I remember in 2010 the RBYC ran a trip out of Dartmouth and due to the high winds the trip was cut short with the boats only managing a trip up the River Dart.
So, when pulling together the cruising schedule for this year, I thought, what are the chances that will happen again so let’s revisit the idea and have 3 idyllic days cruising the beautiful areas in & around Dartmouth Harbour?
Well, wouldn’t you know it....I watched the week progressively get worse and received a call from the charter company on Thursday advising us not to come that evening & recommending we didn’t sail on the Friday either – it was blowing a F9 gusting 10 in the river itself!
Looking at the weather for the following two days though, it was forecast to settle down on the Saturday and Sunday so we decided not to cancel.
We picked up the three boats at lunch time - Dandelion (weed) skippered by me (Alex); Margarita skippered by Rob Nelson (ask him about the 2011 November trip and understand why he ended up with this boat!) and LeMacq (the boat we have discovered is only given to charterers as a last resort) skippered by Steve Wright.
My first task was to try and remove the boat from the pontoon it was pinned to by the very gusty and very strong winds, watched by the whole RBYC contingent. Thanks to everyone who had an input, advice and opinion into the conundrum of where is a good pivot point! That completed successfully we motored over to Dartmouth Ferry pontoon and tied up for the night. Duly in our wet weather gear and lifejackets, we were asked by a passerby and fellow yachtsman how far we had come & what the weather was like – imagine his surprise when we told him we’d travelled far and wide – across the river!
After a rather lovely meal cooked by Chef Tanya, we made our way to the pub (well several actually), and met up with the crew of Purple Mist who had been stranded in Dartmouth for several days and going stir crazy.
The following day we set off to Salcombe via Dittisham up the Dart. Unfortunately we had to motor sail to Salcombe having wind & tide against us but it was a bright & sunny day so no one minded too much. A learning point for me is ‘don’t trust that the boat GPS is always set up on the correct datum for the chart you are using’!
John completed an excellent secondary port and tidal height calculation for our entry into Salcombe and we arrived with 0.8m of water to get under the bar. Tanya luckily recalled that Salcombe was busy..an understatement of the highest order we were soon to discover and motored straight into several dinghy races going on in the entrance! Alan did a fabulous job of navigating us through them all with the whole crew on alert. A good job too as I'd certainly not seen one or two of them!
We moored up alongside Margarita and having seen the Water Taxi driver Jo quickly requested a trip ashore was required! The other females on board, namely Tanya & Alex both agreed it was a most excellent plan.
Sunday brought back the rain, but with tide on our side we managed a wonderful sail back to Dartmouth in just 3 hours.
All in all a wonderful weekend despite the weather and one I'd certainly like to do again so I can finally get to see all the nooks and crannies of our SW coastline.
Alex.
