Studland Bay to Helford River

Hi everyone,

Last Thursday we departed Studland Bay after several days.  We did an overnighter to the Helford River, using a rare easterly to get us there in style (ie downwind).

The time spent at Studland Bay was occupied with fixing the engine, relaxing, then rewatering.  Day 1 was breezy and cloudy but then it cleared up.  See the postscript to our previous blog for details of the engine fix.  On day 2 the RAF entertained us with an air drop from a C-130 Hercules.  On day 3 we moved Zen Again closer to the shore, then did several runs ashore in the dinghy to fill our fresh water tanks and jerries.

Sunset in Studland Bay

RAF entertains over Studland Bay

We waited in Studland Bay since we knew a day of easterlies was coming.  The prediction was for 15 knot E winds on Thursday, decreasing overnight and swinging through S into the W on Friday.

Departure Weather

Arrival Weather

Here's our track...

Zen Track

And here are the usual stats...

• Distances/Speeds
• Route Distance = 135nm
• GPS Distance = 155nm
• Duration = 28h
• Average Ground Speed = 5.5 knots
• Weather
• Minimum Wind Speed = 0 knots
• Maximum Wind Speed = 15 knots
• Apparent Wind Angle Range = 0 to 140 degrees
• Seas up to 1.5m
• Sunny!
• Engine
• Total = 5 hours
• Driving = 5 hours

And here are the plots, created from our NMEA-2000 network using SignalK, InfluxDB and Grafana...

Graphs

Speeds

Wind Speeds

The speed plot show tidal currents basically cancelled out over the passage, as one would expect for a 24 hour passage.  The wind speed plot shows we maintained the apparent wind pretty well.

Beating south from Studland Bay

The WindPilot steered while we were sailing, which was most of the passage.  We were very happy at how well in handled the light airs.

WindPilot in action

Reaching towards Portland under full sail

Unusually long range on VHF & AIS

Broad reaching WSW

Overnight the winds lightened.  We eventually decided to gybe north since keeping a sailable apparent wind had taken us well south.  Before dawn the left-over sea from the E and the Atlantic swell from the W were creating a washing machine sea state.  Our sails were slatting so it was time to motor and turn west.

Sunrise in very light winds

As we motored along we encountered several 'mist banks' - thin cloud at sea level.  We could see them coming but it was surreal motoring through them and back out into bright sunshine.

Dolphin escort while motoring west in calm conditions

By breakfast time we were sailing again, beating our way towards the mouth of the Helford River.

Sailing again in a light WSW wind

We motored into the Helford River.  By that time it was cloudy.  We motored through the Pool then back to the E end where we picked up a visitor's mooring.  We were last in the Helford River during a charter with my Uncle Ian in 2000.  Many more moorings now but just as pretty.

Entering the pool in the Helford River

Helford

We spent three nights on the Helford River.  More on that in our next post!