Sunday 5 October 2008

Cork Week 2008 with Anticipation

My first experience of Cork Week Regatta was this year on Anticipation - a Beneteau First 40.7 owned and skippered by Pete Newlands who is based in Cowes. We set off from Cowes after a day's delay due to adverse weather and made slow, bumpy progress out West. After pulling into Dartmouth [due to technical problems and exhaustion] we set off again in better weather - passing the Lizard and Land's End out into the Celtic Sea.

This time I wasn't involved with the provisioning and it was interesting to see how Leanne went about it. There were 11 mouths to feed on the outbound delivery trip and Leanne cooked several meals for us to eat on the journey. These were made from fresh ingredients and frozen in a large tin foil tray. This meant that the food was more transportable and all we had to do was choose our meal, let it defrost and just pop it in the pre-warmed oven. Once most of us had stopped hanging over the rails to feed the fishes [i.e. after Dartmouth] we enjoyed pasta bake, mild green Thai chicken curry and spaghetti bolognaise - and managed to keep it down this time! Saving the tin foil containers also comes in handy as these can be reused for roasting vegetables or cooking bacon and sausages for breakfast.

Arriving in Crosshaven just over 4 days after departing Cowes, one enterprising crewmember managed to find a bottle of wine and a case of beer despite it being 3 a.m. in the morning. This didn't last long but was a welcome arrival drink as we don't drink alcohol on passage.

After a brilliant night's sleep, we spent the next day making sure everything was in good order for the start of the racing. There was some time off in the afternoon and rather than just succumb to the fast food stands, Wil and I walked to the Farmer's Market in the village to have a look around. Here were enticing stalls of local produce where we nibbled our way around then settled on some mackerel pate, homemade fishcakes, dinky little round courgettes, bright red peppers, succulent tomatoes and salad with nasturtium leaves. Armed with a bottle of high quality olive oil and a nice bottle of wine, we headed back to Anticipation. As everyone else was content to brave the fast food stands, we had the yacht to ourselves. Wil is a genius in the galley so all I had to do was open the wine and have a stab at making Melba toast to go with the pate. Delicious!

In the following days, we were totally focused on racing, winning all 9 races in our class!!! We did take a litlle time out to visit some local restaurants during the event. Then it was goodbye to a successful Cork Week and back to Cowes. This time, the weather was favourable and we made it the return passage in less than 48 hours.

Saturday 4 October 2008

Fast Cruising: Falmouth - Dartmouth


On the morning of our first fast cruise from Falmouth to Mevigissey, hardly a breath of wind stirred across the starting line outside Falmouth but once passed St Anthony's Head the breeze picked up, the spinnaker was hoisted and A Day At The Races surged ahead! We anchored under sail outside the harbour entrance to Mevigissey and after a lunch of chicken and avocado wraps we weighed anchor using the power from the sail only and blasted across to Fowey.. Mooring up off Pont Pil, we had dinner on board Vectis Secundis with Kate after pre-dinner drinks in the cockpit. The scenery is stunning here and we were quite content to view Fowey from this aspect. Next day, we did take the water taxi across to have a coffee at the yacht club and go exploring. There are some fabulous food shops in the town mostly selling local produce. Fowey is famous for its mussels so a few kilos were purchased from FoweyFish for a moules marinere back on board to be enjoyed that evening.

Then it was off to Plymouth the next day for dinner at the Royal Western Yacht Club overlooking Queen Anne's Battery Marina. Before setting off for Salcombe, we visited the market in the city centre and bought some scallops, prawns and monkfish for a seafood spaghetti on board. On arrival in "The Bag", our haul from Plymouth was quickly turned into a magnificent feast with a little cream added to the seafood for a touch of luxury. Our final leg from Salcombe to Dartmouth dawned grey and blustery and we raced eastwards towards Dartmouth in next to no time. Our final evening in Dartmouth saw torrential rain but that didn't deter everyone from putting on their evening finery for dinner at the Royal Naval College. After dinner, the fast cruise prizes were awarded and A Day At The Races won her class and was joint overall winner with Fioreun, a much larger Beneteau.