We had an early start and made full use of the excellent facilities at Sutton Marina in Plymouth. Niki left us for the train back to Falmouth, pausing in Plymouth again on her way back for brunch with Aimee, who was in the midst of her uni exams, before driving home. Our passage plan was to move Molly another good hop towards her new home, and make for Dartmouth.

My main order of the day, following yesterday’s experience was to replace my anchor for something more grippy before departing. After reading around, the ground tackle of choice seemed to be either a Rocna or its later development, the slightly more compact Vulcan. It was reassuring to know that not only had others testified to its holding but importantly also reported that it fitted the anchor locker of the Crabber 26.

Plymouth ought to be a good place to procure boat equipment, but most of the chandleries didn’t have my anchor of choice. Fortunately the excellent chandlery at Mountbatten had a 9kg Vulcan in stock, so Ben and I took the foot ferry across the harbour. Pausing only to restock with pasties for our voyage, we returned to Molly and fitted her shiny new pin, made our way through the lock and motored out into the sound.

Just as we were hoisting the main, a military RIB asked us to move out of the channel, and moments later the frigate HMS Kent came steaming up the East channel at speed.

Although we had the main up, it was not working at all and it was not a very peaceful passage down the Devon coast; although there was little swell, the sea felt confused without the drive of the sails and gave us an uncomfortable motion. We passed by some of my favourite diving sites at Hilsea point and the Persier wreck in Bigbury Bay, where we could see the mouths of the Erme and Avon from afar. I thought, not for the first time, that I wished there was time to explore these places.

Eventually Molly passed Bolt Tail and we travelled along that forbidding four miles of cliff, until we reached Bolt Head and the entrance to Salcombe. We had discussed this as an alternative place to overnight, but Ben and I both agreed we should carry on.

The sea was much flatter now and a fair tide was increasing; we quickly passed Prawle Point and approached the prominent outcrop of Start Point with its conspicuous lighthouse. By this time we were scooting along at over 7kt and were rapidly covering the remaining ground.

We were treated to some spectacular meteorology, with banks of dark grey cumulus approaching. We could see a lovely pilot cutter in the distance turning across our track. The heavens opened and a massive downpour began with the rain cascading down onto glassy water. It was so quiet that could the strange hiss of the drops on the surface of the sea as we sped along. We watched the pilot cutter pass in front of us and follow the shore of Start Bay; we took a route outside the Skerries Bank, though there the only evidence of overfalls were occasional patches of boiling water on the glassy water surface.

The cloud passed away as we entered the mouth of Dart River and Ben and I were treated to the sight of Dartmouth and Kingswear in the early evening sun. We treated ourselves to a berth on the town quay, ready for some well-earned fish and chips. It was only when we were tied up that I noticed that as this was the ferry quay, we needed to be away by 0845 the following morning. The helpful harbour master pointed out that we were welcome to move to one of the pontoon berths in the morning if we wished, so we decided to stay put.

We were joined just after by the gaffer we had seen in the bay, which turned out to be Hetty, a 1906 pilot cutter, who was travelling in the opposite direction to us, from Weymouth on her way to Cornwall for a pilot cutter rally.

We enjoyed Rockfish fillet and chips aboard Molly with the fine Shropshire bitter I had brought with me from home. The meal was provided by the chip shop of the same name and was excellent.

We spent the rest of the evening discussing our next move. The wind had been favourable but very light for the past several days. We had one more day of favourable wind forecast, followed by a day of no wind and then adverse winds. The forecasts had not been accurate, but I really did want to end the week with Molly on her berth in Gosport and I also did not want to plod upwind on the motor if I could avoid it.

Ben and I considered many options, but in the end decided that we’d make an early start in the morning, pass off well off Portland with a favourable spring tide in the early evening and see where we got to, with the option of going overnight all the way into the Solent or, more likely, anchoring somewhere before Swanage to avoid sailing through the whole night and allowing us to time our Solent entrance to a fair tide.

• Trips