Cornish Cruncher

The equation of a twenty foot wind swell and bolt onshore fifty knot northerly winds on the north coast of Cornwall for wave sailing just doesn’t add up; unless of course you have a screw loose like the Motley Crew! Aided by Ian Black’s ever reliable on the spot ‘intel’, JC and Timo Mullen drove through the night up the A31 to be on hand for a wild and windy day and the rare opportunity to sail St Ives Harbour, a quality left hander normally loaded with surfers. Once the word spread that this hit and run mission was going down, PWA head judge, Duncan Coombs, couldn’t resist joining the mayhem. JC recounts a day to remember out west.

- John Carter

WEATHER BOMB

The BBC was forecasting gale force winds in Cornwall due to an intense unnamed low pressure that was winding up in the Atlantic. Unpredicted though was how this storm would turn into a ‘weather bomb’ during the night, where the system deepened, increased its rotation and churned out far more vicious winds than originally predicted. Just as we arrived into Hayle at 3am the carnage hit! I’d been checking the wind en-route and the Seven Stones Light Vessel off of Lands Ends had been reading consistently 25 knots westerly all night but around 2.30am the wind switched north and jacked to well over 50 knots.

Through the night Cornwall was lashed even more with the howling wind outside gusting well over 60 knots and almost shaking Timo’s pad at Gwithian Towans off its foundations.

The plan to drive overnight so we could be at the beach at the crack of dawn kind of backfired on us. We were so wrecked by the time we made it to Cornwall at three in the morning we did not wake up until 8am. Our normal Motley Crew military precision had gone out the storm rattled window! Outside at Gwithian the sea was raging; bolt onshore gales had whipped up the Atlantic into a battlefield of white water and disorganized waves. Power lines, trees and anything else not pinned down was being blown around viciously; the forecast said it was going to be windy but this carnage was much more than we had bargained for.