Plymouth and anchorages

We have been in Plymouth for just over a week and went to the Junk Rig Association rally over the weekend. We managed to take ten members out for a test sail on Ti Gitu. The first day it blew really hard, virtually a gale and the weatherman said gusting over 40 knots.

This suited Ti Gitu and well reefed she sailed nicely. There was a race around the buoys for Bermudan

rigged boats and that made it possible to compare our rigs performance with theirs.

We pointed nearly as high, perhaps 5 degrees less and could probably have gone as fast but we still have Hong Cong parrels which were bending our battens alarmingly so did not push it too much. I am now working on a new method of setting up the sails so that we can remove the HK parrels.

On the Sunday we had light winds and went to watch the start of the Azores Challenge race. It was a beautiful morning but then just after the race start thick fog rolled in and we went to the haven marina for afternoon tea.

We managed to sail quite close to the other Junk rigged boats so as to take photos and we hope they took some of us and please send us some.

Anchoring.

The marinas in Plymouth are really expensive. £40.00 a night in Sutton and slightly less in the others. Although I must say that the staff were tremendous for our one night stay in Sutton harbour marina.

However there are some good anchorages. We have been using the St Germans or Lynher River  which has Saltash just round the corner. There is a pontoon at Saltash where you can stay for a few hours while walking up the hill to see the town and stock up at the supermarket. If you have guests there is also a free car park by the pontoon where a car can be left for 60 hours free.

We did have to move from the entrance to the river when it blew an East gale but only needed to go a mile further up to find shelter. The holding seems to be really good all over.