Close hauled, Bravery and Sabre toothed tigers

Were we ready to leave Porto. It has been best part of a month, the shop keepers and weirdoes were recognising us...it was time to go. A nice gentleman named Andy who was stuck in the marina madly decided to come with us for a ride down to Cascais. The journey door to door was 160 nautical miles. I was determined to sail so with a southerly predicted we headed out south west in 5-10mph predicted winds. The Portuguese are pretty good at many things, food, being friendly, football etc however at weather forecasting they are truly crap. The wind was soon gusting 30 mph we were heeled right over and going an exhilarating 7 knots. We headed 20 miles out and it was pretty good to feel the wind in our hair. The seas were big and the ride turbulent.  Close hauled what this means is sailing close to the wind, yachts cannot sail directly into the wind and our ketch can sail about 40 degrees off the wind which is what we were doing. However it is the least comfortable way to sail as the boat is heeled over. Night was approaching and the winds were getting stronger, one of us was being sea sick and I decided to pull the sails in and switch on the engine. Andy and I got on the deck and with difficulty brought our main sail down. This involved standing on the deck, the boat heeled over and in 40 mph of winds a bruising exercise. However, messily the sail was brought down.

We had three watches thru the nigh Dawn 9-12, Me 12-3 (the worst watch as your sleep gets split up) and Andy 3-6. This covers the night. Dawn manages to sleep well, I cannot sleep with the engine on as any different sound vibration awakens me. Anyhow night went well and at six in the morning with us all up I decided to put the sails up. It was still dark, sunrise not till 7.45 so Andy and I went back on deck to raise the main sail. Anyhow we pulled and pulled, the sail was stuck. In our haste the night before the main halyard (the rope that pulls up the sail) had got twisted in one of the spreaders. I was completely pissed off. It was my fault for 2 reasons, first, the night before we hadn’t kept the halyard taut as we brought the sail down, and second I had decided to raise the  sail again before daylight when we could of spotted it. So the sail was half up and stuck and in big seas getting someone up the mast was going to be dangerous/touch and go.

Hannah who is our on call mast climber volunteered. Let me set the scene the boat is wallowing, going side to side and pitching going up and down. Going up the mast was going to be very hairy. Hannah put on the harness and soon she was being winched 50 feet up in the Atlantic thirty miles from land. Soon she was being thrown around like a yoyo banging into the mast; bravely she continued and got up to where the rope was caught. She clung on and clung on getting bashed around but couldn’t free the rope. Next Andy stepped up to the mark and volunteered to go up. Up he went and like Hannah was soon being thrown around like a rag doll. Bravely he hung on and managed to free the sail. Coming down he had sustained  quite a lot of bruising and minor cuts. Both he and Hannah had shown exceptional concentration and determination, My hat is off to both off them.

All sails up we continued the journey, the winds stayed strong and the following night we got the sails up and down with no problems. The Auto pilot broke down again on the second night necessitating hand steering which makes the watches a bit harder. Lots of big tankers in our path in the middle of the night. Dawn is excellent on navigation and avoiding us being run down by super tankers. Next day i was helming, dog tired as i really don’t sleep well on these journeys, Gabriel keeping me company. I am bleary eyed watching the compass and monitoring traffic when Gabe asks “Can Sabre tooth tigers bite thru the trunks of Wooly Mammoths.”