Saturday morning was a relatively early start; Dad and I were on the road, leaving Gloucester at 0700 to arrive at the boat in Plymouth for around 0930. With a big low slowly approaching from out west of Ireland over the Atlantic, the forecast for Saturday was showers and light winds from every which way but loose, Sunday’s was bright sunshine and dry, winds lighter but steadying from the west.
Both days were expected to be unseasonably cold, as has been the norm here for the past few weeks. The general airflow of late has been against the prevailing, typically north and easterly, dragging temperatures down.
Of course, Monday was the UK’s May Day bank holiday, and true to tradition the forecast was for gales, gusting to 45 knots or more.
The weekend looked good for a shakedown trip out to Fowey and back, but we clearly needed to be back by Sunday and safe in harbour for when the rough stuff arrived on Monday.
Saturday 1st May : Plymouth to Fowey
(23.3 miles, 6 hours 2 minutes underway)
Within an hour of getting to the boat on Saturday morning Calstar was ready to go, and we cast off from Sutton Harbour at 1030. With only just under a couple of hours since the 0843 Plymouth high water, the lock was on free-flow so it was just a simple case of calling up the lock keeper on the VHF to ask him to open the foot bridge for us. We raised the main outside the lock in the Catteswater and then motored more than motor-sailed in the light air past the Mountbatten Breakwater and out across Plymouth Sound. The sun was bright and the sky was blue.
Despite the sunshine, out from the shelter of the harbour there was a definite nip in the air, so before long both Dad and I had put our wet weather gear on, just for the warmth.
A little after 1100 we passed through the western entrance and continued out under engine and main past Penlee Point, Rame Head slowly opening up beyond it to starboard. The chill wind picked up a little, settling from the south and west on our port shoulder. The sky ahead remained bright and blue for the moment, whereas astern and back over the shore, the sky was darkening. I commented to Dad that at least the mucky stuff seemed to be downwind of us.
As Rame Head fell astern and the Cornish coast opened up to the west, we bore away to lay a course for Fowey, still some twenty miles distant, unfurled the headsail and stilled the engine, settling on to a close hauled fetch to port that seemed to be comfortably laying our destination. Despite having a very grubby bottom from sitting disused in harbour through the winter, the lockdown having prevented us from lifting her out and treating Calstar to her annual fettling, she tickled along beneath the still blue skies quite happily in the light airs at just over 3 knots. It felt good to be out and away again.
Over the next couple of hours as we crossed Whitesand Bay towards Looe, the wind slowly faded. And then around 1300 completely stopped for a moment, leaving our sails slatting, before easing back in again, but now from just north of east, directly astern. The headsail collapsed, and so I gybed it across to a goosewing. The sea remained slight, even as the wind picked up a little again, and so I let the autohelm steer us a course dead down wind with the boom hard out to starboard, and played the genoa by hand on its wing out to port. The air was too light and the sea too slight to worry over much about setting a preventer for the boom, I just eased the kicker off a bit, and the wind direction felt too fickle to go to the trouble of setting a pole for the headsail.
It was pleasant, easy sailing, with nothing more than the occasional need to play the genoa to stop it collapsing. I almost didn’t notice the sun go as the new wind direction brought the gloaming clouds that were previously constrained to the mainland out to sea to cover us.
Over the next hour, the wind backed further and dropped off again, and our pace faded with it. By 1420 had we had eventually gybed the main, put the headsail away, and were motor-sailing again. The wind, mostly apparent, was now just west off north off our starboard bow where, in the cleft of land where the pretty village of Polperro sits, we could see rain.
The squall came in around 1430, the wind veering suddenly backing to the north and picking up dramatically, bringing with it a driving rain. We raised the sprayhood, stilled the engine and set the genoa on a beam reach. Within a few minutes of doing so, the boat speed up and past 5 knots, we’d put a couple of precautionary rolls into the headsail to stiffen her up and, with the icy rain being driven straight into my right ear, I was idly contemplating a first reef in the main.
The squall was short lived though, and blew itself through within the next hour, leaving us with my least favourite kind of rain, the stuff that drops vertically from the sky without enough wind to trouble it’s gravity led course. By 1530 the engine was running again and we were motor-sailing once more beneath now leaden skies through the still persistent rain.
Over the next hour the rain eased and the sky brightened a little. We passed Lantic Bay and then beneath the cliffs of Polruan, more for sake of appearances, turned briefly into the flat wind to stow the mainsail. Outside the mouth of the Fowey we could see a flotilla of Troys and the colourful sails of the Fowey Rivers racing back into harbour.
Turning into the river, Dad took over the helm as we dodged between the two fleets as they tacked their way up through the confines of the harbour mouth towards their finish line off of the Royal Fowey Yacht Club.
We came to alongside one of the visitor’s pontoons on the east side of the river. The sky was still leaden, the air still carried a definite chill, but at least the rain had stopped.
I’d barely finished making the boat fast, tidying everything away and was on the verge of switching off the VHF when a call came through from us from the Yacht Club. It was John, our old friend and the man who hosts and organises the racing for the gathering of British Moths in Fowey each year at the end of May. With the day’s racing finished he, his wife Kate and our friends Andy and Suzy who had been out racing their Fowey River were retiring to the Gallants Sailing Club for a drink, and he wondered if we’d like to join them.
It was a silly question.
We called up the local water taxi, and within twenty minutes were sat with old friends on a table on the patio outside the Gallants’ club house, warm now we were sheltered ashore from the remnants of the chill wind. We were dry with a couple of old sails stretched out as a tarpaulin overhead to give shelter from any residual rain, and in the good company of old friends with a welcome pint of Cornish ale in our hands.
Sunday 2nd May : Fowey to Plymouth
(22.9 miles, 5 hours 59 minutes underway)
We would’ve loved to have stayed over in Fowey on the Sunday, but the intractable threat of Monday's weather forced our return. With high water Plymouth at 0929, the tide would run fair from around 0630, so we roused ourselves first thing for another early start and cast off at 0530, motoring out of the quiet, pre-dawn harbour and then turning east beneath the cliffs of Polruan, heading into the rising sun.
As the sun eased up above the horizon a little past 0600, to my delight it brought with it a brief stiffening of the wind tumbling down off the Cornish cliffs, over the shore and out to sea. For half an hour or so as the sun gradually climbed into a clear sky, we sailed on an easy beam reach, the tranquillity of dawn serenaded by the quiet trickle of Calstar’s bow wave.
As welcome as it was unexpected, it wasn’t to last. By the time we were off Polperro an hour later, with Looe Island and then distant Rame ahead in the milky early morning light, we were under engine and main again. The air still carried a chill, but it was easy to ignore as the ascending sun glittered prettily on the slight sea, the hum of the engine both reassuring in its reliability and an irritant in its disruption of the morning’s serenity.
The morning edged on, and we made slow but steady progress back east along the coast. Polperro fell astern, and then Looe and Seaton and Whitesand Bay, and then finally Rame Head. The wind began to ruffle the waters as we made our way around the headland and passed close in to Penlee Point on the high tide. Lots of boats were out and sailing gently back and forth across the Sound as we entered between Cawsands and the Breakwater, but committed now to making port and looking forward to the marina showers after our early start, we carried on for the last mile under engine.
Two hours after high water, the lock was still on free-flow, so a simple call on the VHF to the keeper opened the footbridge for us to enter, a shade before 1130. A few minutes later, after winding our way down the channel to the back of the harbour, we were home, safe alongside in our own berth.
Postscript
It was a good little shakedown trip. I would have liked more wind and more sailing, less rain and more sun, but beggars can’t be choosers and it was actually reassuring to give the engine a good run.
And everything worked, despite the enforced neglect of six months of the UK’s last
lockdown; Calstar is in good shape. Her engine has been serviced, and the sails
and rigging survived winter in the shelter of the harbour in a perfectly fine state.
Under sail she moves as well as she ever did, most of the winter growth beneath
the waterline of the last few months' inactivity sloughing off quickly enough
once we were underway. Under engine however, she felt sluggish; about a knot
slower than we’d normally expect for the usual 2000 revs we typically cruise at
under power, despite the slight sea and small assistance from the main.
Back in harbour on Sunday afternoon, we put the GoPro on the end of a pole and had a look underneath. The state of the prop gave us our answer. The best we can say is that the anode is still intact on the prop-shaft. It’s not ideal.
In three weeks’ time, we cast off from Sutton Harbour and again head west, but this time to round Land’s End and bring her home to Portishead. We have around 250 miles to cover in just over two weeks, if we can. I won’t take any chances with the weather though.
Our plan is to hop from harbour to harbour, but some of those legs will be up to 40 miles each, with little option for alternative shelter between them. Ideally, we’ll get Calstar lifted out, her prop scrubbed off and her bottom cleaned and antifouled before we go.
But time is short, and the lifting gear at the Marina in high demand with everybody wanting to be back in the water. Or lifted out for belated maintenance denied to them over the long winter. The best they can offer in the next couple of weeks is the possibility of a short notice lift, if the chance comes up. Which I’m thinking it very well may not.
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