Susan J joins South West Gaffers at Sea -At last!

 As Storm Francis abated, "Susan J" crossed to St Mawes and spent a pleasant afternoon exploring the Percuil River in the dinghy. Eventually finding "Lizzie Dripping" on her mooring near Place, we dropped the SWR meter into her cockpit and returned aboard to sail to Chanal Creek, opposite Turnaware Point, under Trelissick House.  A peaceful anchorage on a calm dry evening and we were joined alongside by "Roxanne" for socially distanced preprandial drinks before they anchored nearby.

The rain started and by mid morning was stair rods and continued thus until after lunch.  By deploying the cockpit cover over the spray hood, much of the water remained outboard.  Motoring up to the Smugglers Cottage Reach, we were dwarfed by two enormous car ferries registered in Madeira.  On to Maggoty Bank confirmed that where we were anchored under Trelissick house was the quietest spot in the river, so we returned and met Martin and Jan for preprandial G&T and anchored ready to explore Trelisick gardens in the morning, which proved another showery one!

We sailed back to St Mawes, while "Roxanne" shopped in Falmouth and, after a peaceful night, we were joined by Martin West aboard "Cariad" and the three gaffers set off towards Fowey.  "Susan J" had already decided to put in a second reef before passing Dodman, as the CG released an inaudible and irrelevant gale warning. "Roxanne" was reassured by VHF that we hadn't turned back. As we passed the Dodman and "Cariad" closed up, it appeared that "Cariad" had turned back but it transpired that Martin, sailing alone and until then faster, had wisely retreated into Gorran Haven for lunch and was only just behind and drier, when he came alongside "Roxane" in Fowey!  We were all just about able to lay Fowey after rounding the Dodman, with much alteration of foresails from 1/3 staysail to full jib and staysail as we weathered the fierce squalls. One short tack brought us under Gribben Head and inside Cannis Rock but "Periwinkle", who we could see at the entrance and we thought was waiting for u,s had been towed up river by the harbour master, with further engine problems. 

Moored on the pontoon in Pil creek, with three enormous brand new RIB's being prepared for an oil dispersion trial.  We were joined by Brian and Estelle ("Annabelle") via the water taxi and "Cariad".

By 18:45 we were with beer, sat socially at three distanced tables and joined by John Gallagher and Geoff from "Perriwinkle", discovering that "pontoon 6" , wher the engineless "Perriwinkle" had been sent, was upriver of the chain ferry.  Mike Forward, forced to drive, after breaking "Arriane"'s tiller on departure from the Tamar, completed the gathering of eleven SW gaffers " at sea"  for a very enjoyable meal in excellent company at the Royal Fowey YC.

Looking on the bright side of storm "Francis" - August weather - don't you love it - returning to the "new normal"?

Following a very hot road trip to London, we waited out the, anticipated but non materialising, thunderstorms in Somerset, using the opportunity to replace the car before returning aboard "Susan J" in the week before the August bank holiday.  

A wet day sail to Carrick Roads, set the scene and gave Julie an opportunity to try out her new oilskins, which didn't leak! It also enabled us to re deploy the jib with the new Wickham Martin top swivel and untangle the wrongly reeved port sheet off Falmouth docks!  Pilotage at low tide was further enhanced by a massive rig apparently under her own steam and a barge being towed by two suitably marked tugs!  We decided to retain our reef and return back to our mooring to sit out storm Francis.

A night spent on her home mooring in a named storm, is at once instructive, frightening, exhilarating and also rather reassuring.  "Susan J" with the riser shortened and set on the bull rope, hardly touched the mooring buoy, while the rudder slightly set to port, kept the riser off the inner bobstay most of the time.  Compared with nearby vessels our halyard frapping was relatively effective and despite the torrential rain, a combination of spray hood and cockpit cover kept us and her cockpit reasonably dry.  

By the morning the sun appeared and the wind rose further, recording a steady F 7 and 49 knots / F9 on a couple of occasions.  

 By now the mate was getting restless and the "all weather"  Helford ferry, in Nick's capable hands, got us ashore, so we could have a socially distanced swim in the pool and Julie a walk.  The upside of this, apart from eggs for breakfast, is that the skipper has had an opportunity to update the blog and start this post and reflect on our good fortune in being able to enjoy the 2020 sailing season despite Covid.

It seems that "Roxanne" is already sitting out storm Francis in the Fal, "Lizzie Dripping" is hoping for VHF help in the Percuil River, while "Arriane" and "Periwinkle" may be heading west from the Tamar, as the wind veers to the north.  An impromptu, socially distanced, gathering of a few SW gaffers may happen in the days ahead!  While the new What's App group - "South West Gaffers at Sea" - may be coming of age!

Fowey and Tamar - tentatively post lockdown!

Early August found  "Susan J" on a broad reach to Dodman Point and another on the opposite gybe into Fowey.  As we rounded up and released the jib traveller, the upper Wickham Martin swivel broke (as the subsequent photograph shows) and the traveller came aft, at speed, breaking part of the staysail reefing drum!  Should have eased the halyard first but at least it happened in the relative shelter of Gribben head! 

Once we recovered and bagged the jib we took an empty visitors mooring and enjoyed two rather rolly nights, either side of a very wet and misty day in which we completed the Hall walk via Polruan and Bodenick ferries.  

Thursday was calm and misty so we pointed in the direction of Rame Head with the autopilot taking charge, more effectively without a jib!  While we all kept a lookout through the fog. By lunch time the mist cleared to reveal a colourful, if rather empty Plymouth Sound. We anchored under Jennycliff and visited Mountbatten for a socially distanced drink before returning aboard for super and another rolly night.  

After a brief swim in sharp thunderstorm, we sailed and motored under the bridges and back to the Lynher, where we anchored close to the mud in ssssssss bay.  A walk ashore in the summer's heat, through the hay fields conserved by the local community and eating the juicy blackberries, was a delight.  

Once there was sufficient water, we dinghied up the very picturesque and tidy Forder creek for socially distanced drinks and picnic with Rob and Ann and their friends, the first SW gaffer event, for us since visiting Pellew awaiting launch in Truro.

Our cruise at this point was going to have to be cut short by brewing issues in London but the upside was that our daughter, Lil, could stay aboard until we were back at Helford and return to London with us rather than by train.  We went alongside at the Mayflower and Julie and Lil hauled David aloft to retrieve the jib halyard and remains of the top swivel.  The replacement had not arrived, as ordered in Fowey and eventually required a separate road trip the following weekend, after our trip to London and Bristol in the heat and thunderstorms but facilitated the disposal of an unsuitable danbuoy a replacement inflatable device and new oilskins for Julie.  Apparently married for 40 years (the skipper had left the redated anniversary card at home for the fourth year running!), the opportunity was taken, to have our first post lockdown sit down meal.  We are pleased to report that the food and beer at Jolly Jack's is as good as ever and all unobtrusively socially distanced!

So, with batteries recharged and water tanks full, we motored about a third of the way to the Dodman before a  WNW  wind filled in, dolphins appeared and, with the tide, we close reached our mooring in 9 hours on a close reach at 6-7 knots under main and stay sail alone.

Launched at last!

After 13 10 hour days at Ponsharden, we are afloat!

Electrics work. But the electronics still a work in progress.

Anchored off St Just for our first night, enjoying the sun set. Will spend the morning sorting out down below and then trial sail tomorrow,to collect Fi.

Julie has had her first swim, with jellyfish and water skiers! 

An extended lockdown layup!

Our plans, like those of others have been severely curtailed this year, as we are unable to visit our boat, like so many others, but at least we remain well.  With the possibility of being allowed back to Cornwall, in the next month or so, it seems timely to update the blog and once started, it is amazing how much seems to have already been achieved ashore!.

Winter projects, planned and incidental, were well underway by the first week in March with about another three weeks of work to do, after a brief skiing trip before launching by Easter.  I departed for Somerset, as it happened for my last pub meal and draft beer, leaving James, of Marine Gas Solutions still on board. I already had with me, the old switch panel with circuit breakers and I collected the re galvanised anchor on my way past back through Devon.  It has spent the last four months on the hall carpet waiting to be connected to the 55 meters of new chain! 

The spray hood brackets are awaiting re seating and fixing.  The port cockpit cupboard doors is awaiting rehanging.  The antifoul and rollers are all waiting on the coach roof, as are the cleaned and serviced Wickham Martin, backstays and blocks, bowsprit shrouds and blocks and other fittings are, hopefully, still on the coach roof awaiting my refitting and hopefully will all still be there aunder the winter cover in July!

Some of the jobs were more or less compelted including:

The heads, where a new replacement Lavac was sourced, as the cost of replacing the old seat and seals was twice as much!  It has been installed, with a shorter waste pipe, already cleaned with hydrochloric acid, leading directly to a freshly serviced Henderson Mk V pump, one of three now used in rotation and changed at least once a season, with a freshly serviced spare always aboard! A SeaSmart “toilet sanitiser” had impressed us at Southampton Boat Show and I had plumbed it into the seawater inlet pipe, just below the vent so that it would settle in the residual water in the pipe above the seacock.  Hopefully this will eliminate rotting critters and reduce unpleasant odours.  I added a toggle switch to the internal battery, so that it need only be used at the end of each voyage rather than for every flush.

The bowsprit had developed a crack at the gammon iron, around one third of it's circumference, during last season, the copper sheathing protecting the traveller from the bowsprit has also worn through underneath and I was keen to have a white tip to see better in dark anchorages!  We took it, strapped to the car roof, to David Brunyee’s team at Islington Wharf and it had returned by the end of January, with a fresh section scarfed in.  The area where the gammon iron bears was sheathed in glass fibre as was the area where the traveller bears.  Gleaming in Woodskin and with a smart white tip, we had lifted it onto the deck, fortunately under the winter cover and it is still waiting for me to service the bow roller and re seal the stem/ deck leak before re fitting the gammon iron, already re leathered by Di at Seadogs” in Penryn, who still has our living room sofa cushions for releathering!

The Taylors 803 gas oven was always rather temperamental but the dangerous process of lighting the grill, essential for crew morale in the mornings, was becoming unacceptable.  I had taken it home and dismantled it, the doors are remarkably complicated, and posted the stripped down device to Will Hayward. It had already come back from Suffolk and been re installed aboard, for James Emmerson to re site the inaccessible, screw down cut off valve, from behind the cooker to beside it, with a more effective and visible gas cut off tap.   I still look forward to inspecting his handiwork!  A new cooker would have cost little more but have been rather less robust and require considerable carpentry to fit into the allocated space in the galley. 

Photo finished cooker

With all the above done, we returned from Austria, straight back home, as instructed by the Austrian government, so we were already confined to Somerset, by the time the Government realised we really were in a pandemic, after all, at the end of March!  The first two weeks of our lock down were spent manufacturing a new switch panel, in three sections from 3mm aluminium sheets. Fortunately, I had already purchased some new pushbutton circuit breaker switches, to replace those that failed satisfactory bench testing and a new FM radio and multiple USB and 12V sockets.  So was able to fit all these and they await installation.  The mainsheet blocks have also been stripped, varnished, serviced and a second hand Walker's log fettled and the wooden case varnished.  It has all joined the anchor in the hallway!

The ongoing electrical archaeology was in full swing before lockdown, with the new panel and further wiring revision to be completed.  Many of the obsolete instruments and gadgets, including the remains of a Dolphin generator, have now been removed and I had spent about ten days tracing and removing redundant wires and cables, while labelling those that remain.   Power supply and data wires have been re routed, where necessary and some retained and labelled as spares.  The junction box at the base of the mast has been worked out and photos taken, for when the mast is un stepped for maintenance next year. There are, already, two large carrier bags of cable to be taken off the boat! There will be plenty of 12V sockets and USB chargers while the hand held VHF has it’s own dedicated supply.  A replacement FM radio, a working 12 V meter with a new shunt, all still to be fitted.

Photo panel before and after

Despite now having a conventional chart table aboard “Susan J”, we never used the Yeoman plotter or the dot matrix GPS, which was too difficult to see to be useful.  We have, however, retained the current Navtex instrument, although it may be plugged in as required, rather than permanently mounted, as, like the old one, the new panel is too narrow.  There is still much work to be done and it remains to be seen if all the instruments, in the mixed NMEA 1863 and 2000 environment, will still talk to each other.  Inevitably our venerable but now familiar C120 chart plotter and radar will need replacing, at some stage in the future and the five cockpit instruments can then be revised to one or two, leaving space for an illuminated bulkhead compass to replace the old Sestrel under the tiller. 

Photo sestrel and log

As always, one job has led to four others. Looking back, I was grateful to have planned to remove some items for refurbishment, well before Christmas and have them back aboard, if not re installed, well before the spring fit out.  Looking forward, we must never again assume that we will be back the next day, let alone the next week or quarter and I should leave everything secure, it is now four months and counting and hopefully will all still be in place!  It has been frustrating, not to be able to make use of the warm dry weather to undertake other maintenance, particularly to the bulwarks, rubbing strake and deck, which remain sound but tatty. However, in the event of further lockdown, that may be possible and she is ready for another winter but we still hope to get afloat this year!

"Champagne" sailing Gull Rock - return - 5 hours!

A perfect day sail!
WNW 15 to 20 knots. Close reach across Falmouth Bay, Gerrans Bay and Veryan Bay under blue skies and a flat sea. 26M.

K

Isles of Scilly

With visitors gone, a busier bank holiday weekend approaching and easterlies for 36 hours forecasted with neap tides, David and Julie planned a passage to St Agnes in Scilly.  A waning moon meant a 0400 departure in the dark was feasible.  We motor sailed to the Lizard and shot around on the tide as the forecast south easterly filled in, carrying us well beyond Wolf Rock before dying.  

Several pods of dolphins were seen en route.

A further 7 miles motor sailing found us off The Cove, between St Agnes and Ghue, waiting for two faster boats to anchor.  "Susan J" nosed closer in to find sand in 4 metres.  This was a rolling anchorage but safe.  

After a 13 hour, 60 M passage, we still had time and daylight to walk around Ghue, only possible since the previous week, as it is a nesting site for a large number of black backed gulls and other seabirds.  The adolescent chicks, were constantly squealing and fighting resulting in lots of corpses under foot but excellent blackberries!

From St Agnes, which we walked around and across the following day, could be seen the Western Isles and Bishop Rock lighthouse.  Here seen between the many pink granite tors found throughout.  On returning to our dinghy on the spit between the two Islands, following a pint at the The Turks Head, we, almost literally, bumped into Trevor and Marion, not seen since our Plymouth days. They had just arrived, by ferry from Penzance, to stay on the St Agnes for a few days.  We enjoyed catching up with them at their borrowed holiday home in the "town". Both now retired but sadly no longer sailing. We were delighted to hear, upon our return, that the "Scillonian III" had been repaired, so hopefully they got back to Ivybridge in the end!

 After two nights of rolling in the westerly atlantic swell, refracting around the plateau, which forms Scilly and into The Cove, we weighed anchor for St Helens Sound.  A short but fraught passage around St Marys, passing a large cruise ship anchored in Broad Sound, before careful pilotage at the right state of tide and in good visibility along several bearings to transits.  Once there, one is rewarded with a large area of smooth deep water over a sandy bottom, with a wide choice of rocks to shelter behind. The outer reefs to the NW of Tresco and St Helens, awash with breaking seas and spray, afford almost complete relief from the ubiquitous swell and relative seclusion.  From this delightful and peaceful open anchorage, we were able to use our dinghy and outboard to walk around St Helens, from the summit of which, a good view of the other Islands was afforded.  We went on to walk around Tean and the following day, St Martins.

 Julie, with Round Island and it's lighthouse in the background.  The picture does not do justice to the overwhelming smell of heather honey, found on these outlying Islands.  

Now uninhabited, St Helens was the quarantine station for Scilly, with the remains of a substantial dwelling, water well and other appurtenances, to afford only basic comfort to those surviving for six months before being allowed on to the other Islands.

St Martins seen from Tean.  The Lichens, throughout Scilly are very prolific being subject to virtualy no airborne pollution.   

 On St Martins, the bays to the northeast were deep in fine sand and at there western end, sheltered by White Island from the swell.  Despite the light rain, Julie and David enjoyed a swim, before continuing to walk around the whole Island, visiting the daymark, replenishing ourselves with tea, buying stores at the post office and bakery, before a pint at the Seven Stones Inn.  Once again, as at St Agnes, we bumped into the crew of "Tern", a blue water cutter seen laid up at Penryn. She was sailing in company with another sloop, skippered by Graham, our yard manager! They were both anchored, snuggly off Tean Island but would have to move as the spring tides meant insufficient water. 

 
"Susan J" with Old Grimsby, on Tresco, in the background

 Sunset at St Martins Sound

 With potentially strong westerlies forecasted for as early as the next day, we decided to move, as our present anchorage could only be left at high tide and would prevent us leaving with favourable tides at the Lizard.  As we left the two other Falmouth yachts moved to the deeper water of St Helens Sound. 

Here we are alone on the second day at Watermill Cove.

The forecast improved so we were able to take two long walks around the northern half of St Marys

and have a swim.  By this stage we had managed to rig the new, replacement Zodiac dinghy, with lines to enable the two of us to lift her.  Certainly this replacement was not nearly as good quality, or as handy, as the original 20 year old, leaky, "deflatable", Zodiac, of the same model it replaced.

By Thursday, it was clear that we would need to be back in Falmouth Bay by Friday evening, with strong winds forecast.  An early start on Friday morning would entail leaving the Islands in complete darkness, as the moon was new.  On the other hand a departure at dusk the night before would mean an overnight crossing with more flexibility in catching the substantial spring tide around the Lizard, if necessary before dawn but still entering harbour in daylight.  Julie had undertaken an almost identical passage from St Agnes several years ago as part of her RYA training.  With one reef in the mainsail and the working jib we were running east at around five knots and, with in an hour, could identify Wolf Rock and soon after the Longships, Tater Du then the loom of the Lizard light. At daybreak we reached through the overfalls and could see the nine anchored cargo ships off Coverack, "waiting for orders" and providing a "highway" to Manacle buoy and Falmouth. Another 13 hour passage, without major incident.

We had had six nights of "free parking" anchored around Scilly.  The downside is no water and no showers.  Several sea swims made up for the latter but we realised that, with only one of her two tanks full at the start of this cruise and despite introducing Julie to washing up in seawater, we would need to replenish the water soon.  So we arrived off Falmouth Haven's fuel barge, rather sleepily, at 0930 and filled both water tanks and topped off the diesel.  A brisk beat against 25 knots of wind across to the Helford and we were safely moored once more.