Expedition Report

From March 5 Sara and I were on standby. The weather window came sooner than expected with potentially good conditions for Tuesday 6.

At 0300 we jumped out of bed (a more honest description would include the words groaned and rolled). After a hearty breakfast I set off and collected the dinghy from the boat shed, arriving back at the house to collect Sara and set off for Plymouth at 0430. 

 

By 0530 the dinghy was afloat on the Mountbatten slipway in the Cattewater. Epirb, GPS, VHF, compass and torch stored in one dry bag, hats and gloves in another and with enough stores on board to get us to America (which included boiled eggs, chocolate, bananas and avocados). It was dark and there was frost on the deck. 

 At 0545 we zipped ourselves into drysuits, checked the dinghy’s buoyancy bags and pushed off into the ebb tide, giving local weather expert Chris Tibbs an early morning call as we sailed into Plymouth Sound. All looked favourable as a grey dawn light seeped onto the scene. We reported our intentions to Brixham Coastguard. Rowing and sailing towards the Western Entrance of the Breakwater we passed close by two frigates which looked suitably sinister in the half light. The plan was to work towards the West until on a transit between Rame Head and the Eddystone (a course of S by W) in order to minimise the trouble we might have if the SW wind came earlier than expected. As a luminous pink sunrise changed to deep orange a trawler was silhouetted in wonderful detail against the backdrop of Bolt Tail. The Eddystone looked like a bamboo pole and there was little wind. We did a lot of rowing.

 

By 1000 we were approaching the rocks with a gentle swell from SW. We made an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the reef hoping to land on the NE side. However, due to the swell there was a rise and fall of up to10', which made landing without destroying the dinghy unlikely. Fortunately there was a rock in the lee of the lighthouse, which itself had a leeward side. With careful rowing Sara was able to get nearby so that I could step out onto an underwater ledge and climb onto the rock. Sara rowed the dinghy back towards the lighthouse and I took some photos of her. We must get on fairly well as she returned to pick me up.   

 

We sailed away on light SW breeze which soon faltered. I took to the oars and, with what I felt to be the more difficult part of the trip complete, felt quite chatty. There was some consternation from the lady at the helm who, enjoying the peaceful scene wondered why there was so much noise from the engine and suggested that perhaps a better installation would include sound proofing. Falling out in a dinghy, physically or socially is bad seamanship. Fortunately the SW wind came up and we had an exciting sail back to Plymouth, punctuated by a three course lunch after which Sara fell asleep and awoke in time for a photograph in front of Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse on Plymouth Hoe. 

 

Our thanks are due to Aquanauts, Brixham Coastguard, Chris Tibbs Weather, Claire James, John Gallagher, Steve Jackson and the Mount Batten Centre. 

 

 

 

 

Will Stirling is a boatbuilder, sailor and adventurer who lives with his wife and children in Devon, UK. He runs the boatbuilding firm Stirling and Son, that builds traditional wooden boats from yachts to clinker dinghies. He has spent the last five summers sailing in the Arctic, most recently as skipper of the support boat for the Row to the Pole expedition in August 2011. 

Will’s next expedition, with his wife Sara, is on a smaller scale than his Arctic adventures, yet is still a challenging voyage with its own dangers. In March this year they are going to sail their 14’ wooden clinker dinghy from the Mount Batten Centre in Plymouth to the Eddystone Lighthouse and back, a round trip of 24 miles. Entirely weather dependent, the voyage is expected to take up to 12 hours.

The Eddystone Lighthouse is on the treacherous Eddystone rocks 10 miles south south west of Plymouth Breakwater in the English Channel. A lighthouse has stood on these rocks since 1698.

The aim of this voyage is to demonstrate the seaworthiness of this new 14’ dinghy recently designed and built by Will and in the process raise funds for WaterAid.

This will be the first of three expeditions of increasing scale that Will is going to undertake during the next 12 months. The second trip will be sailing this same dinghy across the English Channel this summer. The third trip is of a much grander scale where Will and two others will sail a ship’s boat through the Magellan Straight in Chile, South America.

 

For more information see our website; www.stirlingandson.co.uk

With thanks to the Mount Batten Centre and Aquanauts for their generosity