Back from a wedding, we wanted to get out of the pricey mooring that we were at and get back to anchoring, so on to the Helford river (a short hop across the bay).
As you can see on the track, we decided our trip would be far too quick, even only sailing with the genoa out.
So we did a few tacks and tried to get as close as possible to a beach where @brendonprince_ was having a little SUP (as he advertised on Instagram).
We had 3 different routes planned with a set of parameters that we were at that point unsure of.
Optimistic: Based on a theoretical good into wind angle of 45 degrees. This would take us around 8 hours.
Pessimistic: Using a polar that we created from what we thought our actual sailing performance was from back in 2020 and 2021. This would take us around 18 hours.
Middle ground: Based on a theoretical “normal” into wind angle of 60 degrees. This would take us around 12 hours.
So quite a range of times.
Each route took us right out into the channel, and with a single tack back all the way into Falmouth.
We went for it, planning for all 3 (or other eventualities), and the middle ground route ended up being roughly what we achieved. We were sailing on our closest point of sail the whole way with 1m swell from the west and 15-25 knts generally from the west.
In the image below you can see the middle route we managed, as well as 2 way points indicating the tack points of the other 2 routes.
Due to the single tack the voyage was quite pleasant 🙂
We headed to a marina, as we had a wedding to attend and wanted to keep Hannah safe and out of the way of others. We arrived in the evening so spent that evening on a visitor pontoon rafter up next to a very lovely yacht that had just come back from the Azores.
So many boats anchored up hiding away from the winds to come.
On day 9 we moved to the inner harbour of Port Pendennis Marina. Exciting day as we took Hannah over her first sil and through a swinging bridge.
We were considering heading to Falmouth for day 6 (sailing to a schedule), but started heading out of Plymouth, reached the swell and decided that was not the day for us.
We turned did a U-turn to head back into the protection of Plymouth.
Along the way a pilot boat can and did a little doughnut around us, letting us know there was a great big warship following us in, and that we might want to move over a bit.
We had said before that it would be cool to sail under the Tamar bridge, so we took this opportunity to head a few miles up the river to get under it and anchor on the other side.
You can see the track heading out, turning around and heading up river below.
We ended up anchoring at the end of a collection of mooring buoys on the northwest side of the bridge, which also happened to be along side a rowing competition of some sort!
As we were staying around Plymouth we had the opportunity to invite a friend of Hannah aboard for dinner!
Another route that we have sailed before, so planning was relatively easy here.
The track was around 20 nautical miles and we only motored in and out of the rivers at either end. We managed to average 5 knots (one of our fastest voyages to date) and actually hit 9.3 knots while under sail.
We anchored on the western side of the estuary, outside the breakwater near Cawsand. (We were on the east side during our last visit)
Headed into shore on the dinghy with some dinner that we made on the boat and ate it in the sun!
We spent day 2 in Dartmouth on the DC visitor pontoon generally getting ready for a sail (mostly stowing the many things we brought onto the boat on the last day on land).
We also fitted the blades to the wind turbine so that we could start generating a bit more power!
Kathryn up the mast fitting wind turbine blades
On day 3 it was quite light wind, but we wanted to get moving so we set off in the morning motoring but managed to sail for parts of the journey.
We also started fishing with the new paravane along the way and caught 2 mackerel just before approaching Salcombe.
We didn’t want to think about anchoring with the brand new anchor just yet so we headed to a visitor bouy and rafted up next to 2 other yachts.
Fresh mackerel for dinner, it was delicious! And a lovely night’s sleep.
Hannah had been hauled out for a couple of months while we sanded back the hull and gave her a full repaint.
On splash day she was lifted from her cradle and headed toward the water.
Hannah Penn, about to be lifted from her cradle in Totnes 2022 before a splash
Splash time was around lunchtime near Totnes at Baltic Wharf, and we had a short motor down the River Dart to Dartmouth to finish getting ourselves together before actually setting off anywhere.
This was roughly 8 miles of motoring over 2 hours with the tide in our favour.
We ended up on the DC visitor pontoon in Dartmouth.
Hannah moored on DC visitor pontoon in Dartmouth post 2022 splash
Headed to shore for a bit of relaxation (pub dinner) a walk around and a little shopping trip 🙂
