Route

Moelfre and back

Weather

Notes

Things haven’t gone smoothly so far for Silver Apple, the first season wiped out due to an accident on a stormy night when a dinghy broke free of its mooring and made something of a hole, which took some time to repair. Last Saturday looked perfect for a shakedown sail, so it was agreed that Genesis would accompany Silver Apple to Moelfre, with my father providing the benefit of his many years crewing experience for Ian Cragg.

Calmness on the Straits as we set off

We also invited two non sailors, Ann and Adrian, aboard Genesis, for what promised to be a lovely calm day. Things started well, with Silver Apple leaving the mooring and motoring down toward Puffin, while on Genesis preparations took a while longer. We saw Snowbird setting off to sail to Moelfre. They soon caught up with and passed Silver Apple.

As Genesis left Beaumaris, Silver Apple called up on the radio “The engine has lost power and we can’t seem to raise the sails..”,  so we brought down our main and motored towards Silver Apple. As we reached them we could see they had managed to get parts of the sails out which they were now putting away, but were basically drifting, and without assistance would presumably turn up at the Isle of Man a few days later. Having a lifeboat man on board our boat meant that we knew exactly what to do, using Genesis as the towing vessel. We decided on an alongside tow, as there weren’t any great distances involved, this type of tow has the advantage that we could easily position Silver Apple on her mooring.

Silver Apple stuck to Genesis

With a selection of fenders deployed, we rigged up lines, fore, aft and on the middle cleat and threw the lines to Ian and my father. We manoeuvred the boats to ensure that the stern of Silver Apple was ahead of our engine, this is important and is standard practice on the lifeboat. Genesis made 5 knots through the water, there was spare engine power but this would be close to hull speed for Silver Apple. The tide was against us so speed over ground was closer to 3 knots. The plan was to try and get back to the mooring before it became inaccessible on the falling tide, we take 1.5 metres. We felt slightly guilty as we passed the lifeboat station, we had denied them a ‘shout’ which would have sounded good on the write up “Two pensioners were drifting out to sea on a disabled vessel..”. Glen was already resigned to the inevitable ribbing by the lifeboat crew. We made it just in time with enough water under the keel to make it to the mooring. Glen stepped over to Silver Apple and I manoeuvred very carefully, giving time for Glen to pull the mooring on board and secure Silver Apple.

Glen, Ian and Dad then stepped onboard Genesis and with me, Ann and Adrian, and the group of us continued on to have a fabulous day’s sail to Moelfre.

Tendering out to the Pub

Chinook and Snowbird were already there when we arrived:

A Venturers get-together

After having some refreshments at the Kinmel Arms, Alan remarked out that my father seems to be associated with a number of incidents recently, those of you who read last months Venturer article will know he got his head entangled with a the wind generator on Genesis last month, so he has been awarded the nickname of “Calamity Llew”. Ian is having the engine on Silver Apple checked out – the current thinking is that it’s a problem with the gearbox, he will check why the ropes were so hard to work for the sails.

On the way back, we had warm sunshine and a perfect following wind - setting the auto pilot we chilled out in the cockpit:

Under full sail and chilling

Hopefully we will see Silver Apple out on the water again soon.. but will we hear more of Calamity Llew?