Monday, September 2, 2024

2024 August 31st Days 18 - ?, weather bound again this time at St Mawes and Turnaware

The forecasts are still all over the place with  forecasts not agreeing, hardly surprising with part of a system going overhead.

UK Met Office model on Tuesday morning.
Again met Roeland in his  A24 "Hotfoot", this time not racing
with his wife aboard.
Sunday was quite a nice day and I got a small bit of topside varnishing done, it looked as though I would be OK to stay in St Mawes which is sheltered from the forecast NW wind, however on Tuesday morning I woke and checked the just issued inshore forecast:

Lyme Regis to Lands End including the Isles of Scilly - Strong wind warning

24 hour forecast: Cyclonic 2 to 4, increasing 4 to 6, becoming northwest 4 or 5 later. Slight or moderate, occasionally smooth in sheltered north and rough in far west. Occasional rain or showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor.

Outlook for the following 24 hours: Northwest 3 to 5. Smooth or slight, but moderate west of the Lizard. Showers. Good.

At first this did not overly concern me but I checked out the domestic forecast, often a good idea, it's a "post code" automated forecast but the UKMO model is updated more frequently than any other, this showed

The domestic forecast for St Mawes @ 09:00, at 07:00
the wind was easterly 6 knots.

The wind strength was much lower but that is not unusual as the system allows for the wind to slow over land but it shows the wind veering from the East to the North-west rather than backing. That would make the anchorage exposed to the south-westerly, during the day a F6 should not be dangerous in St Mawes but it would certainly be uncomfortable so, although it was raining a little and misty I decided to head north for some shelter and I was away 10 minutes later.

There was a minor drama as I left, a fishing boat reporting a yacht probably aground in Bream Cove just north of the Helford river. The fishing boat could not get close enough to see what was going on or if there was any one aboard, and although I probably draw more water than his boat and am single handed, I had the dinghy in tow so could anchor and go in to investigate, as it was only 20 minutes away I started off in that direction but the coastguard, having checked their records (it took a while, probably because the name of the boat was unknown; one reason to have the boats name on the dodgers), came back on to say that the owner was aware and arranging recovery so we both went about our business.

Turnaware from the pontoon.
Fortunately there was space on the Turnaware pontoon and the tide, a couple of hours after HW on a near spring tide was not at full strength so I stopped there rather than go up to the Truro river with the tide getting stronger. If the wind does reach F6 from the SW it will be a bit exposed but not excessively so and I should have a quite night with a north-westerly and I will go back to St Mawes on Tuesday and hopefully head west on Wednesday or Thursday but its not worth thinking about where to go at the moment as the forecasts are rather different:

UK Met Office forecast for mid day Friday.
And the ECMWF for mid day Friday.

Update: Typical, 21:00 and the wind has not gone above 8 knots and hidden here it is mainly calm, now the mist has cleared it is warm and humid, what wind there is from here to Scilly is already NW so I could probably have stayed where I was. Hopefully strong winds will not be delayed too long or they could cause problems tomorrow. I have another paid for nigh here if I need it but I’ll probably go back to St Mawes tomorrow. And now the jet stream is making the forecast for the weekend, not so good and difficult to predict. 🤬🤬

Excitement at Turnaware and I get to use my long line.

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