We sailed to England!
by SV Taipan on 9 Sep 2016
A talking point at Mylor Yacht Marina. Much expert analysis on the side lines SV Taipan
Lands End was glowing in the late afternoon sun on Wednesday as we rounded the south westerly tip of UK. We made the anchorage just off the Newlyn Harbor wall as the sun set after a 21 hour sail from Milford Haven. Not much wind and a bit of adverse current. Thursday morning we dropped into Penzance harbor to fuel up and top off the water as the water maker failed to start yesterday so another job as soon as we get time.
St Michael's Mount, a fabulous fairy tale castle rises up off a rocky island to the east of Penzance and we were able to take Taipan to the very edge to get a good look from seaward. It's a very impressive view. Still privately owned and has owners in residence, I guess when they are not in their home in Maiorca or Paris or New York or somewhere !! However the National Trust does open it to the great unwashed so we could get a look inside one day.
We spent and hour or so drifting around this spectacular castle admiring it from all angles.
The weather was holding so we moved on to Falmouth arriving just before dark on Thursday 25th of August. Dropped the anchor in a spot between moorings for the night.
In the morning we headed over to St Maws, just across the Fal River. Gorgeous spot another castle and pretty little beaches packed with summer revelers. The Bank Holiday long Weekend is upon us and Sal n John Potter old sailing buddies from way back coming to visit so with weather threatening, we headed back to Falmouth to meet them on Saturday.
Very little exploring but we spent a fantastic couple of days eating drinking and catching up on years of gossip. Sal and John traded the faithful JARAMAN in Sydney and purchased a new Beneteau 50 to be delivered to Spain. They are now enjoying the Med and will eventually head across the Atlantic towards Australia in CAPAL MARA.
They left early from St Maws on Monday for the long drive back to London and we headed round to Mylor Yacht Marina to anchor off and await the tide so we could inspect the drying wall.
Next morning before dawn we motored slowly between moored boats and edged our way towards the wall. As the bow got to the wall and we secured a line we suddenly touched bottom. We can't make the wall! Urgent change of plan as we had to lay Taipan down on her Port side away from the wall. We couldn't back off because we had grounded on the concrete ramp. Just not enough tide.
Having dried out on our side twice before we were not too alarmed. At least we had the chance to inspect the ground below yesterday. The first time we dried out was in Crocodile creek in the Kimberley in a nine meter tide. Now that was alarming....with no idea what the bottom was like and having no idea of Taipan's idiosyncrasies.
By the time the eight crew had grabbed life jackets and personal items and jumped into the dingy it was too shallow to motor so they had to tow it on foot to deeper water. Pretty funny to watch the chaos! We stayed aboard to wait. It got very uncomfortable at 45 degrees in the dark with crocodile eyes gleaming in the spot lights but we righted without incident on the rising tide and continued on our way into the anchorage.
This time it was perfectly calm and sheltered, we knew what the bottom was and Taipan just gradually lay down as the tide went out. Instead of sitting aboard in discomfort we went ashore in the dingy for breakfast and waited until the tide went out so David could get round the hull to do the cleaning. The high pressure hose just didn't quite reach the whole way round but she was pretty clean by the time tide turned and we resumed the position! Upright.
It's a tight spot so the yard supplied a tow boat to turn us round so we could head out and they made a dock available to enable us to wash decks of the over-spray from water blaster. They were extremely helpful.
Unless there is a spring tide that facility is really not suitable for 2.2m draft. We failed to take into account the fact that the drying wall was not at chart datum so even 4m tide was not high enough.
So back to anchor before a run upriver and back to St Maws.
On Thursday we left and headed east into Fowey for a quick look then on to anchor at Cawsand Bay just outside Plymouth. Heading to meet some more old sailing buddies from Australia. This time in Dartmouth.
This article has been provided courtesy of the SV Taipan.
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