowline mid way along the length. The idea being that, on coming back in, I can easily and quickly drop the working end over the pontoon cleat, then the mid-length bowline over our mid ships cleat, which will let me hold the boat to the pontoon by motoring ahead against it whilst we secure the remaining lines.

Monday 26 February 2024

happily inconsequential


A good weekend. Took Lottie out for a walk around the park as usual after work Friday but with no other plans for the evening, had a lazy night. Saturday morning had the usual hour of karate, didn't hurt anybody, didn't get hurt. Saturday afternoon took Nik and Lottie out to lunch at one of our favourite pubs.

Saturday evening had a gig, our third of the year and what actually felt like our first in a while. 50th birthday party, went down a storm with an absolutely lovely, mad crowd. Funny how we seem to have grown into our demographic. Only took thirty years.


During training earlier that morning, I distinctly remember thinking whilst warming up with the usual stretches how lovely it was that nothing currently hurt. Back good, shoulders good, knees good, elbows good, ankles good, hips good. These days it feels like a happy bonus to get all six in a row.


About half an hour before we were about to go on Saturday evening, my lower back began to hurt. It got progressively worse through the evening. Nothing crippling, just slowing and annoyingly inconvenient. The band were very kind in looking after me and carrying out all the heavy stuff at the end of the evening.

Sunday morning I got up early and headed to the lake to meet Amanda. We cracked ice off the covers and rigged the Albacore to race. A fleet of ten boats, two races, we sailed a total of 7.5nm around the cans over the next couple of hours.

First race, a pursuit, was a bit grim. We finished an ignominious second from last. The wind was a fresh 10 knots from the south east, building across the course of the race. By the start of the second race, a general handicap, it was blowing 13 knots with some tasty gusts blowing through; we clocked our highest speed at 9.8 knots.

The wind direction forced a reaching start, with the wind blowing down the start line, as at this time of year all the racing is run from the committee hut ashore. With the sacrifice of fine control and the inevitable confusion over rights, such always makes for some amusement. 

We intentionally started at the leeward end of the line, clear of everybody else, relying on our faster boat speed to push out and past the rest of the fleet, who were bunched up on each other to the windward end of the line. It paid off, and we made it first to the windward mark, just on the inside of the single Solo that had managed to keep us company, the rest of the fleet coming up on the mark rounding in a single, chaotic lump.


The good start paid dividend, and we redeemed the disgrace of our first race result with a clear win in the second. 

The sailing done, and my back loosening up nicely, I headed home to pick up a guitar and then out to Cheltenham with Dad and Nikki for an open mic at the Cotswold. Caught up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while, played a few songs with a few friends, new and old. Drank a few too many beers and generally had a lovely evening. 

It was an early start, so a relatively early finish to the evening, so Nik and I were home again in time to order a Chinese for supper, and finished the day with me unintentionally falling asleep in my chair watching Spooks.

So, all in all, a happy sequence of inconsequential events; a good weekend.


Wednesday 21 February 2024

a quality of light


One of the (dubious) advantages of the short days around this time of the year is that by the time I finish work and get a chance to take Lottie over the park, it's dusk. One of my favourite times of the day at any time of the year, for the quality of the light, and every once in a while we're graced by a pretty sunset. 

Such as was the other evening.

Went down to Plymouth after work on Friday evening to spend the night aboard Petrella with Nikki and Lottie. Couldn't really sail anywhere as had to be at Heathrow for 0700 Sunday morning to pick up my brother from the airport. £12.50 to take my car into the London low emissions zone, that has crept out now to include the airport. £5.00 to the airport for the privilege of driving into their drop-off zone to grab my brother from where he was waiting on the pavement outside the terminal.

It's nice to have Jamie back, and I owe him more than one airport run, but forgive me if I feel a little robbed. Both of these tolls had to be paid online as well, so as well as robbed, inconvenienced, by having to track down the appropriate sites online where I could pay the relevant levies and having to remember to do it.

Our first gig in what feels like an age is next Saturday. Racing at on the lake with Amanda Sunday, which will be a nice change as I haven't made it to the sailing club since early December. Two gigs the following Friday and Saturday, and then I plan to head down to Plymouth again on the Sunday to check on Petrella. Whether that will be a chance to sail, or just more odd jobs and maintenance, I don't know.

Our next planned trip is, hopefully, an overnight out and back to Fowey in mid-March, the weekend following Cheltenham Race Week.

Conscious I've been relying on friends to assist on all the occasions I've so far taken her out, and friends are always welcome, but really I think we need get over that and Dad and I take her out ourselves at some point. It won't get easier unless we actually do it.

This last weekend a friend wrote

To life.  

And pushing as hard as you can as long as you can and being grateful for whatever moments of peace you find.

A sentiment I adore, so I'm quoting it here for no other reason than that. Thank you, Webb.

Monday 12 February 2024

bubbles


I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun Saturday. 

If I resented the weekend's commitments interfering with my ambitions to go sailing, I was able to salve said resentment by shooting the kids with a bow and very padded arrows in a game they called "dodge-ball archery", and barging them off their feet whilst wearing an inflatable rubber sphere in a game apparently called "bubble football".

I've never been very good at football, but of (semi) contact sport I have had some small experience over the last decade or two. And in bubble football, it seems the trick is very definitely to play the man, and not the ball.

I even scored a goal.

Thursday 8 February 2024

ebb tide


I had planned to sail weekend of the 16th. I can't this coming weekend due to family commitments; eldest boy is getting married end of March and what used to be a stag night for him or a hen night for her is now an entire damned weekend. Entitled yoof, is all I have to say to that.

But I am expected to attend. In Ben's defence, his stag (it can, for reasons above, no longer be accurately called a stag night these days) is only the Saturday, albeit the whole day and night that follows. However, I still need to provide transport for my wife and daughter to wherever the bride-to-be is having her hen. A barn in Chew Magna somewhere apparently. For the whole weekend.

So no sailing for me this weekend. If I sound bitter, I'm not really. The kids are only going to get married the once. Or so we hope, anyway. And Ben being Ben, they've been mostly self contained about it, so it's had minimal impact on me so far.

So I had thought to take the following weekend out with the boat. Head over to Fowey and back for the weekend, weather permitting. I've missed Fowey.

However, my brother's recent holiday to visit his wife's family in Indonesia was unexpectedly extended, as poor Arya's mum was taken very poorly whilst they were out there, and remains so. So Jamie arrives home on the morning of Sunday 18th, and will need somebody to pick him up from the airport. Dad wants to do it, but wants some help with the driving.

So no sailing away to Cornwall for me that weekend, either.

If I sound bitter, I'm really, really not. Transport to and from airports is something that's more than in the gift of a brother to ask and expect, and he'd do it, and has done it, for me in a shot. I'll be glad to have him home, and really feel for his wife Arya, her poor mum and all their extended family. I'm not sure if Arya's coming back with him on the 18th or not.

So it's a small thing set against the greater trials of life and pressures of family.

But I am really missing the sea. I want to sail, but it feels at the moment like every chance to do so is vexed.


Lottie and I went for a walk on Brean Sands last weekend. We did see the sea, but only in brief. The tide was on the ebb, and in the Bristol Channel, that makes for a fast retreat.

Thursday 18 January 2024

Yopparai Kyabetsu


I read the sad news last night that a friend of mine, Yopparai Kyabetsu, passed away early Monday morning. I first met Yopp (aka. Mitch Vire) in the late 90's through a game we both played online, but the friendship long outlasted and outgrew our involvement with that. 

Yopp was one of life's eccentrics; a joker and a clown, with a boundless imagination and a compassionate heart big enough to embrace life and everything and everyone with it. Multi-talented, he was a singer and a songwriter, a storyteller and musician, a unicyclist, a walker and a kayaker, a mechanic, a carpenter, a blacksmith and a bus driver. He had an infectious enthusiasm and an insatiable curiosity. He was also a mean hand with a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool. 

And a ukulele. 

Like a number of folks I consider my good friends, I've never met Yopp in person. Separate continents separated by an ocean, we met online and remained friends online. He was a friend and an inspiration, one of life's bigger characters, and I shall miss him.

Wednesday 17 January 2024

Petrella: Brixham to Plymouth


I ditched out of work early Friday afternoon, met up with Dad at his and we drove down in our separate vehicles to Queen Anne’s Battery in Plymouth, where we left his car and drove on together in mine back to Brixham. The roads were not quiet and the detour to leave a car in Plymouth added an extra hour to our journey, but on account of my skipping the last office hours of the day to make an early start, we still made it to Brixham in time to have a last meal and a beer at The Prince William

Back on the boat, I helped Dad retrieve our pontoon fenders and stored them in the rope locker. After a bit of trial and error I then manged to plot and save a course for Plymouth on the Raymarine installed at the helm. Then I took the cockpit tent down and stowed it in the a locker in the aft cabin to give us one less thing to worry about in the morning.

Despite having the course set up on the plotter in the cockpit, before turning in for the night I then set the same up on the plotter app I’ve always used on my tablet. I’m always more comfortable with as much redundancy as possible when trying anything new.

Although, to be fair, we could easily find our way to Plymouth from Brixham without any of this gadgetry; just head out of Torbay, turn right at Berry Head and don’t hit Start Point.

HW Plymouth was 0658 with 5.6m of water; a new moon and a tidal range of 4.6m between low water and high was slight by Bristol Channel standards, but it was still a spring tide. One that would see a couple of knots of tidal stream flowing past Start Point at its peak and the potential of overfalls, despite the relatively calm day anticipated ahead. 

In this part of the English Channel, the tide turns fair for the west three hours after HW Plymouth, so slack water off Start Point would be around 1100. The wind was forecast for about 8 knots ENE, which would put it dead astern until we rounded Salcombe. 

There was a distinct chill in the air the following morning at 0600 when I reluctantly emerged from my bunk in the dark. Up top, the temperature was hovering around freezing and there was still enough of a breeze left to rattle the rigging, but the swell that had been pushing into the marina overnight and had rocked me gently to sleep had eased. 

The gusty tail of the weather that had blown through the night before was still lingering. I checked my phone and found a message from our friend Dan confirming he was on his way to meet us, so made a cup of tea and set about shortening our lines ready for an 0800 departure.

The sky was beginning to brighten to a dull gloaming by the time Dan joined us a little after 0700. Dad and Dan disconnected and stowed the shore-power. I checked the oil in the engine, switched the battery on, opened the seacock and started the engine. It purred like a contented kitten as I talked the other two through our plans to slip our berth. 

We were moored bows in, starboard against our finger pontoon, with our neighbour against his own berth to our port, a couple of foot clearance between us. The wind was blowing gently in over our starboard bow, pushing us off our berth and towards him. 

Letting the boat rest in the wind on her bow line, I set the stern spring up to slip, the line and cleat more or less within easy reach of the helm, and then motored dead slow against it whist I retrieved the stern line and Dan set the bow line to slip. Dad was assigned to the port side with a loose fender to minimise any embarrassment if I screwed up and let us drift onto our neighbour. My intention was to reverse out and turn with the prop-walk to port, reversing down the aisle towards the marina entrance and the relatively open water of the harbour outside.

The wind put paid to my best laid plans and intentions. I put the engine astern to hold her against the bow line, slipped my stern spring, and then put the engine into neutral and gave Dan the instruction to slip the bow. The breeze was ever so slight, but still enough to take command of the bow, pushing our nose menacingly towards our neighbour. 

A quick surge astern on the throttle gave me rudder authority and a cautious hand on the wheel kept us clear by what to me felt like mere inches but was probably ample room as Dad stood by with the fender. We came out of our berth turning to starboard, despite my original intention. A bit more rudder as the bow cleared and she continued to turn nicely, until the boats on the row across from us encroached.

A quick blast ahead arrested our movement astern and pushed us forward as our momentum kept the boat turning despite the counter rudder. Room opened up aft for me to resume our turn astern to starboard, and then now clear on the bow, I pushed the gear ahead again. As the momentum of the turn began to fade and the rudder begin to bite, I put the helm over to clear our erstwhile neighbour and motored out ahead, the whole thing looking as if it had been planned.

The close manoeuvring under power is certainly getting easier with practice, but it’s still not without its stress. And as we left the marina entrance, I could feel the slight trembling of adrenalin in my hand on the helm. She’s a big (albeit beautiful) lump of fibreglass with a lot of weight behind her. She’s surprisingly docile under power, but she’s still going to take a fair bit of getting used to.


Saturday 13th : Brixham to Plymouth
(40.5 nautical miles, 7 hours 2 minutes underway)

0807 Cast off Brixham


The seas are still confused outside the harbour breakwater from the weather than blew through the previous night. Petrella is a comfortable boat though. I keep the helm, slowing a little before leaving the shelter of the breakwater to give Dan, with Dad’s help, time to finish clearing the fenders and shore lines away. It feels a little strange. For years aboard Calstar Dad has always taken the helm whilst we’re under power and I’ve done the running around getting everything tidy.

0830 Round Berry Head, engine on, motor-sailing under full genoa, wind light and dead astern


The occasional splash of water comes over the bow to wet the decks, the seas bouncy enough to be entertaining. The dawn was just a chill easing of the gloaming, with no hint of the bloody glory over the horizon that graced us the last time we came this way around the same relative hour to the sunrise. That  would've been with Calstar in August 2018. 


But it’s not raining, and visibility is good, so we’re content with the dull overcast as we keep a keen eye out for the many lobster pots that ensnare these waters. Gannets, shearwaters and guillemots keep us in good company as they soar, circle and plummet in search of their breakfast.


0920 204° COG, 5.8kn SOG, 7.0nm logged. Motor-sailing on genoa, wind 8.7kn astern


We’re making excellent way despite what must still be a foul tide set against us. The engine is set at an unlaboured 2000 revs, clearly the wind astern filling our headsail is giving us a very welcome push.


Dan was the first to spot them at about a hundred yards off our port bow: a pod of porpoises broaching the surface in cavorting waves as they make their way in the opposite direction to us. It’s cold, but we’re all wrapped up warm, seeing them puts a smile on all three of our faces and intensifies our scrutiny of the waters around us. 


Then dolphins. I spy a trio following the pod of porpoises, and they clearly spot us, then directly alter their course to make a line for our bow wave, vaulting across the water as they come. As they reach us, they are joined by more of their companions from astern and to starboard, and for the next twenty minutes or so, we are privileged by their playful escort.


1030 225° COG, 7.4kn SOG, 14.4nm logged. 50° 12.9N 003° 36.1W


The sea is choppy, but the overfalls off Start Point are very slight, subdued by the turning tide which should, very soon, turn fair for the west. The sky remains overcast, the wind 10 knots on our starboard beam. I break open the tub of Haribo to keep the moral of the crew afloat. Nelson’s navy might have sailed and fought on their steady ration of rum, we do it on jellied sweets. 


I’m thinking we should be sailing. The balance of opinion is against me, Dad and Dan very happy with the progress we’re making and wondering why I’d disrupt it. But a boat is not a democracy. The promise of bacon rolls from the galley below is vaguely floated to distract me. 


Over the next hour, the wind stays abeam but increases to a steady 14 or 15 knots, sometimes gusting up to 20. We see speeds over the ground, our engine assisted by the headsail, touching 9 knots at times. I’m quietly impressed and just a little pleased, itching to still the engine and see how we do without it. Dad heads below to put the bacon on.


1120 282° COG, 7.0kn SOG, 20.0nm logged. Salcombe off starboard beam


I still the engine. 14 knots of wind abeam, the gusts have eased however. We hold a steady 7 knots under headsail alone, barrelling though the choppy waters, just shy of keeping pace with the waves, but surfing down the face of the occasional bigger one as it lifts us from astern. It is easy sailing.

1230 302° COG, 5.9kn SOG, 28.7nm on the log


Bigbury Bay is off our starboard beam as we head towards Yealm Head and the now just uncovering but still distant Mew Stone. The wind is dropping, 12 knots on the beam but still occasionally gusting up to 20. I’m contemplating the mainsail. Dan is wondering if we should reef if we do raise it. I don’t know the answer; my feeling is that it would be unnecessary, but Petrella and I are still getting to know each other. The bacon rolls were delicious. I’m curious as to how the reefing system on the main would work.


1302 287° COG, 6.8kn, 31.8nm on the log, wind is 10.2kts on the starboard beam, sea state slight

We raise the mainsail. I initially try to do it under sail, my intention to lie-to on the headsail, just above close hauled. But I fail, miserably, to communicate my intentions to Dan on the helm whilst I work on managing the sails, and he puts us head to wind (because, to be fair, that is what you do when you raise the mainsail). As you'd expect, the bow goes through the wind, the genoa backs, we pirouette. 

Nothing damaged but our pride. We could sail out of it, but I start the engine and let Dan hold her head to wind under power. I take some comfort over reassuring myself that the engine starts. Petrella and I are still getting to know each other.

We settle onto a beam reach. I leave the sail a quarter reefed, in part out of curiosity, in part out of caution; we’re still seeing gusts into the high teens. With a quarter of the main still rolled around the boom, the sail covers the fixing point for the kicker. I’ve had this conversation with a couple of Petrella’s previous owners, they are all a lovely, supportive bunch; the general consensus of opinion was that they didn’t bother with the kicker when reefed, but relied upon the aft sheeting of the mainsheet to pull the boom down.

On a beam reach it doesn’t, and although Petrella doesn’t seem unduly troubled by it, I find I just can’t abide the twisting away of the mainsail’s leech. I fish the metal “horseshoe” out from the rope locker. I’d spent ages flexing the rollers at the mouth of the horseshoe back into life with generous doses of silicon lubricant and exercising them; three of the four now run smoothly, but the fourth remains stubborn. But I figure it’ll serve. 

The horseshoe won’t fit on at the gooseneck, especially with the boom set on a beam reach, so I slide it on over the clew of the sail, which involves a bit of what could be precarious balancing on the roof of the aft cabin. I tether the long strop of the horseshoe to the end of the boom to prevent it slipping forward towards the gooseneck further than we would want, slide it up along the roll if the sail to its proper position, and then fit the kicker.

I pull tension on, and the tell-tails flying off the leech of the main set perfectly. I feel very pleased with myself.

1330 300° COG, 5.5kn SOG, 34.0nm on the log. Wind 8 knots abeam

With the wind and boat speed dropping, I drop the reef out of the main. Dan laughs at me, pointing out that I’d originally said if the boat speed dropped below 6 knots I’d start the engine, then revised it to 5 knots, and now I was shaking out the reef, suggesting 4 knots would be perfectly adequate. With 8 knots abeam and full sail, she’s still making a very respectable 5.5 knots over the ground; we can’t have more than half a knot of fair tide under us. I find it very hard to turn my nose up at that, and in any case, we’re still set to get in before dark.

1400 317° COG, 4.6kn SOG, 36.8nm logged

We round the Mew Stone marking the far side of Wembury Bay, it’s shape as familiar and welcome as the shadow of an old friend crossing your doorstep. As the eastern entrance to the Sound comes into sight ahead, the wind comes up onto our starboard bow and we're close-hauled, nowhere near lying the entrance. We carry on a little further for the sake of form, but the wind is failing now, the speed has dropped below 4 knots so, reluctantly, I start the engine and roll the headsail away.

We motor into Plymouth, pointing out the sights to Dan who has visited the town often enough, but never been out on the Sound. Dan keeps the helm whilst I roll the main away. Forgetting to engage the ratchet on the rolling boom, I initially roll it away as neat as you like but the wrong way, so have to re-hoist it and do it all again but properly. Another lesson learned, but I doubt it’s likely to be the last Petrella has to teach me. Sail safely down, I resume the helm and Dad and Dan set out the lines and fenders.


Our berth is D12, bow in, port side to. What’s left of the wind will be blowing direct onto our nose. QAB is a fairly tight marina, so we’ll need to stay on our toes. I’m quite familiar with where we’re going, but brief Dad and Dan carefully on the layout and how I expect our approach and landing to go. Dan leads the bow line back to the shrouds and stands by with the midships spring, Dad takes his fender and stands by to starboard to save any embarrassment with our new neighbour if I get it wrong.


Approaching the Mountbatten Breakwater, dodging the inevitable ferries, I call up the marina to check our berth is clear. They answer promptly, confirm I’ve got the berth assignment correct and that it’s clear, then offer to send somebody down to help take our lines.

QAB the week previous

We round the wave shield and enter the marina. It’s as tight a squeeze as I remember it, so I edge into our row just sliding past the stern of the boat on the end of the pontoon opposite ours. There’s a friendly wave from the chap the marina office sent down to help with our lines. I misjudge our final turn, overshooting by a significant margin, and can sense everybody’s slight concern as we’re momentarily pointed straight at our neighbour. But I arrest the forward motion with a touch of astern, the momentum continuing our turn in the direction we want without my troubling the rudder, then nurse her ahead again. 


Dan makes a heroic throw with the bow line, skilfully caught by our new friend on the dock, who then proceeds to haul our nose in. A little concerned that we might now crash our unprotected bow into the finger pontoon, I subtly steer against him to hold us off, and then when I judge we’re far enough into the berth, put her astern to stop. Motoring against the now secured bow line, the prop-walk nestles us in gently against our pontoon, so I step ashore to secure the aft spring and we’re home.


A shade over 40 nautical miles, 7 hours and 2 minutes underway; only 2 hours and 40 minutes of that under sail, but that’s two hours and forty minutes more than I originally thought we had reason to hope for or deserve from the forecast.


We secured the rest of her dock lines, set her fenders and put the cockpit tent back up. Then we retired to the marina’s bar, our first passage with Petrella now done.

We remain delighted with her.

Monday 15 January 2024

Petrella: admission

I was wrong. 

Perfect wind, a great passage from Brixham to Plymouth, and dolphins were involved. We had a great weekend. I shall write more shortly, but for the meantime, enough to say I am delighted with how Petrella sails.