Tarragona 41 06.466N 001 15.105E
Persephone... Cruiser/Racer
Nigel & Karen Goodhew...
Fri 31 Aug 2018 10:47
But back to the sailing! The sailing in the Med is very unpredictable. Forecasts are unreliable and yesterday was no exception. We set sails an hour later than Philippa and Peter on their brand new Beneteau 41.1 Sweet Pea, expecting a north westerly breeze of between 13 and 19 knots, giving us a port tack fetch at speed up the coast about 50 miles to Tarragona. What we got was an initial breeze of 10 knots, then a 3 hour flat calm and finally a SSE breeze of 11 to 13 knots in the afternoon. So we were forced to motor for a while and found that our speed was severely restricted under engine. Flat out we could make 5 knots in flat water, so something was wrong. Sant Carles is apparently the centre of Spanish rice growing and a month there in the nutrient rich soup boosted by paddy field run off had promoted horrible growth of barnacles on our propeller. We were told about this possibility, but as our hull and rudder looked clean, we thought we had got away with it.
Anyway, instead of a fetch, we had a kite reach on starboard, cruising at 6.5 to 7 knots over the ground, so very enjoyable, arriving in Tarragona around 1830.
But parking stern to with a barely functioning prop was interesting......and this morning the helpful guys at the local dive shop have confirmed my suspicions and will clean the propeller off as soon as their schedule of dive lessons is over this evening.
So we are off to explore the city.
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