V51-16 Plymouth to Falmouth

With Wendy on board we set off for Falmouth. Conditions were good for sailing out of Plymouth and we sailed well with one reef in the main to Dodman Point.

At Dodman, we put the second reef in. Later near St Anthony Head we developed an engine problem – it stopped and after we restarted it it was clear there was only a small amount of cooling water in the exhaust. Conditions were not suitable for further checks at sea, so we stopped the engine again and made our way for the relative shelter of St Mawes Bay.

As we were debating what to do, we were fortunate to encounter the harbour master in his launch. He was looking for the ‘yacht with an engine problem’. We told him it was not us, but as it happened we did have an engine problem. He arranged for another yacht to take us in tow to Pendennis.

RYA training yacht ‘Orca’ turned up (at speed) and took us in tow line astern; switching to alongside tow behind the shelter of the Queens jetty in Falmouth Dock. Finally landing us on the Port Pendennis outer pontoon – exactly where the berthing master had originally allocated us!

We are very grateful to the skipper and crew (two day skipper and two competent crew candidates) of our rescue boat.

After a couple of nights on the outer pontoon at Pendennis, we decided that the weather was not good enough to move on. The port moved us to their lovely sheltered inner to wait until the weekend.

11 July 2024

We took the ferry over to St Mawes for the day.

12 July 2024

In preparation for the trip to Newlyn tomorrow, we have moved back to the outer pontoons at Port Pendennis. The berthing master got us into a remarkably tight space! We celebrated with another pasty for lunch – this is Cornwall!

Our gigantic neighbour!

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