Practical Boat Owner - July 2018

Dennis Hardley/Alamy

headed for a rendezvous back in Craobh.
I crossed my outgoing track as A-Jay
slipped under the pylons guarding the
western entrance to Cuan Sound.
Corryvreckan slumbered to the south and
A-Jay skidded through the narrows,
careful to miss Cluit Rock, and out the
other side at 8.5 knots.
The Raymarine engineer was an ex-RN
submariner, so clearly a bottle short of a
six pack, and the only ex-serviceman I
ever met who didn’t like curry – well, my
three-day old version anyway. I left with a
new electronic brain and tiller pilot aboard,
probably with more computing power
than my tired mind.
Down the Sound through the night, stars
above; ate stew at two; headed again for
the fearsome North Channel. The forecast
promised Force 5-7 from the south, so we
crossed with a reef in the main, prepared
for the worst.
Close off the northern Irish coast, I
turned A-Jay’s sleek bows south straight
into Force 6 and a recalcitrant tide. The
conditions had A-Jay taking off, propeller
aerating in wind-blown froth.
The Irish, I decided, did rain like no-one
else – it should be a national treasure I
thought, though my new oilskins – end-of-
season range, non-matching, a trifle large

• kept me triumphantly dry!
  It was much the same down to Dublin,
  where my chartplotter failed with water on
  the brain and thence to Wicklow Head,
  which reminded me again of the dangers
  a promontory can pose, given adverse
  wind and tide close inshore. Horrendous it
  was and I was glad to slip back into
  Arklow, where I joined another sailor
  sheltering from the storm.
  And not just any sailor either, which
  made me feel less of a wimp – it was Pete

John bumped into Pete Goss at Arklow –

and wound up buying his yacht Pippin

from him 18 months later

The on-deck navstation

Goss, sheltering aboard his yacht Pippin,

which I was to buy off him as a

replacement for A-Jay 18 months later, but

that’s another story.

Both old soldiers, we left as friends after

two days, him for the Scillies with lovely

wife Tracey and A-Jay and me for the

Cornish Sea and Land’s End.

Next morning I stepped on deck after a

short rest, surprised to find the autopilot

overpowered, my DIY boom preventer

broken, a rope trailing astern and 20 litres

of diesel to get into the tank, as we passed

from the Irish into the Cornish Sea. Not

great seamanship, so I rewrote the plan to

pause in eccentric Penzance dock,

entering that evening.

With no chartplotter, and being very

tired, I adopted the tried and tested

‘numeric method’ and it was a relief – nay,

triumph – to land gently alongside the

waiting pontoon in St Peter Port at dawn,

four months out, exhausted but safe.

Life quite simply would never be the

same again.

The challenges, tribulations and

triumphs of the trip had done much to

restore my spirits to an even keel – for

now at least. My physical ailments had

necessitated different ways of doing

things but that is the thing – there is never

a best time to go and do, so you just have

to go and do.

Sailing through the Sound of Mull

There was only a brief respite

from the wind and waves on the

Caledonian Canal