Penarth to Falmouth, first proper trip of the season

This is a tale of about 200 nautical miles and 31.5 hours toodling along. No deaths or maiming or life threatening situations to report (or seasickness). So, for the pure thrill and gore seekers, go and read something else.

The weather window for Land’s End looked best over Easter Sunday / Monday so we prepared for the 9am lock out on Sunday to optimise the various conflicting tidal streams you encounter on this trip. Early on Sunday, Lisa the marina administration guru popped over and kindly presented us with a few mementos of Wales.  Some daffodils, a very Welsh tea towel, some little chocolate eggs and most importantly, Desmond the bear.  He came complete with £2 for board and lodgings – such a thoughtful new member of the menagerie on board.  He met Patrick, who seemed quite fatherly in his approach and they got on well – kind of critical when Patrick considers himself top penguin. As the only penguin on board, that isn't hard of course:

We have no idea how their relationship will develop. Again, watch this space…

It was with mixed feelings that we left Penarth and locked out into the muddy but very calm and pretty sunny Bristol Channel, being waved off by Lorna (with Poppy and Pip) more local residents. Here is the view back to Penarth cliffs and those with good vision or the ability to zoom in can see the Cardiff Millennium stadium in the background too:

You can see how calm it was so the initial run was very restful. Just regular engine checks as the big Lugger hadn't run for more than an hour at any one go since our arrival in Penarth.  It had also suffered at the hands of the captain and his maintenance regime.  Luckily neither of these challenges had upset it.

Just when we thought it was all quiet, a search and rescue helicopter flew past us and practised hovering.  Then, they came for a good look and called us on the radio asking if we would help with their practice by having someone winched on board.  Of course!  We’d enjoyed this noisy spectacle a couple of times before and are happy to help –one day we might need their expertise after all.

The “are you happy with our current course and speed?” question we asked was greeted with a request to turn to 020 degrees.  Almost back on ourselves….  Having checked us out, the pilot called and asked if we could increase speed by 5 knots to give him more windspeed over our deck.  He clearly doesn't know anything about full displacement boats – even with a gas turbine engine on board we wouldn't be able to do that!

However, we wound on a few more rpm, burned obscene amounts of fuel and gave them the best speed we could muster.  Totally impressed with the transfer – they hovered close enough despite our satellite domes, aerials etc to drop a man onto the small bathing platform.  Wow:

Then a second winchman joined him via a high-line.

Of course, the noise and spray were quite something.  From the picture below you can see how elderly the chopper is – an old Sea King that must have been in service only a decade or so less than the Triumph 2000 we left behind in Cardiff.  The oily streaks on the fuselage don’t inspire confidence – if our Lugger looked like that we would be very worried: 

 

After they recovered their crew, we got a thanks and bye and could resume our course.  For anyone who stalked us using Marinetraffic.com or other AIS websites, you must have thought we were drunk.  The big zigzag on the plotter screen shows our diversion to play with the helicopter:

Graham and Pat (the Reading and Greek island home folks) had come down to the coast to enjoy the weather and maybe see us pass – sadly they were just too late to see the chopper fun and only got a little boat bobbing along a few miles out to sea through binoculars. Sorry G and P.

We were then called on the radio by Falmouth coastguard. What had we done wrong? Were we in a military practice zone?  Had we transgressed one of the “rules of the road”?  Did they want us to help locate a stricken vessel?  Nope, much more prosaic – the helicopter crew wanted us to email the pictures we took of them!

As per last year, Lundy Island was a grey bit of land against a grey sea.  However, the sunset just after we passed Hartland Point was truly stunning.  This picture has not been photoshopped or enhanced – straight from the camera:

The crew was having a snooze and missed this and the first dolphins of the year, which trundled past and had a brief play in our bow wave. First of the year as long as we don’t count those in captivity at Loro Parque of course.

Overnight, there was a long slog, mainly against the tide, down the north coast of Cornwall. Some fishing boats to irritate the crew when she was helming but a lovely cloudless sky meant the moon reflected in the water and gave the distant land an eerie quality.  It got light as we rounded Cape Cornwall and headed for Land’s End.  It also got bumpy of course with nice 2m waves on the nose. Ideal just as you want breakfast. The wavelength was very short too, so they were steep and irritating. 

The boat was happy of course, it just meant that fine cuisine for breakfast was limited to a banana.  Our now traditional cream tea as we round Land’s End wasn't on the agenda – owing to the time of day and the danger of throwing jam and cream everywhere.  As we headed into the English Channel, so the waves till managed to be on the nose despite an almost 90 degree course alteration.  Don’t you love how the wind often runs parallel to the coastline.

Following another tradition, here is the Lizard lighthouse:

Cannot image building those wonderfully swooping walls around the place using a straight edge or spirit level.

The “run home” up to Falmouth passes the Manacles rocks where we had our first monster collection of horrid little pot markers being dragged underwater by the tide.  You know how we feel about those so no need for a 2015 rant. It was all made better when a few dolphins came to say welcome to Cornwall and played with us for a few minutes just off the Helford River. Standing on the foredeck watching them is just such a privileged thing.

Entering Falmouth, you get to see the old castle and the new Coastguard centre (the ones who radioed us earlier):

We headed through the estuary and up to the mid-river pontoon above Turnaware bar where we happily moored and put the kettle on.  Showers to feel more human, food, TV and sleep were needed.

Maintenance news:

Well, not much. The big Lugger was fine and that pesky navigation PC ran flawlessly. Almost getting to like it and Microsoft again – well, maybe it, certainly not Microsoft.

During one engine check, the captain found a dribble of clean oil under the engine.  Horror! Were we turning into the Sea King helicopter?  It wasn't leaking from the engine or the gearbox but from the pipe that links the sump to the oil change pump.  One of the couplings looks like it has started leaking and the residual oil in the line left from the last oil change was weeping out.  Not an issue as the engine and gearbox are isolated and so all OK.  Will check it out and maybe get a new short piece of pipe made up.

Fuel burn for the serious boating types:

Our cruise was at 1490 rpm for most of the time. In the calm waters of the Bristol channel, with light fuel load but lots of winter fouling on the hull we were burning 8.2 litres an hour to make about 6.4 knots.  In the choppy stuff off Land’s End, the stabilisers and wave pattern on the nose increased the fuel burn at the same rpm to 8.8lph for about 5 knots. (Out of interest, putting on the electric kettle for tea increases the burn by about 0.3 l per hour as the big domestic alternator works hard to generate the 24v power the inverters need.)

See how hard it is to estimate total fuel burn on a trip?