Ros Bennet’s Cornish Crabber Challenge – report by Gordon Ogden 

I hope everyone will have read Jock’s note and the reference in the recent newsletter to Ros Bennet  ’s great adventure. To raise funds for the Bristol-based charity ‘for-ethiopia’ (see http://for-ethiopia.com/  ), Ros hatched the plan to sail her beautiful Cornish Crabber, Demelza  , up the English Channel, turn left into the Thames and down the Kennet & Avon Canal to Bristol. After wintering in Bristol, she will complete her “Circumnavigation of the Island of the South of England” by taking Demelza back round Land’s End to her home berth at St Just in Roseland (Carrick Roads, Falmouth) in the spring if 2015. She is doing this trip with a variety of friends as crew and I did the Dartmouth to Weymouth leg with her on Monday, 4 August  .

We left Dartmouth at 0330, as a compromise between a perfect arrival time at Portland Bill, which would have entailed an all-night passage (!!) and the very worst arrival time at the Bill, if we’d done it all in daylight (!!!). So, 0330 it was, in very light winds. At the first grey streaks of dawn and with Ros having retired to her bunk, I saw some very menacing clouds on the southern horizon and decided to keep a wary eye on them. An hour later they had developed into a great anvil-shaped mass that I didn’t like at all! However, another hour on and they had dissipated completely, the sun was up and it looked like another fine day in prospect. With such light wind, it was to be motoring for much of the Lyme Bay crossing, but, at least, that gave us good speeds and the auto-helm made light of all the steering work.

With such light wind and neap tides, we had decided on the inshore passage at Portland Bill. I had done this a couple of times before, but on east-to-west passages! Timing the arrival after the long crossing of Lyme Bay can be fairly important to avoid the worst of the Portland Race. As it turned out, the ‘quiet’ wind and tide conditions meant that the race was at its most benign and I don’t think we’d have been in much trouble if our timing had been completely wrong. A few hundred metres off Portland Bill, Ros marvelled at the small waves coming from all sorts of directions and the great swirling patches of smooth water around the yacht. The photographs don’t do justice to it, as photography, of course, flattens the sea!! A number of larger yachts were taking on the passage further to the south and, whilst obviously in the ‘Race’, looked like they were having a fairly easy time of it.

The wind had built a bit to SW 3-4 and, once round the Bill, we had a very fine sail for a couple of hours towards Weymouth. After re-fuelling and berthing in The Cove, opposite the Town Quay, it was time for me to depart and make way for the next crew.

At the time of our meeting, Monday, 11 August, Ros was in Brighton, waiting for ‘Bertha’s’ strong winds to subside. She told me the sea state looked pretty ‘impressive’ from the safety of Brighton Marina, but she’s keen to be on her way as soon as the weather improves.

Please use the link above to see what it’s all about and to follow her progress. Also, there’s facebook, there’s Twitter for those who ‘tweet’ and ‘blogs’ for those who ‘blog’. I can’t help much there, as, after my dodgy experiences, I don’t do this stuff, but that’s another story!!

Please follow Ros’ travels, donate if you will to this very worthy cause and Ros would always be pleased to speak to anyone interested in her travels.