Start / Finish Time: 10:39 / 17:54
Daily time / distance: 38.4 NM / 7hr 12 mins
Crew: Nevil, Rachel, Robert & Luke. Larry.

As part of the plan for all of us to up our skill levels, we had booked an instructor to come with us for the week. Larry arrived around 9am and we started off with a discussion on what our aims were for the week, in terms of learning and destinations, and then a thorough end-to-end search of the boat to discover the features and facilities. We agreed that we would aim for the Scillies and would start off by getting as far as Newlyn whilst we familiarised ourselves with the boat and each other.

I manoeuvred Wheal-Go out of the pontoon berth and into the river channel, then supervised Luke helming her down the channel, reminiscent of three years ago in I-Go. Once out in the Carrick Roads we got the sails out (Wheal-Go having roller reefing on main as well as headsail) and slowly tacked out to sea. Once clear of Black Rock, Larry threw the customary man-overboard drill. After a moment contemplating trying to instruct Luke to helm it I took over, fluffed the first attempt but picked it up second time around with a few coaching words in my ear. Larry was obviously reasonably happy with the attempt and had formed his first impressions of our skills. Due to the light westerly wind we started the engine and motor-sailed past the Manacles and round Lizard, just after which we saw our first sunfish, a sight that was to prove quite common during this trip. In Mount’s Bay we found the wind had strengthened slightly and was more favourable so we managed to sail most of the rest of the way to Newlyn.

Entering harbour was easy enough but we got no response from the harbour master on the radio until we had tied up, at which point we were told we were in the wrong place and would have to move. Never mind, more manoeuvring under power practice and we were soon snugged up for the evening. After some quick planning we determined we were in no hurry to leave next morning (target 10:30 or so) and we then walked through the centre of Newlyn, such as it is, to the Newlyn Meadery for a delicious evening meal.