As I pulled back the covers it seemed like it was going to be the same story as the past week – no wind, flat sea and sunshine. While baking hot sun and no wind might be great for the Cornish Tourist industry it is not the “best” weather to have when you are trying to sail around Britain. In fact if the weather keep like it was, I was thinking it better if I chartering a power boat for a couple days and save myself a long of time. As it was by the time I got around to poking my head out of the cabin there was a southern wind of 10-15 knots pulling at the anchor chain.

I busied myself with sorting the Silverwind out and once I got the weather forecast from the St Ives harbour master, I was on my way. “Variable Force 2 or 3, Becoming South-westerly Force 5 and Northwest Force 3 Later.” Sounded good to me and with a Force 5 forecast I set off shortly after 10:00 with my Number 2 Jib (30% smaller than my biggest) and an over-the-top reef in the main.

The planned designation for the day was Padstow; a small fishing village on the north Cornish coast mainly dominated by tourists nowadays. The challenge was really on now as Padstow has a lock and as such I needed to get in no late than 17:45. To make this time scale I calculated I needed to make an average of 5 knots all the way. However, by the time I had reached the Stones Cardinal Mark North East of St Ives it was clear that I was going too slow and carefully removed the reef and hoisted the number 1 Jib.

The wind was about force 3 from the south and slowly moving to the South West that brought me onto a dead run (the wind straight behind the boat). Bringing jib over and poling it out allowed me to increase my speed for the first time to just over 5 knots – it was possible! What followed was an uneventfully sail up to Trevose Head where to Army Helicopters gave me a personal flyby – a Chinook 100m to port and a Seaking 100m to Starboard. With only a few miles to go the heavens open and the mist came down and I scrambled around to fix my position. (Although I have a GPS; in fact I have two; I like to grab a chart and take a few bearings to get an idea of what is around me.) After travelling through the mist (which at worst came down to two miles) I finally sighted the entrance to the Camel Estuary on which Padstow sits.

I removed the headsail and motored into the river mouth under main alone before removing that as well while getting the fenders and line ready. Heading up the estuary on a bearing of 180 Degrees as easier than I had thought. This was greatly helped by the Padstow Lifeboat overtaking me just before the channel towing a Moody 42, which had got fishing gear around its prop – they were not so lucky!

After waiting in second blast of torrential rain for the Lifeboat to sort a mooring for the Moody I passed into the inner harbour at 17:45 - just in time! After a pleasant evening with a Fish and Chips tea (the Café was 30 feet from the boat), I sat down to plan another day.