The easy life
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
Words by Hannah Tapping
Making exploring Cornish waters effortless.
Half past nine on a still morning and the Helford River is doing what it does best. The water lies flat and dark beneath the oaks, so glassy it could be mistaken for something poured rather than tidal. A heron holds its ground on the shore below Helford Passage beach. Breaking the silence an engine turns over, and the first water taxi of the day slips away from the pontoon, leaving barely a wake behind it.
This is a river that strips away all the noise, quite literally. There’s no motorway roar, no marina tannoy, no queue of trailers backed up at a public slipway; just oak woods running to the waterline, a scatter of swing moorings holding boats that barely stir, and the Ferryboat Inn’s terrace already catching the first of the sun. Walk around the rocks past the old pillbox and you will find the sign marking the river’s de-restriction zone yourself, right where the undersea cable comes ashore. From there it is two minutes of easy motoring before the whole of Falmouth Bay opens out in front of you and the throttle finally goes down.
HRB Marine is a family-run operation providing moorings, marine services and much more from the private beach at Helford Passage. Offering some of the most exclusive swing and beach moorings you’ll find in the UK, HRB Marine takes the stress out of bringing or keeping your boat here. The moorings are fully serviced and available from 1st April to 31st October either on a seasonal or temporary basis. For trailered boats, they also offer a launch and recovery from their beach slipway, with boat storage available at competitive rates. Included in the service is use of the water taxi out to your mooring and back, which operates from the beach pontoon daily. There is free use of a beach punt or, for those who prefer to use their own tender, beach moorings are available.
The appeal, for anyone used to trailering a boat down from London, the Home Counties or further north, is that HRB removes every piece of friction between the M5 and the water. Owner Phil Brewer puts it simply: “What we aim to do is take away all the pain of arriving with your boat. You give the boat to us, we make it ready and then you simply relax.” Some clients take advantage of the full package offered by HRB, which includes secure winter boat storage. Come the start of the new season, Phil and his team will service and make-ready, putting the boat out on a mooring ready for arrival. Others may choose to trailer their boats down. Again, all you need do is hand over your boat to HRB and they will take care of the rest, right down to launch and storing of your trailer. Just imagine, having your boat waiting on the water… no faffing with a slipway queue, no tricky reversing manoeuvres and no worries about where to store your trailer.
For anyone with a bigger yacht, the same principle applies at a larger scale. One of Phil’s clients sails down from Scotland each year to take a mooring for the season, then sails home again in the autumn. Whatever the vessel, the offer is the same. HRB currently has 70 moorings and growing, 60 of which are held on a seasonal basis by returning owners, ten kept deliberately free for anyone wanting to duck in for lunch at The Ferryboat Inn. A short-stay mooring costs just £10 pounds for three hours, which includes being ferried in to the beach or pontoon and collected again afterwards.
HRB’s team are all qualified commercial skippers, and tuition is available by the hour, whether that means a refresher for an experienced owner, a first introduction for a partner who has never taken the helm, or proper grounding for someone buying their first boat. Phil is candid about why this matters more than owners often admit: “For a large number of boat owners, it’s probably never occurred to them what happens if the person who normally drives the boat is taken ill out in the middle of the bay. Who’s going to drive it back safely?” As Phil says, it is often less about ignorance and more about embarrassment: “You might have been a boat owner for many years but may still not know how to do something. It’s about breaking down those barriers and making people feel comfortable to ask for help.”
Around 30 boats spend the winter in HRB’s fully gated, secure 20,000 square foot storage unit, with both undercover and open-air options. Some are owned locally, while others belong to away-owners, for whom HRB coordinates access for engineers of the client’s choice throughout the winter months, with servicing handled by brand-specific specialists.
If you have little ones to entertain, then sister company, Helford River Boats offers SUP and kayak hire throughout the summer months from the beach. HRB Marine also runs its own small brokerage, matching boats and buyers largely through word of mouth among its own client base, a useful route for anyone put off by the usual private-sale minefield.
However, it is perhaps what lies beyond the mooring that is the real draw. From Helford Passage there is access to more than sixty beaches by boat, and within minutes of clearing the de-restriction you are into Falmouth Bay, with Mylor, St Mawes, St Just in Roseland, Restronguet Creek all within easy reach for a long lunch or a lazy afternoon at anchor. There’s a fortnight’s worth of exploring here, without ever needing to repeat a creek.
Lunch itself is not short of options. The Hotel Tresanton in St Mawes for those wanting linen napkins with their view, while the Pandora Inn does a very good lunch eaten with your feet still slightly damp. Back at base, the Ferryboat Inn sits right on Helford Passage beach, or take the water taxi across to The Shipwrights Arms for a change of pace. On the right afternoon, light does something here that makes the place look more like a Greek island than a corner of Cornwall. The difference is that here nobody needs a passport or a long journey to appreciate it.
HRB also works in close partnership with local holiday cottage companies, so even finding the right accommodation doesn’t have to be hassle. As Phil puts it, the philosophy is simple: “We simply want to make our client’s experience as easy and as stress-free as possible.”
On the Helford, that experience starts the moment you arrive and ends, several contented weeks later, wondering why anywhere else ever seemed necessary.
