We left Horta on August 26th – Abigail’s 30th birthday. (Ouch!) We had pleasant winds and were able to sail a beam reach with Genoa, which we changed to the Code zero when the wind dropped a little, and then to the spinnaker when the wind started coming from behind. We were racing a boat headed our way and doing very nicely thank you…
A call to Abigail (in Dallas) while the spinnaker was flying was not a good idea… things got a little out of hand (hour glass twisted around baby-stay) and we had to pull the whole thing down and in the process managed to rip the sail.
Up went the code zero again. A few hours later we’re making great progress as the wind was building again and then suddenly -BANG- and the Code zero was in the water – the halyard had broken – chaffed through.
That’s not good!
This wasn’t good – no light wind headsails on a passage forecast to be primarily light winds. Fortunately, we have a second (and third) halyard available – so once we’d recovered our composure we were able to re-launch the code zero.
We ended up motoring – a lot – and so decided to make an effort to repair the spinnaker with sail tape – which proved to be successful. The going was still slow and much engine use, so about five days into the passage on a lovely windless day, we decided to just sit there – and we went for a swim! I was quite surprised that I didn’t get vertigo in the 6,000ft deep water – and Laurie was pleasantly surprised that she didn’t get a manicure from a passing shark!
Mid Atlantic Swim
That afternoon, after reading our books, the wind came up to a whopping 4 knots, so we decided to see if our spinnaker repairs would hold and launched it. It was lovely to sail along – albeit doing only 1 – 2 knots rather than listen to the engine, and fortunately the main didn’t slat too much.
Unfortunately, the wind had taken us quite a way north, and since the passage was longer than expected and the wind’s approaching Gibraltar were expected to be very light, we decided to make a stop in Portugal – initially anchoring in Sagres for a night and then moved on to Lagos where we anchored in the bay.
With the longer than anticipated passage, our beer stocks were dangerously low so we decided come ashore and re-provision. Since we had checked out of Portugal (Schengen) and expected to arrive in Gibraltar, that meant we had to check back in – what a palava!
We stayed on the mooring for two delightful nights, but unfortunately the third was awful. Wind was now onshore and very quickly a swell developed and rocked us incessantly. We had to attempt to sleep in the main salon – I even used the lee cloths – and even then, sleep was elusive.
In the morning, we decided that we should go into the marina (wind to Gibraltar was against us), but we had a problem – our dinghy was tethered behind us – with it’s engine on and we were worried about making the entrance into Lagos with the surf that had built up. We decided that we would weigh anchor and move away from the shore to what appeared to be somewhat less rolling conditions and then attempt to bring the dinghy aboard.
Less rolly, yes – but still very rolly indeed. Getting the engine off was challenging with the boat yawing dramatically – so with the engine attached to the boat’s hoist system it would gain and lose about 4ft altitude with every roll – bringing me with it! Needless to say, the side of the boat got hit a couple of times, so Laurie has some more gelcoat dings to repair this winter!
Getting the dinghy aboard was another major challenge. We managed to bring the dinghy over the starboard lifelines using a halyard, but setting it back down again on the deck was problematic as the boat rolled side to side. Our usual methodology is that Laurie controls the halyard on the winch while I man-handle the dinghy into place… At one point the dinghy flung me over the lifelines as we rolled to starboard and I had just one foot on the boat – I was considering letting go and taking a swim when the boat rolled to Port and I was airlifted back on deck! Finally I yelled for Laurie to just drop the bloody thing – which she did. It ended up on deck with me sprawled underneath it!
The next thing from Laurie was “This is enough! We’re getting rid of this %$#@*& dinghy!” “Hallelujah!” was my reply!
With dinghy now secured in place, we entered Lagos – the swell was significant, but not nearly as bad as we feared (so no reason to have brought the dinghy aboard!) and the marina allocated us a berth for a couple of nights.
We are members of the ‘Lagos Navigators’ Facebook page and Laurie suggested that we advertise the dinghy on it… We sold the dinghy and engine within 30 minutes of posting the ad!
We’d been discussing dinghy’s all summer. Our dinghy – a 2.5M Aluminium rib is very good – but it’s heavy to manipulate on deck – and as it turns out, somewhat dangerous in adverse conditions! We also have a fully inflatable Achilles dinghy which we bought in 2016 when we went through 5 dinghy’s in one year. We kept the Achilles and even tried it out recently with both a small petrol outboard and also an electric one. We’ve decided on the electric one – now it’s just a matter of finding one and getting it shipped to us in under 2 months!
We once again checked out of Europe and completed our passage to Gibraltar with a very nice overnight sail interspersed with some motoring as the wind died at night. We arrived the following afternoon having found out that we could not land in Gibraltar as there were no berths available and no anchoring is allowed – so once again we’re back in Europe – La Linea Spain, just across the boarder to Gibraltar which we’re cycling to most days…
Gibraltar Straights