Calstar: dolphins

A still from a video I took on our trip out to Fowey last Easter weekend. Sorting out the final details of our next trip back to Fowey again at the end of this month put me in mind of it.

Really can't wait.

Trainride

Minehead to Watchet and back. Been here before. Missing the water this time, but the company is fine.

Calstar: snaps from the Easter weekend

Sunspot

Just behind the caravan. Though this might be the last of the sun we see this week. It was very pleasant couple of hours however. 

Minehead

I find myself at a Holiday Camp for a few days. 

Not my choice, but my wife's. But it's okay, I owe her, we're with friends, and I've brought a guitIar to entertain myself.

And the Bristol Channel is but a stone's throw away from here.

Of course, I do currently lack a boat.

Calstar: Easter Weekend; Falmouth and back

Last weekend Dad and I drove down to the boat in Plymouth Thursday evening after I’d finished work. Dad’s recently retired, so had already finished work back at the end of March; Nik, sadly, had to work through the holiday weekend so wouldn’t be able to join us.

The forecast suggested the best wind would be Friday, an easterly F4 to 5, fading as the day wore one. Saturday and Sunday had the wind falling off to an F2 or 3, staying in the east, maybe with a bit more south in it. The plan was an early start Friday morning, ride the wind the 40 nautical miles downhill to Falmouth, and split the journey back home over the rest of the long Easter weekend into 20 mile chunks with stopovers in Fowey and the Yealm. Then arrive back in Plymouth early Monday and get on the road as quickly as possible to try and avoid the worst of the bank holiday traffic.

Friday 19^th April : Plymouth to Falmouth

(40.5 nautical miles, 7 hours 8 minutes underway)

Friday morning, up at 0530 to hit the marina showers then ready the boat to cast off for 0730, half an hour later than I’d planned. I don’t take two hours to shower and go, but Dad moves at his own pace these days and time nor tide have little dominion. Did I mention he’s quite enjoying his retirement?

If we’d been slow at the off, the weather had clearly blown through earlier than expected. By 0800 we were clearing the Western Entrance, Cawsands off our starboard beam, and the hoped for easterly breeze was exceptionally light. With 40 miles to cover, and deadlines to meet (the primary one being the need for me to be back at work on Tuesday) we continued to motor-sail under the main. With a spring tide running fair for the first couple of hours of morning, we were making very good progress without needing to labour the engine, or our patience with it.

Around 1100, about 6 miles offshore, Fowey and Gribbin Head in the hazy distance off our starboard beam, a pair of dolphins joined us. 

Dad spotted them first, he’d been trying to make out the distant day mark atop Gribbin Head and had seen one broach about 500 meters yards away. They disappeared briefly, and I quelled my disappointment at having missed the sight, before they reappeared again right beside us, lacing through the water, arcing and twisting as they played back and forth across Calstar’s slight bow-wave. Dad reckons there were three, I counted two, but they were lovely and kept company with us for about five minutes. They quite made up for the lack of wind.

By 1400 we rounded St Anthony’s Head and entered the Carrick Roads outside Falmouth. Predictably, the wind began to fill in, but by now Dad was eager to land somewhere for the night and get ashore to stretch his legs. We made directly for the Falmouth Yacht Haven, and made safe alongside the pontoon just before 1500; a shade over 40 miles behind us and slightly over 7 hours underway. All of it sadly with the assistance of the engine.

I say sadly, but it would've been sadder had the engine failed us; the weather was gorgeously warm and it was a delight just to be afloat.

We dined Friday night on the balcony of a Falmouth restaurant called Amanzi. The view and the food were both lovely.

Saturday 20^th April : Falmouth to Fowey

(23.4 nautical miles, 6 hours 29 minutes underway)

We cast off from Falmouth at 0930, flagrantly late on the tide, and further delayed our departure by queuing an hour for the fuel barge. By 1000 we were properly on our way, but with only an hour of fair tide left to exploit. 

Expecting a F2 - 3 from the east for most of the day, my plan was to stand off from the shore once we were clear of the Carrick Roads then tack and beat along the coast. By 1030 we’d cleared the headland and cut the engine, but over the next fifteen minutes saw what little wind we’d started with die off and the tide begin to turn foul.

We scrapped my originally optimistic plan of sailing, restarted the engine, and turning towards Fowey 20 miles distant, furled the headsail, resigning ourselves to motor-sailing under the main again for the next few hours.

We spent the day basking in the Easter sunshine, reading, jellyfish spotting and keeping a weather eye out for more dolphins. The Cornish waters were thick (I exaggerate, but only a little) with barrel jellyfish. The size of dustbin lids, they are surreal, otherworldly, harmless creatures, gently pulsing as they ghosted through the clear smooth waters just beneath the surface, feasting on the invisible spring plankton bloom.

A little while after rounding Dodman Point at 1300, just off picturesque Gorran Haven, a sea breeze began to fill in from astern. We cut the engine and gently tricked along for a while, sails goose-winged with the boat on a dead run, but made little headway across St Austell’s Bay despite the grip of the foul tide easing as the hours wore on into the afternoon. 

An hour and a half later, with only a mile and a half covered in the time and Gorran Haven still very visible over our port quarter, the seas turned glassy, the tease of a wind finally ceased and we once more started the engine. We were comforted by the brief sighting of a pod of porpoises about 50 meters off our port bow, but the shy creatures came no closer.

We landed in Fowey just before 1630, a little more than 23 miles of travel behind us and a relatively slow passage time just shy of 7 hours; we’d covered almost twice the distance in that time on our passage to Falmouth the day before. The tides on this coast are so slight compared to our old home waters in the Bristol Channel that the temptation to disregard them is always there; but our passage time to Fowey was a stark indication, as if any were needed, of the difference between a fair tide and a foul, even in these waters.

The wait for a table at my favourite Fowey restaurant Sams was over an hour by the time we finally got there. Dad had the casting vote, so we avoided the queue and headed over to the Galleon instead where we enjoyed a perfectly respectable cod and chips on their veranda overlooking the bustle of the harbour. We called in for a pint at the Fowey Gallants Sailing Club on our way back to the boat. Their beer is unfailingly good and their clubhouse bar has the best view of any sailing club I know.

Sunday 21^st April : Fowey to The Yealm

(26.6 nautical miles, 7 hours 26 minutes underway)

The forecast for wind on Sunday wasn’t promising at all, slightly more south in it but no stronger than the day before. Low water Plymouth was expected 1418, so to make the most of the fair tide we got up early and cast off from Fowey just after 0730.

As we were preparing to cast off, a Cornish Crabber 22 called “Chocolat” motored past us on her way out of the harbour which put a smile on my face. Back in the summer of 2014  Dad and I had brought our old Drascombe Lugger “Ondine” down to Fowey for the weekend. On the pontoons upriver at Penmarlam, a lady from a neighbouring boat had ambled over to remark on how lovely Drascombes were. B was the skipper of the Crabber 22 “Chocolat”, and ended up accompanying us in the Lugger for a day-sail over to Polperro and back.

Five years later and no longer with the Drascombe, there is no way she’d have recognised us aboard the Westerly as she cheerfully waved back whilst passing, but I recognised her, and was very pleased to see she was well and clearly still enjoying the delights of her lovely little yacht.

With no great hopes of a decent sailing wind, we motor-sailed with just the main set again, but keeping closer to the shore than for the first few miles, enjoying the sights of Polperro and Looe in the fine early morning light. Off Looe Island around 0900 the wind filled in enough to tempt us into stopping the engine. Over the next hour we covered a little more than a mile before the wind completely gave up the ghost and we fired the engine back up. The sea was a flat calm as we motored gently towards the slowing closing edifice of Rame Head.

By noon we were passing the headland; the Longroom in Plymouth reported the windspeed as 7 knots on the breakwater, and the tide had turned foul for us. Nonetheless, around 1230 enough of a sea breeze sprung up to tempt us into sailing once again. Only half an hour of very gentle beating before it failed once more and we returned to moto-rsailing. Off Wembury Bay an hour later we tried again, but within 20 minutes once more gave up the ghost.

We reached the mouth of the Yealm at low water, around 1430. At low tide there is only a meter of water in the narrow passage across the south end of the sand bar at the mouth of the river, clearly visible just beneath the surface with holiday makers paddling out across it in water no higher than their knees. Calstar only draws a meter, and the tide table said LW should still have 0.3m on top of chart datum, so we gently chanced entering; there really wasn’t much room between the end of the bar and the very visible, rocky foreshore on the other side of the passage, but as long as we stayed with the entrance passage we’d only ground on clean sand if we got it wrong.

It was a little nerve wracking, following the transits, avoiding swimmers, anchored boats and paddle boarders, and periodically silencing the shallow water warning alarm on our depth sounder before reaching the slightly deeper water of the river proper, and then picking our way up river through the crowded moorings to the visitor pontoons, but it passed without mishap.

The first pontoon was full, with boats rafted up to three abreast. We bleakly made our way further up river to the second, expecting the same, and half expecting to have to turn around and head back out, perhaps to anchor overnight in Wembury Bay or even head the rest of the way back to Plymouth, but to our surprise found the shore side half of the upriver visitor’s pontoon completely clear, which made for a very easy landing.

We made fast at 1504, just shy of 26 miles behind us and seven and a half hours underway; just over five hours of that had been on engine, but we’d managed to get a little more sailing in that on the previous days, so were not unhappy. We took the tender up the river to find a supper of whitebait at the Dolphin Inn in Newton Ferrers. A tidy little pub and very friendly, and even if the food was a little less than piping hot by the time they got it to us on their second attempt to find our table (don’t ask, I don’t know!) it was still delicious.

Half way back to the boat, the outboard ran out of fuel. A passing powerboat kindly offered us a tow, but the tide was still just in our favour, and we had oars, so Dad and I paddled the rest of the way back. I think Dad regretted relying on me to check the fuel levels in the outboard (I'd casually glanced in; there was fuel, just not as much as I’d thought), but personally I quite enjoyed the tranquillity of the river and the light exercise of paddling back with the flow.

Monday 22^nd April : The Yealm to Plymouth

(7.5 nautical miles, 2 hours 8 minutes underway)

After three days of brilliant sunshine, Monday morning dawned overcast and grey. We cast off in the slack water just after high tide at 0835 and picked our way down river through the crowded moorings and anchorage, through the narrow channel around the river bar and out into the choppy waters of Wembury Bay in the company of a couple of other yachts.

And finally, there was wind.

At 0900, just outside the river mouth, we turned the boat back towards the bar, head to wind, raised the sails, stilled the engine, then turned away from the wind onto a deep reach to take us out of the bay. After ten or fifteen minutes of a southerly course, the yacht to leeward of us gybed and we did the same, to settle onto a broad starboard reach that would take us clear around the Mewstone and back into Plymouth.

By 1010 we entered the Sound via the Eastern Entrance, and wind dying in the lee of the eastern shore, doused the sails and kicked the engine in to life to motor gently up the Sound and back to the marina at Queen Anne’s Battery. By 1043 we were safe alongside our home berth, a short trip of seven and a half miles covered mostly under sail in just over a couple of hours.

Despite our best intentions to make haste, we still failed to get on the road before 1230, so got snarled up just a little in the homeward bound Bank Holiday traffic. A small price to pay for four very pleasant days aboard however; even if there wasn’t much actual sailing to be had, it’s always good just getting out on the water.

Proof of life

I’m conscious I’ve been neglecting this site of late.

Had a birthday, Nik had a birthday, spent a weekend aboard Calstar with her and Dad, day-sailed out of Plymouth and back but haven’t got anywhere this year yet. It was a brilliant day's sailing though.

Been very, very busy with work. Haven’t bought any new guitars lately. This is a good thing, I'm told. Still loving my time at the piano, can't say I'm getting any better, but that doesn't matter as the piano is purely a self indulgence for me. 

Dogs are well, kids are well. Gigs are quiet this month, but go mad again at the end of the month and stay that way pretty much the rest of the year.

Been racing a friend’s Enterprise with her on the lake at Frampton, been racing my Laser too when not in the Ent. Had some brilliant wins, and some pretty humbling losses. Broke the Laser’s mast, tore the sail when it came down. Sail repaired, a friend has lent me his spare mast whilst I await delivery of the replacement. I think that’s the fourth mast I’ve been through now. Fortunately never anything taller than an Enterprise mast.

Have a first dance to learn for a wedding we have booked for the band; Four Simple Words by a singer/songwriter called Frank Turner. Never come across the guy before, but have spent all morning listening to him, and have yet to hear a song he’s written than I didn’t love. Currently playing Polaroid Picture (https://youtu.be/Rw9UwJr5f8I).

Fingers crossed for the weather this coming Bank Holiday weekend; away with Dad on Calstar. Hopefully, this time we’ll actually get somewhere other than just out and back. Third time lucky perhaps. Nik’s got to work through the weekend sadly, but we have a week’s holiday booked away together at the end of the month.

A simple truth

"Yes, the Grand Canyon is stunning, but there’s beauty in the sun rising over the M4 on the drive home from Heathrow, too." - Dido, This much I know

Always an emphatic yes

The guitar I have for going away on the boat is a Luna "Tattoo"; an impulse buy a couple of years ago between sound-check and going on stage (we were playing in town, so I killed the time between by wandering over to the local guitar shop). Very pretty, very lightweight, but not really a guitar but a "guitalele" which means it's tuned up to A, similar to a ukulele I believe, as opposed to the standard guitar tuning of E.

That can be quite interesting, and the nylon strings can carry a lovely, mellow tone. But it's also quite limiting. Something of a one trick pony.

The guitar has also become a favourite in the office, where she hangs on my office wall when I'm not sailing. And is probably missed more than me when I am away sailing and she comes with me.


I was in town with Nik on Saturday. Ostensibly to treat her to lunch, but I needed strings so dropped into Gloucester Soundhouse, my local music shop. And this "travel-sized" Tanglewood was just hanging there on a stand, begging to be picked up and played.

Okay, so I knew it was there as I'd spotted it on my last visit a couple of weeks before.

Cedar top, mahogany back and sides, steel strings, very light, very compact; perfect for the boat, a lovely low action that's a delight to play and a deliciously live sound. So she had to come home with me. Obviously.

Not to neglect Nikki, I did buy her lunch, and we also replaced her wedding ring. She lost the original down the back of a piano (we think; don't ask) about fifteen years ago and had been wearing mine ever since, but mine doesn't fit comfortably on her finger anymore, so it's back on mine.

The cost of the ring, guitar and lunch together could've brought me a radial rig for the Laser, which I might regret next Sunday, looking at the forecast, but for now I'm content with the compromise.

The following evening Nik and I went over her mum's to pay a visit after I'd finished sailing. Nik mentioned we'd replaced her ring, and mentioned in passing that I'd bought a new guitar.

"Does he really need another guitar?" asked her Mum.

Yes Lil, yes. I always need another guitar.

It's a bit like girls and handbags. Or my Nikki and her shoes. The answer to that question is always, always an emphatic yes.

FOSSC: the anticipation

Sunday: taken just as the (first) rains had passed, before we launched and it all turned nasty. The two Wanderers moored against the jetty were being used by the latest batch of instructors in training. They all passed, which is good news. I note one couple left their jib flogging in the wind however; personally, I'd string them up from the yardarm for that sacrilege.

Or not. We're too in need of fresh blood to instruct at the Club. And they're all good people, an asset to the Club. I'm really very pleased they've joined the crew.


By the time the second race finished on Sunday, the wind had blown up to the point that waves were breaking against and throwing spumes of spray over that jetty. It was very good fun. Though I caught a faceful of mud off the top of our mast after we recovered from our last capsize. Some of it got into my right eye, which is puffy, inflamed, running salt tears and very sore today. I look an absolute horror.

It was still very good fun. Fingers crossed the eye clears up in a couple of days. It's not my best eye, in any case.

FOSSC: the "Storm Freya" play

As far as race strategies go, relying on “Storm Freya” to subdue the competition has its merits, but I don’t think it’s one we want to be relying on every week.

Six boats rigged in the rain for the 1200. By the time we got on the water, the rain had eased but the wind was building as forecast. A capsize following a clumsy gybe and an ill-timed gust at the leeward mark at Green Yellow on the first lap left us swamped and at the back of the fleet, from which we never really recovered, finishing 5th place. A squall came through as we crossed the line, so rather than heading straight in, Amanda and I stayed out on the water for another fifteen minutes, screaming back and forth across the lake in a ball of spray and giggles whilst the wind blasted through. It was just too irresistible, and in any case, we were probably safer out there than trying to land in it back on the lee shore of the launching area.

After lunch, the Race Officer changed the course to reduce the number of gybes to just the one, and removed the dead downwind runs of the previous race. Even so, only four boats made the start line; Sue in her Topper, Phil with his Aero, Jon with his radial rigged Laser and ourselves. The conditions were by now beginning to get quite frisky.

We started well, middle of the pack but hitting the line fully powered up and bang on the gun, the Laser slightly windward but astern of us, the Topper directly below us but with her cut-down 4.7 sail not affecting our air to any great degree. We rounded the windward mark at Red White with Jon’s Laser on the outside putting him right on our wind for the reach down to Green that followed. 

Almost in a repeat of the first lap of the race before, the teeth of a gust hit us just a few boat lengths out from Green. We rounded, struggling to harden up to the beat, fighting to trim the sails in and keep the boat flat and leaving Jon plenty of room between us and the buoy. Jon, struggling with the same, was knocked flat just in front of us.

We bore away, just skimming the tip of his mast as it sunk beneath the water, fortunately doing no harm to either him nor us.

Fighting to get the boat and sails back under control and get her up in to the wind, we left Jon behind but sloughed off badly to leeward of the layline. Behind us, the Topper tucked in around as neat as you like between the still flattened Laser and the leeward mark, hardening up onto the beat and tanking away, leaving us abashed in her wake.

The conditions continued to build. The white-knuckle reaches across the wind were exhilarating, on one our 13’ dinghy hit just over 13 knots planning between the White and Red marks. The beats back to windward were gruelling, muscle tearing and finger shredding, hiking hard and continually playing the mainsail to try and keep the boat flat and powering into wind. Twice the gusts caught me hiked right out as they passed and a relative lull followed, the boat falling back on top of me, dunking me in the water; both times a windward capsize was only saved by Amanda scrambling up to leeward and, to somewhat lesser effect, my pumping the sail hard, the same way you might launch a kite, to lift the boat back up onto her feet, and me with her.

On each lap at the end of that screaming reach from White to Red there was a gybe, and on each lap we chickened out, instead holding our course on beyond the mark and into the relative shelter of the bank, where we then wore the boat around with a tack before then reaching down to the bottom mark at Yellow. With wry amusement, we noticed the rest of the fleet did exactly the same.

All was going well until the last lap but one. The three single-handers were having a much harder time keeping their boats on their feet; the Topper had retired, we’d left the Laser behind after his capsize on the first lap, and, I think, a similar capsize (or two) with the Aero had at some point let us sneak past Phil. And then we simply got knocked flat. Beating to windward, both of us fully hiked out hard, the mainsail spilling as far as it could go, and still she went over before we could do anything to stop her.

I rolled directly over and onto the centreboard and we had her up again in short order, but a swamped boat is a bit of a challenge to sail to windward. Actually, a swamped boat is a bit of a challenge to sail anywhere, and our gunwales were floating inches below the water, with only the foredeck sitting clear. But we backed the jib to drag her nose off of the wind, sheeted in, and began to carefully, trickily wallow our way onwards, the windward mark, blessedly, not so very far away, and once we were able to turn downwind, the auto-bailers and transom flaps worked their magic. We still held the lead on Jon, although he was now threatening to close, but Phil had swept past and was now powering ahead. At that point, the promise of 2nd place didn't feel so bad.

And then on the last lap Phil decided to gybe, instead of wearing away with a tack as he’d done on every other lap. Too busy keeping our own feet, we didn’t see it at the time, and didn’t realised we’d passed him. But the Shorten Course flag was up, so after the bottom mark, we tacked early and sailed through the line.

In the chaos of thrashing water, wind battered rigging and cracking sails, I didn’t hear a finishing gun. I yelled at the Committee Boat to ask if we were done, but in the mayhem couldn’t hear a reply; I could only see the Assistant Race Officer waving at us, and couldn’t tell if he was waving us to go in or instructing us to continue. Behind us, we could see them finishing now Phil. Perhaps the Shorten Course flag had been for him? I’d been sure he was ahead, but didn’t think he’d been that close to lapping us, despite the capsize.

We were damned if we were going to risk getting scored an inglorious “Did Not Finish” after all of this, so resigned ourselves to a final lap.

Ten minutes later we were deep in the throat of another squall, the boat on her side, Amanda in the water and me on the centreboard, the Enterprise beam on with her mast submerged and being driven by gale force winds into the soft mud on the bed of the lake; we were completely pinned by the wind and waves.

The Safety Boat was hovering like a concerned mother hen, struggling to hold station in the chop. With the race clearly over and outside assistance no longer a bar, I passed them our painter and asked them to pull our nose into the wind, dragging our mast around and free of the suck of the mud. We were back up, and squinting to windward could see line after line of white crested waves marching down the length of the lake towards us. Jon’s Laser was on its side against the leeward shore, so we reassured the Safety Boat we could look after ourselves and cast them off to let them tend to the other casualty.

Head to wind, we untangled the lines and then lowered the main to prepare for a lee shore landing back at the clubhouse. We wallowed our way back in with the jib for the most part flying loose, pushed along by our bare poles; with her gunwales submerged and only the foredeck above water keeping her upright was a challenge. We landed back at the shore, Pete, the duty Race Officer catching us in the shallow surf, and he and Phil helping Amanda and I pull the boat up on her trolley and hold her clear enough to drain.

When I asked if we’d got back in time for the start of the next race Pete laughed in my face and Amanda came as close as she’s ever been tempted to come to full mutiny.

The rest of the day’s racing was cancelled.

Back ashore, the Club’s weather station reported that the wind had across the afternoon averaged a mere 21 knots, but had peaked at 45 knots. After the ignominy of almost finishing last in the first race, we won the second, beating Phil into 2^nd place by a mere 10 seconds and leaving Jon to take 3^rd. Our 2^nd and 5^th gave us 2^nd place overall for the day’s racing, so with the event being one of the Club’s championship races, that will mean a bit of glassware for us both at the end of the year. 

Not a bad start to the racing season.

So the “Storm Freya” strategy (otherwise known as the "Last Man Standing" play) is not one we should necessarily rely upon in our playbook, if only for the good of the boat and moral of the crew, but it appears it’s quite effective. 

The day was brutal, but the sailing was stupidly fun.

Weekend plans

I have a free pass.

Because Nik has this coming weekend off work, I’d offered to take her out to lunch after sailing on Sunday, thinking it was just the one race at the Club, 1100 start, done by noon. Then I realised I’d run out of February without noticing, and the Icicle Series was now over. This coming Sunday the official racing season starts again, kicking off with the first of the club championship races; a three race day, two races to qualify, with 1200, 1400 and 1545 starts respectively.

I had been looking forward to spending the day with Nik. It doesn’t happen very often. And obviously I wasn’t going to stand her up. Yesterday evening I mentioned my mistake, said the 11am start was actually a 12 noon, but I’d only sail the one race so lunch would just be an hour later. She was cool with that. I was conflicted, after all I am what I am, but I kept that to myself; I was looking forward to lunch, disappointed to miss sailing, sure, but determined not to let her down.

And then a phone call this morning, just the usual call to say good morning and check she got to work okay, and she said, without any prompting from me, that I should sail all three races on Sunday, and instead she’d stay home and cook a roast for supper. It was like my birthday and Christmas all come at once. She actually sounded amused.

I think maybe she's planning to go out with her friends Sunday evening, so is angling for the moral high ground, but that's okay; good for the goose is good for the gander.

I’m actually really looking forward to the weekend. I’ll still take Nik out for lunch Saturday instead of Sunday, then a gig Saturday night. Then come Sunday, the current forecast looks like the day’s racing could be very entertaining.

18 knots, gusting 30+ from the south-west. It almost certainly won't come in that hard or that clean, south-west is straight in up the estuary, but if it does, it's going to be an absolute blast. I'll be sailing Amanda's Enterprise with her; I love sailing double-handers in a blow, especially when you've got a crew that's as tough as nails and afraid of neither hiking hard not getting wet when all the hard hiking in the world proves to be not enough.