Wandering around the town last night we were offered a candid insight into Iberian relations when a young woman, keen to catch the ferry across the river to Monte Real on the Portuguese side, and thence a train to Faro and a plane to Bristol, enquired about the current time. Our watches are still set to UK (BST) time, which happens to be the same as Portugal, but in Spain, they are on EST (BST plus 1 hour). When we told her this she was temporarily incredulous.  What?  But they are so close, just across the river! ( Karen remarked about the width of the river Mersey and perhaps Liverpool and Birkenhead should be on different time zones, if they are not already!)  Then the young women  sighed and said something to the effect that she hoped the time delay would not affect her transfer. "In Portugal, everything happens so slowly, if at all!".

As if to emphasise the point, later in the (Spanish) supermarket, we happened across the fastest checkout girl in the EU…her hands a blur in the competent manhandling of our supplies for last night's dinner!

And it's good to be back in Spain. Nice to reflect on our own experiences of the Portuguese and Spanish people.  The Spanish are so noisy!  The language is vowel driven with consonants adding a staccato feel, so that the effect is of a cacophanous jabber whenever there are more than two conversations within earshot. It also seems that loud conversation is culturally preferred. Everyone seems to try to out - do everyone else with volume controls on most larynxes set to 11.

Portuguese sounds to us like a forgotten east European (Soviet) language. There are so many shh and zhz sounds in the language, it seems to be delivered in a kind of slur, like a drunk explaining his journey home from a night out! But the people are so very friendly and the portions offered in restaurants are generous to a fault, so frequently we have curtailed plans for an evening meal if we have indulged in a snack out at lunchtime.

Perhaps a word or two about our good ship, Persephone.  Of course, like many of my fellow Sigma 38 owners, and especially as past Class Chairman, I have only words of praise about the boat. Though in truth, the sailing has been so very easy, that hardly any stress has been placed on boat or crew since that first night at sea in the central English Channel, south of St Albans Head.  Rarely have we seen wind over 25 Knots, and when we have, it has been behind us, pushing us along with it, so that the wind we experience (apparent wind) is around the 15 knot level. When it has blown strongly, it has been warm and sunny, so the sailing has been in shorts since we left Cherbourg.  Until yesterday, when the wet weather gear, and long sleeves were dug out for the early morning start from Vilamoura..when we sailed in rain.

For almost all of our Portuguese sailing, the wind has been very light. We cheer when we have 10 knots or more, and in downwind sailing on the lumpy waters of the Atlantic coast, this is what we need to keep the air from being knocked out of the sails. We have frequently fitted a preventer…a line from the end of the main boom to the front of the boat, round a turning block and back to the centre…to enable us to tension the set up to stop the boom swinging from side to side in the swell. I generally dislike using these as I consider them more dangerous than the moving boom, but without a preventer, for much of the time there would be no sailing at all, simply because the breeze offers too little pressure to keep everything in place. We have spinnakered a lot, with Nigel on the bow, launching. gybing and retrieving the spinnaker and Karen dealing with the sheets, guys and halyards from the centre of the boat.

For this trip we had a new mainsail built, in a strong cruising Dacron, and fitted with sliders for the mast (rather than a bolt rope which is preferred for racing sails). In addition we have lazy jacks (ropes string each side of the sail up to the mast to guide the sail down onto the boom when dropping sail) and a stack-pack (a zippy bag / sail cover, permanently on the boom in which to tidy the sail away after use). The sliders help retain the sail when it comes down, and stop it coming off the mast (into the sea or anywhere else). This is a pretty standard set up for cruising yachts.

We are not finding the sliders and lazy jacks all that easy. We have yet to experience the show put on by almost every other yacht, whereby someone lets the main halyard go after sailing, and the main dutifully runs back down the mast and flops safely in a zig zag "flake" into the bag. Ours needs closer supervision. It has to be hauled down the mast, some unseen friction monster wanting us to keep sailing, no doubt. Launching the mainsail is also tricky and I have taken advice from other users with more experience. The whole thing is counter intuitive. Let me explain;

A flappy sail is not a happy sail. So with a racing crew, when hoisting the main, we point the boat head to wind under motor, and if there is any wind, we put the boat in reverse, to reduce the apparent wind speed while the sail is hoisted. This reduces the flappy sail phenomenon and saves the owner money. With lazy jacks, we have to do the opposite. You see, the lines designed to guide the sail down, also get caught around the sail battens preventing us from hoisting the sail. So, shorthanded, we have to point the boat to wind, put on the autopilot to keep it there, and boost the speed of the engine, boat and therefore apparent wind, if we are to have any chance of hoisting the sail between the two sets of lines each side of it. So we need sea room to do this. Hoisting safely in small harbours has not been an option for us as we cannot guarantee that we will get the sail up before the autopilot sends us into a sea wall! And the sail is heavy. Nigel is 10 stone and some, and there have been times when the friction monster has decided we ought not to go sailing, so it has been finely balanced as to whether the sail  or he goes up when he pulls the halyard.

Perhaps the part of the boat which has been put under most stress has been the faithful engine. We have had more time under engine in the last 6 weeks than I would normally expect in 3 seasons of standard racing, using the boat every weekend from March to November. Persephone has the original, now nearly 25 year old, Volvo 2003 engine and it is bearing up well. There were some interesting days when the engine would not run slowly, and "hunted" when in drive. We changed some filters, which improved things, but over time and with more use, changing fuel etc, the problem has resolved itself. We have come to the conclusion that the problems were likely to have been caused by some poor fuel probably picked up in St Helier in June. We have kept a log of fuel in, and time under motor and have calculated that we are using 1.7 litres of diesel per hour, on average. Oil use is low, about 0.1 litres after 133 hours of motoring to date. 

The solar panels have been a triumph. We have written about these in earlier postings, and the love affair with the sun will no doubt, continue. Our domestic batteries have 250 Ah capacity and these are adequate for our relatively power hungry needs, given the wonderful PV panels. The fridge has been permanently on for the whole trip, even while we were away in France and Persephone left on the Douro River, and has served us ice for our G and T's as well as kept the food nice and cool.

On anchor at Cascais we had night time wind..20 knots plus on occasion, so we hoisted the Aquair wind generator…which produced about 5A in the gusts. It's real strength seems to be in towing generator mode, though with day sailing since we crossed Biscay, has not been in use.

We have not found the blue hull as unbearably hot as some suggested we might…though we are still at 37 degrees north. The little low power, reassuringly expensive Caframo fans mounted on suction pads have been great. They are currently migrated between the main saloon windows, where they can refresh the navigator or galley slave, to the aft cabin to keep the same staff cool at night.

Persephone's computer has been temperamental though, more so as we travel south. It is a low power consumption unit with no fan, and we think therein lies a problem. The designer may have assumed it would only be used in temperate climes, but it seems to overheat and shut down on occasions, usually when entering a tricky harbour with a sand bar, requiring pin point navigational accuracy!

We have used the watermaker a fair amount too. The manual says you have to, so we have been. Enough said!

The latest issue which has come to a head, is cooking gas. I knew that the Calor Gas bottles would be difficult to source in Europe and impossible to find in the Caribbean, but had heard that enterprising suppliers would refill them for us. Not so, it seems. Last night, after 7 weeks, our first (of 2) Calor Gas bottle expired (in the middle of preparing a delicious roast chicken). So today, we search for a replacement. Camping Gaz seems to be favoured by other sailors, and we have an adaptor to enable us to use a CG bottle. Now we have to find a suppier who will sell us the bottle and gas without an empty one to exchange, and to find space to stow the empty Calor Gas bottle, safely.

Hopefully, dear reader, you are still awake. There will, no doubt be more musings later and a short written examination paper circulated to those seeking to gain the additional endorsement to a formal Yachtmaster qualification. The exam will be at the end of the current academic year, in July 2013

Persephone out!