Salcombe August 2024

The port side town of Salcombe is one of the gems of South Devon. Situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty it has thousands of years of rich history – barbery slavery, piracy, civil war to mention the more racy elements. It is though a working fishing village and now has a reputation of having some of the most expensive properties in the country and is a very popular holiday destination. A great place to stay there is 1-2 Moult Farm Cottages, a short walk to North Sands beach, with plenty of space to store paddleboards, supsails and launch Supsail adventures up the Kingsbridge Estuary.

Estuaries are affected by the tides – the action of the gravitational pull of the moon on the seas combined with the rotation of the earth. As a rule of thumb the time gap between high and low tide is approximately 6 hours. Planning any trip you should carefully consider what the tides are doing and plan where the tide is going to push you along and provide enough water over the mudflats to paddle/sail on. The Kingsbridge Estuary and the surrounding creeks have lots of mudflats – plan your trips carefully.

North Sands Beach –> Kingsbridge -The Crabshell Inn – Journey time 2 hours – 7km

This journey makes for a great day out. On August 27th the high tide was at 1216 and a gentle breeze (Beaufort 3 / 7-10 Kts) was blowing from the south. Conditions couldn’t be better. The launch on North Sands beach went with ease; 4 adults and 2 children took a 6 man paddleboard and an allround 10.6ft paddleboard. As soon as the merry band paddled out 300m past the old fort that marks the north corner of North Sands beach, the two craft were pointed north east and the supsails were unfurled. Then a period of uninterrupted sailing ensued – dare I say a world first – 3 Supsails on an enormous paddleboard making its way up the Kingsbridge Estuary. Every moored yacht, walkers in the town of Salcombe as we sailed past it, stopped, stared and reached for their mobile phones to take a picture.

As a keen windsurfer – I never get out on the water unless it is blowing a steady moderate to fresh breeze. As a paddleboarder, I had immense fun lightwind sailing with friends of all sailing ability in a gentle breeze. I believe another world first a Supsailor on a one-man paddleboard circling a 6-man paddleboard with 3 Supsails on it. Practicing different types of TACs and Jibes to keep the larger craft in close proximity as the two craft made their way to the Crabshell Inn.

The Crabshell Inn is perched on an embankment on the east side of the estuary. It was easy to drop sails, pick up our paddles and cruise in under paddlepower to the embankment wall. The pub, as its name would suggest, serves a very good crab sandwich!

The journey back was a mix of tacking up wind and paddlepower. Tacking upwind – sailing ones paddleboard as close to the wind as possible in a series of zig zags to gain ground is fun but not as effective as deploying the mighty paddle. As we had head wind to contend with, but had waited to depart the Crabshell Inn to enjoy the extra spurt of the ebbing tide the journey time under paddle took a fraction longer than our sail up also driven by the need to enjoy a brief stop in Salcombe and consume a very good ice cream.