Last year, in a fit of lunacy we acquired a boat. People made quite a few comments, ranging from very excited to thinking we were utterly mad. Phrases like “money pit” started to be banded around and for a while we wondered what on earth we had done. The boat in question is a beautiful Newbridge Corrobee called Ragdoll and we got her for what seemed like a crazily small amount of money for an actual boat. She's only 21 feet long so not exactly a massive yacht but she's in good nick and has room for the 2 of us to sleep inside.
However no sooner had we handed over the money than the spending truly began. The first problem was that she was moored in Penzance harbour, and the previous owner wanted the mooring vacated asap for his new boat. We had a mooring lined up in Mylor Creek but between the old mooring and the new mooring lay the Lizard, and the Manacles and quite a few other rocks. A stretch of coastline described as challenging and sometimes lethal. We had had a few lessons to prepare for boat ownership, and both of us sailed as teenagers. I'd gone so far as to get my Competent Crew award and Tys was the proud possessor of a Nautical Studies GCSE. However, the Lizard seemed like a step too far. Yet again everyone was keen to help. Suggestions like “put her on the back of a lorry and go by road”, “just stop worrying and motor round” and “why don't you go to Scilly first and make a long trip of it” seemed to be wildly disparate. The solution seemed to lie in the hands of Greg. Greg is an instructor at Mylor Sailing School and a very good one at that. He was prepared to give us a lesson on Ragdoll, and in the process of the day long lesson, help us pilot Ragdoll from Penzance to Mylor. He did, however, have a stringent list of requirements, most of them aimed at keeping us alive. Some of them were things we'd already acquired from the local chandlers, but some were things we hadn't even thought of (that's why you need a Greg), and very soon our chandlery expenditure started to rocket. We had buckets and life jackets, ropes and flares, lots of metal things for joining things to other things, and most worryingly, a bag of corks of different sizes, should a small hole develop in the boat. The man from Macsalvors soon became intimately acquainted with our passage plan and even better acquainted with my credit card.
Eventually the day dawned. The first inkling that things may not go according to plan was at 10pm the night before. Greg had listened to the shipping forecast and was not best pleased. It seemed that some sort of weather system was mucking things up, with wind and swell and other uncomfortable stuff. We decided to listen to the 5.50am shipping forecast, like true sailors, and decide then. 5.50am came and Greg seemed a little happier, muttering things about a weather window, so we drove to Penzance with an obscene amount of equipment and not long after were motoring out of the harbour, straight into the most enormous swell.
My first thought was that this was presumably some sort of local condition, perhaps due to the swell direction and the shape of the harbour wall. It obviously wasn't going to be like this all the way round, as the waves were a lot bigger than Ragdoll and that would be insane. Seemingly though, this was how things were going to be, and we were in for an uncomfortable ride. We set a course and put sails up and did various other sailor type things, then, without warning Greg lurched over the side and vomited. Tys and I were a little alarmed, especially as he then explained that he does suffer from seasickness, but hadn't had a problem for a long while. This swell, however, was particularly bad. As Greg sails all over the world, this didn't seem good, but at least Tys and I were unaffected.
On we ploughed, the waves got bigger, Ragdoll went faster and it definitely seemed like we were at the limits of what was possible to cope with, but on we went. Tys and I were sailing, Greg's vomiting had reduced and he was managing to tell us what to do; all was well. However, as I sat there feeling smug, I also started to feel a little bit queasy. Within a few minutes there was definite nausea, and within 15 minutes I had joined Greg over the side. Ragdoll's crew was diminishing by the second and Tys was now fully in charge. The waves got bigger, the wind got stronger and my vomiting got more profuse.
By this point we were fast approaching the Lizard and this was where Greg got serious. We were, he explained, at the limit of what Ragdoll was really comfortable with. If things got better then all was fine, but if things got worse we could be in trouble. We had to make a rapid decision as due to tide issues, we had about 15 minutes grace in which we could turn round. Leave it any longer and we would be very much against the tide going back and would be swept around the Lizard anyway. Tys was all for continuing but as I hung over the side miserably and looked at the waves, which were all I could see most of the time as they blocked any view of land by their sheer size, I caved. It was time to go back.
So shamefacedly we turned round and sailed back to port. It had been an experience, but not one I was in any hurry to repeat! Typically in harbour the swell and wind weren't obvious (I guess that's the point of a harbour), so when our lift home arrived you could see them wondering why we had given up.
Sadly the weather took a turn for the worse, and it turned out to be a windy month later, that we finally made it round the Lizard and took Ragdoll to her new home. She is now very happy in Mylor creek and has given us many happy days sailing around the Fal and Helford rivers.
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