2024 August 28th days 14 & 15, Fowey to Looe then Cawsand

Wednesday

I slipped at 10:15 when the weather radar and forecast showed the drizzle had passed only for the gas alarm to go off, so after turning off the gas at the bottle, pumped the bilge (gas being heavier than air will go to the bilge and the manual pump will get it out) and with the engine still running to get any gas out I returned to the pontoon. It seemed unlikely that this was really a gas leak and there was a strong smell of hot rubber down below, unfortunately the alarm kept going so I disconnected then reconnected it and it was silent, it should reset so I might need a new alarm or perhaps sensor and cable, the latter has been squashed by a floor board a few times.

I initially thought that the rubber smell was coming from the alternator belt which was being punished as the alternator was delivering almost 30 amps, it was a little slacker than I recall when I did the oil change when stuck in the Truro River but it seemed OK, however I tightened it a little started the engine and the alarm went off after a minute and again did not stop without being disconnected and reconnected.

More investigation showed the water pump belt was rather slack so I changed that and tightened it - there is little room for adjustment as the pump gets rather close to the engine mount so it gets changed  once a year - but I have done more motoring this year than normal. This time the alarm stayed silent and after letting the engine run for 10 minutes or so I set off again.

East of Fowey, the Gribbin Head day mark disappearing into
the cloud.

The drizzle and mist set in again as I turned east out of the harbour and did not clear for a couple of hours after which it was quite a pleasant sail in light winds. I was not going to make Plymouth on the tide without motoring so,  I anchored behind Looe Island to enjoy the warmest afternoon of the trip and the previous one as well.

From the anchorage

13 miles in four and a half hours.

Thursday

There was no wind when I woke or when I was ready to leave and with a forecast for light winds I left under engine, initially I thought to go to the Lynher River as the wind was forecast to be N or NE but changed my mind as I approached Cawsand, the wind is not going to be that strong, I could always move if it became uncomfortable and if I decide to abandon the Channel Islands (see below) I did not want he extra hour or so to come down river and to miss a good bit of the west going tide.

Naturally as I was anchoring a decent sailing breeze set in.

Prawl Point guarding the west side of Plymouth sound.

HMS Iron Duke (Type 23 (Duke Class) Frigate) on exercise
coming into anchor briefly before going out to sea again.
Two other T23s are also around. Picture from Cawsand

Still short of fresh meet I got the dinghy out and rowed ashore only to be disappointed, all of the meat in the small Spar shop was dated today, I generally keep to the dates not wanting to be ill at sea, I did however get a Pasty for tonight [very disappointing with very little meat] and a Pizza that when partially folded just fits in the electric cool box.

12 miles in  three and three-quarter hours.

Decision time this evening.

The weather is not looking good for the Channel Islands due to a risk of being stuck there in an expensive marina (had far too much of that this year) and more importantly not getting back to Milford by the end of September in time to go ashore which would cause all sorts of problems and put painting work into winter - I need a spring tide of at least 6.8 metres to be lifted out, 2 - 4 days a fortnight at best and sometimes even a Spring tide is not enough, also the lifts during the next spring tide may already be fully booked and the one after that is too low.

The forecasts have been changing constantly but are starting to come into agreement with strong winds early next week, this could shift to whole schedule by a week as light-ish winds are forecast before and after and I have no intention of motoring across the channel. I could wait until Monday to make the decision but then I would be stuck in the Plymouth area and then have head winds all the way back to Land's End.

So I will decide after I down load this evenings models, sod's law says that there may be a brief fresh easterly on Saturday so if I am going back west I want to get at least to Fowey tomorrow and perhaps St Mawes, then again shelter up the Truro River or perhaps at Newlyn.

Click here for a revised plan and my return to St Mawes.

2023 1st September, Days 26 and 27 Fowey to Cawsand and Hope Cove

The plan now was to position myself to get to the Channel Islands, probably initially Guernsey to meet up with fellow Jester John.

The first stop would be Cawsand on the west side of Plymouth Sound.

"Spirit of Adventure" about to enter Fowey for  the first time.

She is thought to be the largest ship ever to enter and
went in backwards with the help of 1 tug.

Sancerre in Cawsand Bay. I was still towing the dinghy so I went
ashore for some fresh food and an ice cream. I had thought to have
a swim but the water was so cold I chickened out.

Then Sabi arrived, now owned by fellow Jester sailor Bob,
a long chin wag and catch up ensued.

20 miles in 4 hours

To Hope Cove

With strong winds forecast in a couple of days I decided to head for Salcombe as a better start point for Guernsey and, given the likely variability of the winds direction, with better protection than the Jennycliff Bay anchorage in Plymouth Sound that had been my first thought. The next day was forecast to be decent so I initially headed for Hope Cove to anchor for the night.

A dolphin breaching, full screen will be required

to see it.

From the anchorage at Hope Cove after a pleasant sail from
Cawsand.

12 miles in 4 hours.

Click here for a good sail back to Plymouth.

2023 10th August Day 4 To Cawsand Bay, Plymouth

The gate through the Portland inshore route opened at 05:34 but some daylight is needed for the approach as there is usually a lot of pot buoys to avoid, civil twilight started at  05:12 so 06:00 at the Bill was more realistic. As is often the case I was awake before the alarm so had some coffee whilst waiting for the planed start of 04:30, in the event it being a dark night I waited a bit longer for the light to improve enough to see unlit boats and markers, with a nice clean hull I caught up the time, even against a 12 knot wind and a light chop.

Turning to go round at 05:58

A rather rocky video, it was a little bumpy and I was paying more attention to where I was going than taking the video. Rocks, almost awash at HW neaps extend out from the obelisk on the left.  

Leaving the Bill at 06:01

With the benign conditions I had the sails up within a few minutes of rounding, the next decision was which way to head, the wind was easterly as apposed to the forecast of south or south-east making the normal route close to a dead run. The forecast also said that the wind would veer to the South or South West, the shipping forecast did not give a time for that but the 20:00 download the previous night showed that happening shortly after lunch, to head directly to Start Point could leave me down wind and down tide of it. I therefore headed further south and eventually ended up 5 miles south of the "normal" route.

I started off on a broad reach under all plain sail; most of the time I could have used the cruising chute but the wind was 11 - 12 knots and on a reach 14 knots is the limit and it had been gusting that earlier. Finally I gave in and put the chute up at 9 o'clock and made very quick progress for a couple of hours when I sensed the wind increasing and I got it down just before 16 knots of wind arrived. It didn't last long and stayed a steady easterly at 11 knots until 12:00 when it dropped a little and started veering to southerly by 12:30 and 200 degrees by 16:00. I started to alter course for Start Point at 12:00 and was hard on the wind by 13:00.

My actual track (red) and predicted track at 4 knots with a course to Steer
of 246 degrees allowing for tide (dotted line) and rhumb line (Blue)

It was tight but I made it to my waypoint off  "The Start" without tacking; boats that had tried to go direct were now in trouble way to leeward and with a very adverse tide to get to and past Start Point, a 45 foot boat that was behind me at "The Bill" was now even further behind, VERY satisfying 😀

After a very pleasant sail, much with a warm sun, there was still a challenge to be faced, fog. From about 6 mile short of Start Point the visibility quickly reduced.

The above was taken just after entering the fog, by the time I was south of Start Point visibility was down to 50 - 100 yards and, with a number of boats about without Automatic Identification System (AIS) things were a little tense, even with Radar - I may have a rant later about boats without radar reflectors!

A close encounter with a fishing boat, never seen. As I approached
Salcombe VHF became busy as people checked in with boats in the
vicinity, some of which were not on AIS. At least one boat without an
AIS receiver was using Marinetraffic.com to track those with a
transceiver but would probably have lost that at some point as I have
always lost mobile signals at some point along this coast (O2, Vodafone
and Smarty).

I did not see any land until the fog started to lift when past Bolt Head, unfortunately it then started to rain and it was a miserable trip on to Cawsands Bay and a difficult approach on a dark night with some remaining fog and light rain. With several old gaffers in the anchorage I went well to the north where there was lots of space but moved south next day for better shelter.

Having got below just after 22:00 for very delayed sundowners, I was not happy when HMS Protector, anchored a few hundred yards away started sounding her very loud fog horn, why that was not sounding in worse visibility when I was struggling to see her as I came in I don't know. Fortunately the noise stopped at about midnight and I could get some much needed sleep.

83 nautical miles over the ground in a little under 18 hours.

Click here for the short trip to Sand Acre Bay and waiting for better weather.

2022 St Kilda Day Day 82 Fowey to Cawsand Bay

A 6:45 start with a visit to the fuel berth on the first of the ebb, a good time to get onto it although the current was a little more than ideal, but mooring port side to, going into the tide was not difficult and puts the fuel cap on the shore side for access. Rarely could you sensibly berth single handed going down tide on this berth.

It was a nice sunny day with variable winds often very light and sometime non-existent, but I managed to sail all the way except for using the engine for a total of half an hour to leave Fowey and to anchor at Cawsand. 

Passing outside off the Udder Rock south cardinal buoy a few
miles east of Fowey. One of the few buoys I can reliably
remember the name of. The rock dries 0.6 metres at LAT
but I have never seen it.

The Portuguese "Bartolomeu Dias" one of many warships from
several nations exercising off of Plymouth, I also identified HMS
Diamond (T45 Destroyer) , HMS Somerset  & HMS Kent (T23
Frigates),a German Frigate I can't remember the name of, plus a
couple of logistics ships and a small British warship not advertising
its name on AIS and too far off to read it's pennant number. 

The Cawsand anchorage

The anchorage was quite busy when I arrived (not as many as
shown, at least half of these boats are local on moorings), and got
more so. There was a certain pleasure in recognising several larger
boats that had motored past me as I sailed.

23 miles in ten and a half hours.

Click here for Cawsand to Beer.

2021 Late Summer Cruise, Days 4 & 5. Portland - Cawsand

Winds were still lighter than the forecast F3 -5 so a long trip across Lyme Bay was in prospect but if the forecast was correct on wind direction I might clear Start Point.

The obligatory photo going through the Portland inshore route,
on this occasion about 5 minutes early.

Winds were rather lighter than forecast but I had decent sailing until early evening when I was off Dartmouth and the wind started to veer and drop further. There was some light relief as dusk fell when a large pod of dolphins briefly followed the boat, one youngster breached a yard from the boat getting me wet from the splashdown.

Finally the wind disappeared and rain came reducing visibility so I diverted to Pilchard Cove at the north end of Slapton Sands rather than mess about trying to avoid lobster pots off Start Point under power with rubbish vis. The rain stopped and the arrival at 23:30 was drama free.

56 miles in 16 hours.

I left earlier than planned because the wind had moved round to the north east putting me very close to a lea shore and with the boat lying broadside to the waves she was rolling badly. I motored out past the Skerries Bank then sailed south against the tide, the light wind dropped so I put the motor on as I approached Start Point and unfortunately had to keep it on as the promised F3-5 did not materialised and the choppy sea, presumably coming from winds well to the south meant that progress was very slow or non existent except for the tide so I motored all the way to Cawsand Bay.

The following was taken off of Start Point, there were lots more than shown here, it may be the "super pod" of 80 reported in the area that scared off a shark. I was amongst them for about 20 minutes. Play enlarge as much as you can.

Look for the young animal from 30 secs till the end, I wonder if this is the one that splashed me the previous day? 

Jolie Brise, one of 3 old gaffers in the anchorage, anchoring behind me.
She a very famous boat that won the first Fastnet race, and more later.
She is based on the Hamble and was there on Tuesday before I left.

33 miles in 7.5 hours.

Click here for day 6 & 7.

Stage one of my July trip, Hamble to Plymouth

Like the season, this trip started late, this time delayed from Saturday by the weather with gales and severe gales in the channel, I eventually got away on Monday, but even that was delayed as the best time to leave was at the end of the high tide "stand" on the Hamble at 03:00 to take the last of the ebb down the Solent, but it was still quite windy so I left it until 08:00, the still brisk wind would enable me to make reasonable progress against the adverse 2 – 3 knot tide by keeping to the shallows and not having to tack to arrive at Hurst as the tide turned favourable. This almost went to plan, I almost made it on one tack from Calshot to Hurst but, a little help was needed from the engine for 10 or 15 minutes to clear "Sconce" buoy without tacking.

 

I passed the Needles at about 13:00 and after avoiding the southern part of the Shambles bank headed for a point well off Portland to avoid the race and almost certain rough seas closer in, especially with the wind against tide.

A big modern Schooner overtaking me approaching the Needles.

With the ebbing spring tide quick progress was made on a very close fetch until just east of the Bill when the tide turned reducing the apparent wind over the sea from 15 to 11 knots or less and it was very slow progress for 6 hours with the wind shifting and dropping at times and coming from the west, just the direction I was trying to sail.

As someone said on Flickr "Looks like Piccadilly Circus
out there so not a lot of sleep tonight :-)"

Then we were off again with the wind strengthening but variable in direction between west and north west until 15 miles short of Start Point when it almost disappeared and I missed the tidal gate. Again fighting an adverse tide with little wind on the nose it took about 8 hours to get the 15 miles to south of the point, helped for the last couple of hours by a rapidly increasing wind which made the passage past Salcombe, Bolt Head and particularly Bolt Tail very uncomfortable with a strong wind against the tide.

 

My track approaching Start Point

The final section from there, past The Mew Stone guarding the approach to Plymouth to anchor in Cawsand bay was very hard work with winds well over 20 Knots (F6) at times and a difficult sea  fortunately Sancerre is pretty good at getting over the waves under autopilot or wind vane steering without the need for manual intervention.

Cawsand Bay

Another single handed sailor anchoring in Cawsand bay, one 

of few boats in this favoured anchorage, I guess its the weather

and boats not yet in the water due to the virus lock down.

 I sailed 145 nautical miles over the ground in 35 hours. 

 

Almost the whole trip from the Shambles bank was done with wind vane doing the steering rather than autopilot which was good news as the wind sensor used by the autopilot when sailing kept cutting out, I finally figured out the immediate reason – lots of canned food in the next locker to the radio link transceiver that connects the network to the sensor at the top of the mast. They were not in line between the 2 points but clearly affected the radio link, after I re-stowed the tins the link only failed once, hopefully moving some tools from the same locker as the unit will fully solve the problem. [Unfortunately things got worse later in the cruise and the wind sensor failed altogether coming down the east coast].

 

If the forecast, which shows poor visibility and adverse winds up to Force 6 tomorrow, holds the plan is to move on, probably to St Mawes, on Friday when the wind will be favourable, meet up with some fellow Achilles boat owners on Saturday when the winds are due to be very light or non-existent and push on from there on Sunday. If the weather is a little better than forecast tomorrow I might take advantage of any window to stage through Fowey.

Slide show all of my pictures from Hamble to Plymouth. Page through by clicking the arrows or click in the centre of the pic to view from Flickr in a new window or full screen:

Stage 2 Plymouth to St Mawes.

Jester Baltimore Challenge 2019 – Before the Start.

Many say that getting to the start is the biggest challenge not just the trip to the start, although that can be a substantial voyage in itself with challengers coming from far and wide, but also getting the boat into good repair and equipped for extended single handed sailing in potentially dangerous waters – the same that caught the Fastnet race competitors in 1979.

Although not done specifically for the Jester Baltimore Challenge (JBC) it took me 18 months and a lot of effort to get Sancerre ready, and she was already in good condition albeit under equipped and not set up for single handed sailing.

The next thing to do was to get to the start and the weather was not helping with multiple episodes of high winds forecast and no window long enough to guarantee getting to Plymouth from Gosport in easy steps to be fresh for the start. 

I had planned to leave on Tuesday and stop off a couple of times on the way down so as to avoid tiring overnight sailing, with strong winds forecast for Tuesday and possibly Thursday into the weekend, I started early on Monday for Portland, stayed there for 2 nights waiting for the weather to blow through and I headed off for Plymouth very early on Wednesday morning.  

Portland Bill inshore route


Initially it was still quite windy and getting off the pontoon without bashing the boat behind and down wind was a bit of a challenge but thereafter everything went smoothly with the wind dropping as I came out of the harbour. I took the inshore route around the Bill of Portland with a number of boats leaving Weymouth for their summer cruises.  I even got the big spinnaker up for the only time on the outbound trip.  


Crossing Lyme Bay.

Start Point

Cawsand Bay on arrival

Mike leaving Cawsand

I anchored in Cawsand Bay in the outer part of Plymouth Sound at 20:30 and woke in the morning to find that Mike had arrived from Falmouth a few hours after me in "Tranquillity", another Achilles 9m.

I was booked into Mayflower Marina for Friday and Saturday night so I stayed at Cawsand the next day and night before moving to the Marina on Friday morning to meet up with some of the other Jesters including John in Pippin, who I had previously met up with in Alderney, Bernie in his Achilles 24 (ft) “Mischief" and a number of others, one of whom negotiated a very generous discount for the challengers, Well done Bob!

Over the next couple of days we were checking weather forecasts at every opportunity as they were showing gusts well in excess of 30 Knts for Sunday and we were debating whether to start at the official time on Sunday morning or to delay until Monday which was my intention until forecasts coming out on Saturday evening predicting F4-5 occasionally 6 moderating 3 - 4, the Sunday morning forecast confirmed this although it was going to be bumpy for the first 12 hours, that proved optimistic!

Slide show of all my pictures getting to the start, page through by clicking the arrows or click in the centre of the pic to view from Flickr in a new window or full screen:

Next section: https://mbnb5.blogspot.com/2019/06/jester-baltimore-challenge-2019-getting.html