The Joys of Cruising - The saga of the tiller pilot and other stories

Octogenarian Stuart Lyall was determined to reach Falmouth, cruising solo along the West Country coast. In this three part series, Stuart recounts his singlehanded exploits, with weather and adventures that would make even those younger than he pause for thought!

The final episode takes Stuart and Termaric back to the Cornish coast, the culmination of the saga of the tiller pilot and the lobster pots have the last laugh...

"The final trip, late August to almost mid-September, conditions were very lively for nearly the whole trip and after a lovely run all the way to Lyme Regis, I once again had a complete pantomime attempting to pick up a buoy outside the harbour. I got a line round one and it was such that next minute the buoy vanished underneath the boat just forward of the keel and we went right over the top of it. As I was struggling, I saw some other boats come in behind me and they tried to pick the buoys up and most were unable to do it and gave up. The one boat that was successful must have had a rather uncomfortable night as their boat was pitching about like a rocking horse on steroids! But then I saw this gentleman stood on the temporary seasonal pontoons waving his arms at me to come over, my guardian angel, and we ended up bouncing about on the pontoon all night instead.

That final trip, sailing from Lyme Regis to Dartmouth, the tiller pilot failed again at the entrance to Dartmouth. I was standing on the coach roof attempting to drop and stow the mainsail whilst being tossed aorund in the wind and swell when the tiller pilot locked over hard to port and drove us round in circles. It was a relief to get up the river Dart and pick up a buoy at Dittisham to chill out for a while and recover! After that we went to Salcombe with a third tiller pilot which was delivered to the boat at Darthaven Marina, and from there into the Yealm. I was on the pontoon up the river on the west bank, there was only a couple of other boats on it at mid afternoon, so I got all settled on my own and then two or three more boats came in. A party starts up on the pontoon level with my cockpit and eventually I abandoned trying to ignore the racket and went on deck to let them know I was there. It turned out to be some RNSA members from Plymouth having a reunion party and amazingly one of them was an old shipmate of mine, he’d been on HMS Eagle as a pilot when I was on her. But more of a coincidence than that, he was good friends with a chap from my old stomping ground back in Saffron Walden. I used to have a small garden centre and this friend used to be the best customer that garden centre ever had! We knew him well, he used to come and sit with the family. So it was fortuitous that there was this party on that pontoon and he sent me a video of the commissioning of HMS Eagle and the crew. In fact it was a television programme made at the time and I remember seeing myself, I was down the engine room of course. I was only on screen for about two seconds because it was mostly about the airplanes, but what a coincidence in the most unlikely of places!

That was in the Yealm, and I went in there a couple of times, it’s lovely in there. If I could change anything, I would have bought a boat with a different fin configuration because I would have liked to have gone up rivers and sat in the mud for a bit, which I couldn't because she draws one and a half metres and it does restrict you a bit. Apparently you can get up to Kingsbridge (upriver from Salcombe) even with that draft if you time it right. I was thinking of going up in the dinghy to test it out, but it’s only got oars and if you’re coming back down with the tide, which is pretty stiff through there, if you miss your boat you’d be out to sea, wouldn’t you! Anyway, after the Yealm, I pushed west to Fowey on probably one of the best sailing days of the season with a fair wind and following sea, and then cruised the area between Mevagissey and the Dodman with not much wind and a continuous heavy swell which spoke of heavier conditions to come. The weather on that third trip went downhill and it was clear the season was coming to a close.

I stayed a couple of nights in Fowey, which I preferred to Falmouth, it’s much more sheltered. Falmouth is very industrial; the town itself, the quay, the harbour. At Fowey, the harbour people were lovely and the place itself was fantastic so I didn’t return to the bigger port. I like the Yealm, you know, and up in The Bag at Salcombe, or those sort of places. Dittisham is nice, they’re my sort of places. On the way back east we stopped back in the Yealm and then from there to Salcombe and that was very difficult with the weather. It was building then, which was forecast, and I didn’t know if I was going to get back. I wanted to get into Darthaven Marina because the forecast was for strong winds from the east. I was beating into the easterlies all the way from Fowey across Eddystone, all the way back and it just got worse every day. I tried to take a photograph of the bows disappearing under the water but every time I popped up I got a face full of spray!

I got into Salcombe in some serious weather, there was a lot of heavy rain. When I left for Dartmouth it was hammering down and then the fog came in. I was near the bar and I couldn’t see hundred yards and there’s quite a sharp turn at the entrance to the river, but looming out of the fog were all these kayakers and there’s boats going up and down and it was teeming with rain. But we got out and I got past them without drowning them and set off for Dartmouth. It was a really really strong easterly so I had the mainsail up, well reefed, and no genoa. I went due east until I was about a mile or so beyond Start Point beacuse the tide was wrong, it was an ebb tide, and I thought I had plenty of room to turn north to head for Dartmouth, so I turned and before I knew I was nearly on Start Point, it swept me back that quick.

What happens there, when you’re south of the lattitude of the Point, the tidal flow is east-west when it’s ebbing and I could see I was being driven ashore and of course, at that point the engine cut out and refused to restart. Once you get slightly north of the point, the tidal flow changes so it’s more north-south and it stopped driving me in towards the shore, but I was very very close. I had no engine, and I knew that shoal wasn’t far away. You can’t get at your instruments to help you when you’re on the mainsheet and the tiller. Thankfully the tide had stopped driving me the wrong way, so I managed to get the tiller pilot back on and phoned Darthaven Marina, but they had no room. I had no engine and I didn’t know how I was going to get into Dartmouth anyway. By this point we had sailed clear into Start Bay where conditions rapidly improved with the tide beginning to turn. The sun came out and the wind eased which allowed me to fiddle about with the engine and eventually I got it going again but I was very nervous about relying on it. I phoned Darthaven again, they knew me now after I’d been in there a few times with new tiller pilots and I’d used their address to have them delivered. They said they’d moved the boats around to make a space for me, wasn’t that nice! 

I was there a week pinned down with the weather. One night there was this strong thrumming noise and I had the halyard too tight on the genoa and it was strumming the sail, I had to get out and ease it off. But that was typical of the weather that week although I did have some lovely walks up the hill to Hoodown, it’s called, the wood on the Kingswear side. At last, nine days after leaving Fowey, the promised westerlies arrived in style and as the forecast didn't expect them to last more that three days before swinging back into the east, we had not a moment to lose! The departure from Dartmouth was unforgettable. In almost tropical rain we topped up at the tank at the fuel barge, (manned by a most unhappy gentleman. I’ll say no more other than that it might of been a bit early in the morning for him). Dartmouth to Lyme Regis was bad weather. I remember trying to pull the mainsail down just off of Lyme Regis and the wind had got up all day and it had turned south westerly by then. It was just a monstrous job trying to get the sail down getting thrown about. At one point, I had myself lashed to the mast trying to drag it down.

Going back round Portland that time I chose to avoid the inshore passage. As it was forecast to be the last day of westerlies we decided to take our chances around the Bill and I elected  to go offshore, well reefed in preparation. It did indeed prove to be a very lively trip and was a good force 5 by the time we turned north to head up towards Portland Harbour.  In fact the conditions that day caused much of the turbulent water from the race and the shambles to spread some considerable distance eastward. After arriving safely back inside the harbour I decided to head close under the lee of the marina breakwater to facilitate lowering the mainsail. Whilst climbing onto the coach roof to stow the sail I noted a black lobster pot some 60 to 70 yards further along the wall towards the marina entrance. Having stowed the sail and deciding the lobster pot would be easily avoided I hopped back into the cockpit, increased the throttle and turning away from the wall and the pot, only to discover I was too late. It must’ve crept up on me and wrapped itself around my prop while I wasn’t watching. I'm just so glad this happened in the final few minutes of the whole trip rather than some distance away from home. We did a few picnics after that, but that was pretty much it for 2021."

After his adventures in 2021, Stuart made the difficult decision to sell Termaric and hang up his sailing boots aged 81. Termaric sailed from Portland Marina for the final time under new ownership in June 2022. A huge thanks to him in taking the time to share his story with us!

Photos;

Above - Left: Safely tied up to the seasonal pontoons outside Lyme Regis, Right: The entrance to Lyme Regis harbour

Below - Left: Looking back towards the entrance into Salcombe and the infamous bar, Middle: Moonrise over Kingswear from Darthaven Marina, Right: Washing day on Termaric!