Lands End

We have spent 3 days in Newlyn waiting for better weather, and yesterday evening we were joined by our friend Jerry who has come over from Canada for the experience of sailing with the Gaffers. There was quite a gathering of gaff rigged boats in Newlyn harbour and some anchored outside and this morning we all left at about 6.30am. Its sunny, the wind is still northerly, but much lighter and may change in direction later.

The picture shows Geoff and Jerry with a background of the Longships lighthouse off Lands End. 

This was not the first Longships lighthouse: the first one was built in 1795 and was sketched by Daniell for his book.

Previously these dangerous rocks had been unlit.The old lighthouse was shorter than the present one and sometimes obscured by high seas. The current lighthouse was built in 1869 and the old one dismantled.

We are now heading northerly towards the Welsh coast nearly a hundred miles away.

Hoping for better weather

We spent the day still in Newlyn, with a brisk and cold northerly wind. No new gaffers have arrived today so we still have Recipe, Lahloo, Indian Runner and Susan J for company. Tomorrow the wind is predicted to be just as northerly but rather more gentle, so we are hoping to be off in the morning.

We spent the day quietly in Newlyn. This is a lovely little harbour dating back to the fifteenth century, but was enlarged with new harbour walls constructed in 1887/8. The picture shows the harbour today with many fishing boats of varying sizes and a few yachts.

We walked to Mousehole with its quaint village and miniature harbour. There are memorials everywhere there of a tragic disaster in 1981 when the Solomon Browne lifeboat which was stationed nearby was lost with all her crew attempting a rescue in a storm in the middle of winter -a reminder of the hazards lifeboatmen face even today with the best equipment that is available.

We have filled up with fuel, water and food, so are ready to be off tomorrow if things look hopeful in the morning. 

Newlyn....

We spent the day in Newlyn as the forecast is for strong Northerly winds and so we are waiting for something different. Almost anything different would be better. Geoff and I walked along the shoreline of Mount's Bay as far as St Michael's Mount and back.

Newlyn is one of Britain's busiest fishing ports but it does seen to be quieter than when I was last here several years ago. If Brexit was supposed to help the fishing industry, it doesn't seem to have been much of a success, and there are no more fish in the sea, British or otherwise, than there were before.

Sadly fishing stocks have been depleted for years by industrialised fishing methods. In Daniells book about travelling round Britain written in the 1820s he talks about small fishing boats under sail catching enough fish to completely fill the boat within a couple of miles of the shore. Those days are unlikely to return.

On a more hopeful note ( for the industry if not the fish) the photo shows a brand new boat at Newlyn, 'Winter of  Ladram', nominated for fishing boat boat of the year 2023. She was in harbour transferring tons of newly caught shellfish to a Spanish refrigerated lorry for export.

We now have several other Gaffers in Newlyn all waiting for a favorable wind : Susan J, Recipe, Indian Runner and Lahloo. We all had a convivial supper in the Red Lion pub.

Furthest South and Newlyn

Having had a substantial breakfast in the excellent Fuel restaurant in Falmouth we felt ready to face the challenges of moving on. There wasn't much wind at first but we mostly motored to the Lizard, the most southerly point in the UK. 

The picture shows Geoff concentrating on the steering with the Lizard behind him.

After that a little southerly breeze sprung  up. We got to Newlyn about 6pm. Predominantly a fishing harbour that is more accomodating to yachting as fishing continues to decline.

Here we found that Ricks in Recipe had got in before us. The picture shows the two boats together.

The weather over the next few days is not looking good - strong northerly winds predicted. So here we stay put until  at least we get a more promising forecast.

Falmouth!

We had originally planned to stay in Plymouth until Saturday morning. There was to be a Gaffers Parade of Sail in front of Plymouth Hoe with press coverage and with Bonita in lead position.  However this morning it emerged that things might be rather different. We were told by the King's Harbourmaster - who is in charge of a naval port- that there would be a nuclear submarine passing through the harbour at about the same time. Any naval ship in the harbour area is accompanied by patrol craft, an exclusion zone etc and even the most venerable gaff rigged sailing boat could be seen as a potential risk to a  submarine entrusted with carrying the nations nuclear deterrent. Moving the parade of sail either back or forward an hour or so did not resolve the security concerns. Regretfully therefore the Parade had to be cancelled.

It was too nice a day to stay in port longer than necessary, so we left Sutton Harbour in Plymouth at about 11.30.

We were originally planning to go to Fowey and had light head  winds. However just as we were approaching the port a moderate N breeze sprung up. After all our days of contrary winds this was too good to miss so we decided to carry on to Falmouth. We had a fine sail along the Cornish coast with the boat at times exceeding 7 knots (with a fair tide but only about 0.5 knots). At the time the picture was taken the GPS showed a speed of 7.5 kts

We tied up in Falmouth about 8.00, in time to find at least one restaurant still open