I had the pleasure of delivering a well maintained and looked after Dufour 36 Classic. Myself and my crew member Philippe van Eisjden arrived onto S/Y Samara on a Sunday afternoon, ready for an early morning High Water departure.

After a quick but thorough handover from her owner Peter Eastwood we were very satisfied Samara was ready for the passage ahead.

Tollesbury is on the river Black Water in Essex and requires careful pilotage and tidal strategy. The stream dries out along with a shallow sill to get across, so departing at or just before High Water is pretty important.

Once out into the Thames Estuary it was nice to have very summery and calm conditions. The benign conditions meant we were able to save a few hours by crossing the Sunk Sand towards Fishermans Gat. We had favourable tide all the way to just shy of Dover, which was good considering we had a very fixed departure time. The breeze unfortunately was very flukey throughout the entire day, so a large amount of it was spent motoring.

What followed our first day was a very enjoyable combination of light Sea breezes in the day and favourable, although again quite light North Westerlies at night.

Thanks to our continued good progress, we managed to scrape past an enormous thunderstorm. Passing only a mile or two ahead of its track. It did catch us in the end though! By adding 7 hours to my travel time by closing the Great Western line into Paddington!!

We picked our way into Mylor Yacht Harbour at Low Water and were tied up by 11am. Many thanks to Philippe who really pulled his weight throughout!

An earlier than expected arrival gave us a really good chance to give Samara a good clean up and we were able to have her in mint condition for her owners’ arrival.

Many Thanks to Samara’s owners Peter and Tricia Eastwood, I wish them pleasant and safe cruising around Cornwall!

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Matthew Kotzé