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Through a lot of hard work during the winter by volunteers and Josh Coulson ( Job Seekers programme) BARNABAS was ready for its first scheduled trip of the season – that is apart from the short trip from Penzance to Newlyn and back to participate in British Tourism Week. Much has been done to make the boat safer and more habitable while still maintaining its original appearance. The concern before the trip was whether the harbour authorities would repair the lock gate in time to allow the boats to get out. Fortunately on 28 April the gates were opened and BARNABAS as well as HAPPY RETURN were able to “escape”. The former headed for Mousehole for storing and final preparations. At 0530 the next day the boat with a good crew of six left the harbour and headed for the Scillies. A gentle north easterly saw the boat happily along the coast to Land’s End but as we cleared the land, although the sun shone, the breeze decreased. So it was a motor sail in slightly hazy weather. At 1300 we entered New Grimsby Harbour from the north and after a short wait for the tide, crossed the Tresco Flats and arrived at St. Mary’s at 1500. There we went alongside and secured to an ex fishing vessel.
  St. Mary’s was full of rowers and the colourful gigs all lined up along the beach. Needless to say the pubs were doing a roaring business. The ferry SCILLONIAN had been very active in the days preceding taking the 130 (?)gigs and their crews to the islands. On the Saturday BARNABAS left on the tide to go to St. Agnes, where we anchored in the northern harbour. We could see the masts of HAPPY RETURN on the south side but never once came in contact. Where did she go? We spent the day sailing in the Sound tacking, jibing and dipping the lug. With a largely new crew on board this was not letter perfect but we all learnt a lot sailing in the fresh breeze with a reef in the fore lug and later a reduction to mizzen on the fore. After putting one of our crew ashore in St. Mary’s to catch the ferry home, we returned to sea again. Tried fishing and caught a few pollack. Mackerel seemed to be absent. In the evening we returned again to the northern anchorage at St. Agnes. A run ashore was in order and the menu at the pub tempted us to eat ashore. During the night we had the first signs of breaking weather with a heavy rain shower.
  On Sunday, 1 May we awoke off St.Agnes to find the weather deteriorated and the forecast for the next days was for strengthening easterlies. A decision was made to leave a day early and we prepared the boat for sea. At 1130 with just the mizzen hoisted and under power we headed down the Sound, passing between the gigs racing from Nut Rock to St. Mary’s. The replica MATHEW was anchored just off the course. At 1230 we cleared the Hatt buoy and made course towards the Land’s End. Almost immediately we were caught in a nasty tide race off the Eastern Isles with BARNABAS pitching heavily. Although this calmed a bit as we left the land the whole trip across was uncomfortable with the boat being knocked back in speed due to the pitching. Average speed was about 3.5 knots and we were all glad to see the Carn Base cardinal buoy and later the Runnelstone. Winds throughout were force 4 to 5. Even the trip in to Mount’s Bay got the boat bouncing. The tide was too low to enter Mousehole and we continued on to Newlyn, where we went alongside a fishing vessel at 2130. We heard later that HAPPY RETURN had come in a few hours earlier. Three of our crew left us there and two of us stayed aboard overnight. We were lucky to get in when we did because later we had a most vicious thunder storm with very heavy rain. On that score we can be happy to report that the decks were very sound and we took little water. During the trip from Scillies in spite of the heavy pitching the automatic bilge pump dealt well with any water that we might have taken.
Early on the Monday morning we motored to Mousehole. Even that was not comfortable with a very steep little sea that was the prelude to strong southeasterlies during the day but by that time the boat was snug in the harbour.