The next day I woke with a headache. Later on, we walked around Brixham. When we holidayed in Torquay last year we would have liked to visit Brixham but didn't get the time.
A charming harbour town if your not with a bad tempered migrainal husband. Sorry Alison.
The day after, we were ready for a skip to Plymouth. The wind was up and we took the marinas offer to help us get off the berth as a stiff breeze pinned us to it.
The parting words of our hosts were ' if you don't like it, give us a call on channel 80 and come back' 'will do' I replied.
We headed out into the bay. Rocking and rolling on the incoming waves. Whoo ! A bit of a fairground ride. A fishing trawler passed us, crashing about returning to port.
'It will be calmer once we get out the bay' we thought. Well. It wasn't.
Turning west it was time to put a sail up. We hadn't taken the mainsail halyard off the end of the boom yet. So I put on a harness and clipped on the life line. Crawled up the deck to the mast. 10 minutes later, after a few attempts got the halyard on the mainsail. Phew! Returned to the cockpit. 'You haven't taken the sail gaskets ( straps ) off' shouted Alison.
Back out again !
Up with the mainsail. It folded and the batons bent like a broken umbrella! Even facing in to the wind, it was no better.
Down with the mainsail. We thought about pulling out a bit of jib. Then thought better of it.
The wind instrument read 25 knots.
The local forcast on the VHF said Force 7.
Alison investigated a crash downstairs not an easy task given the conditions.
A crate of wine had burst out of a locker, smashing one bottle on the floor.
It was a sign.
'I dont like it' cried Alison'
Neither did I.
Time to return to base.
I speeded up and cut the headland to get us back quicker. Beam on, the boat rolled alarmingly. Feeling like we were going to tip over. The auto pilot couldn't handle it, signalling 'off course' and turning us towards the rocks.
I squared the corner to ease our motion.
Heading back to port with the wind and swell following us wasn't as bad.
I think the design of the yacht helps here. Narrowing at the stern and tapered.
On returning to Brixham Harbour we had to ask for repeated instructions as the clipped on, handheld radio, got kicked onto the floor and changed Channel without us realising. Doh!
We got help mooring up and boy were we glad to get back to shelter.
Lessons learned.
No photos due to adverse weather conditions. I struggled to push buttons on the chart plotter!
'Do you fancy a chicken sandwich'
The bait we had made up for the trip!
The forcast is bad for a week. We could be stuck here for a while.
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