The Inaugral Sail........

It was September 2002 and Fliss and I had just purchased our Saltram Saga 40’ long keeled Blue-Water cruiser. Neither of us had set foot aboard a sailing boat for many years and, after begging three days annual holiday from work, it was with a mixture of excitement and apprehension that we drove from our home in Surrey England to Plymouth for our first excursion.


After a night on-board, it was with trepidation that I fired-up the motor and Felicity cast the lines off. We have since found that “Nadezhda”, being long-keeled, has a severe aversion to reversing, but we gracefully slid from the pontoon and motored gently into the river Tamar from the Mayflower marina.

Those that are familiar with the area will know that the river narrows between rocks at this point. We saw a local police launch and the friendly constabulary waved to us. I waved back with the enjoyment of fellow seafarers acknowledging each others common-ground.

These friendly chaps continued to wave and Fliss suggested that they were trying to tell us something. Surely we were not in danger of grounding. Did I really not check the chart correctly before leaving? Doubt crept insidiously into my mind as I smiled and waved back again!

Fliss, who was putting-away the fenders in the anchor locker drew my attention to a (very) fast motor launch coming down the river. To my surprise, there was an apparently stationary grey behemoth lurking behind that was keeping pace with it. Well, what do you do when there’s a Royal Navy frigate bearing-down on you at up-to 20 knots in a narrow channel? RUN AWAY!!!

Having watched the marines, all “to-attention” at close-quarters, we finally nosed our way back out of the marina for an interesting sail 20 miles down the coast to the beautiful inlet of Fowey. Three days of blissful but nerve-wracking sailing ensued – we were hooked!




Of course, we are not completely irreverent to the need for the necessary skills and arts of sailing before we set-out. Fliss was capable in the art of dinghy sailing and I had sailed extensively on my parents yacht (albeit many years ago). I had almost completed the RYA Shorebased Coastal Skippers course and we both had a VHF operators certificate. However, these first few excursions taught us by necessity and the learning curve was steep indeed!