June has been a busy month, with every opportunity taken to reinvigorate the sailing senses after such a long and dreary, lockdown, winter.
With the next gaffer event just a few days ago. We were back aboard and re victualed, before enjoying a meal aboard "Minx", with Paul and Penny Jolley.
The following morning, "Susan J" departed towards Fowey, followed by "Minx", with "Annabelle" and "Cariad " leaving soon after from Falmouth. A forecast brisk NW breeze, wasn't as strong as forecast and the one reef was shaken out within an hour. Passing close under the Dodman, "Susan J" reached Fowey on one tack for the second time in a fortnight.
A 09:00 start meant we were followed in to the harbour by a cloud of sails, mainly white but "Minx" s tan amongst them.
All four crews, were therefore able to meet at 18:00, for supper at the King of Prussia, ashore. Apparently under new management an unusual menu and flowing Tribute was enjoyed on two separate tables of four to meet the Covid rules.
Some decided to spend a day in Fowey, while "Susan J" cast off at 09:00 despite the light easterly forecast, this seemed preferable to a NE 6+ and "yellow" rain. The engine could rest 6 miles from Rame Head and a couple of tacks saw us passing close inshore and once borne away sailed splendidly up the Sound, around Drake's Island and in to the Hamoaze.
There are always several sinister RIB, police launches etc around the dockyards. On this occasion one such vessel came up to our port quarter. We hauled the mainsail in to slow down wondering what we had done wrong, 6.8 knots SOG seemed fairly conservative in the Sound! We were delighted when they said they had just come along side to say what a lovely sight we had been, following us into the Sound. They then left us to thread our way through all three Torpoint ferries and on to the mouth of the river Lynher.
We had arrived rather too soon to take the tide to Dandy Hole but another inflatable appeared on our port quarter bearing Rob Brown. Still running at 3-knots he tied on and spent 20 minutes discussing the forthcoming event, which Rob has organised. We drifted under Brunells bridge and turned into the ferocious mid tide. Dowsed the sail and ferry glided between the trots to up tide of "Heron", where hopped back into his flubber, until Monday at QAB.
Once in the Lynher, with a reducing tide under us we cautiously motored, following Cunliffe's advice, loosing and recovering the paper chart in the process!
We identified the boudaries of Dandy Hole and dropped our anchor and, gradually 35 M of chain, digging as we went, or so we thought, after two attempts despite needing to be at St. Germans Quay at 1900.
We were met by Julie's school friend, Elizabeth, who, delightfully, insisted on driving us up to her cottage in the village and served us fresh bbq'd steak, chicken etc etc. We set off back a couple of hours after high tide with a gorgeous red sky highlighting the railway viaduct and Sailing Club Quay.
On our return aboard, "Susan J" seemed tucked closer under the wooded cliff. Julie insisted on starting the instruments. We were going to dry out! A long discussion about length of chain ensued. Shortening to 25 meters moved us back into the middle of the hole but she was still swing around in the ebb.
As the tide turned so did the rode and once established, the flood had caused further dragging and the chart plotter confirmed this. Because, the now 20 knot wind and tide were in unison we were merely dragging along the "hole" so had plenty of water under us. Letting out another 10 meters held us, at least until the tide turned.
By 0800 we had had enough, the tide was slacker but the wind was rising and the forecast worse. With the help of the engine we recovered the chain for the sixth time, on this occasion bringing the anchor above the surface. In addition to the statutory clump of seaweed, there was a small pierced oyster shell a good cm up the tip of the CQR.
Lessons learnt: you really do need, at least, three times your depth in chain.
Scope, as illustrated on the close up chart plotter, makes a huge difference.
Setting the rudder to starboard to stop the chain fouling the inner bobstay, caused Susan J to be broadside in the strongest part of the tide and increases the dragging force. Leave rudder centred to minimise resistance, in strong streams.
When raising chain, to reset, raise it another half meter, so the anchor is above the surface and can be inspected. On the sixth occasion the cause of our sleepless night became blatantly obvious!
Our ancient chart plotter tracked our dragging and with the 0.01 M alarm was reassuringly effective. The downside is the 2.5 Amp battery drain. Acceptable in these circumstances and probably less with newer electronics.
The upside of our earlier departure was a hammerhead at the Mayflower and eggs for brunch just before the onset of four hours of "yellow" rain.
