As the morning broke it looked like it was going to be the same story as for the trip out, with very little wind. The yacht from Penzance were racing back today and after being in the Islands for three days it was time to make a move to St Ives (my next stop).

At 09:20 I cast off from St Marys pier and motored out towards Crow Sound. In flat seas we made quick time with Grendel following me out. At Hats cardinal buoy we went are separate ways with Grendel heading southeast and Silverwind pointed up the North Cornwall coast.

With little tide the course was straight for the coast with the waypoint for Pendeen Lighthouse typed into the GPS I went south of Seven Stones Reefs and headed across the shipping lanes once more.

I was only too aware of how much fuel was in my main tank and planned to slow down just after the separation scheme to top up enough to get me into St Ives. However, as it was fate decided I was to stop a little bit earlier and at around about 13:00 in the middle of the north bound shipping lane the engine came to a sudden stop. At first I was annoyed not to have topped the fuel up earlier but I soon realized the fuel was fine and 30 feet of green fishing net was trailing from the rudder!

I quickly establish it was not attached to anything and appeared to have been floating about a foot under the surface. The net had rapped around the keel, rudder and gone three times around the outboards propeller. Luckily this all happened in a light swell and no wind which enabled me to get the net aboard within a few minutes. This cleared the rudder and keel but I still had no engine. Taking the knife I quickly separated the majority of the net from the engine, which allowed me to lift the engine out of the engine well on the port hand side of the boat.

The engine was undamaged and within 10 minutes I was happy that there was no net left in the propeller. After placing the engine back into its well I was pleased to hear it spark back into life.

It was all very luckily as with no wind I was totally out of control in a shipping lane but visibility was good and there were no shipping in sight. On later inspection in St Ives the net turned out to be 50 feet long in total. One advantage of the Hunter Delta is that I could have raised the keel and rudder if it had come to it but whether that would have been possible in more wind is another story.

Continuing on to St Ives I was greeted by approximately forty dolphins many of them young all clearly pre-occupied by a school of fish they were feasting on.

After all these activity the remained of the trip was uneventful and I was anchored off St Ives harbour by 5pm in good time to meet my friend Mark for tea at 8.