As explained in my previous post, I had to ship my boom to Tenerife for repairs, and so couldn’t leave on my intended departure date of 4 January. I managed to get quite a lot done in the meantime, and also had nice dinners with Per and Anne aboard Isis and Mark and Anne aboard Erica. Thanks again, and we should keep in touch.
I got my boom back from Tenerife on 15 January, rewelded beautifully by Nordest. Unfortunately, a pretty bad storm had arrived by then; the spray from the waves was coming over the harbour wall, which is roughly 15 metres tall, and the wind was howling. So I had to wait it out. This did give me the chance to watch the colossal marina gate finally being installed, apparently after years of waiting:
I ended up leaving for the 800 mile sail to Mindelo on Sunday 21 January, expecting it to take a week. I got away around lunchtime after sorting out a few final bits. Thanks to Mark for helping with the reefing lines, which had confounded me, not for the first or last time.
The weather was beautiful to start with. I ended up making roughly 130 miles a day for the first three days. From around lunchtime on Tuesday the wind increased and the seas started gradually getting rougher. On Wednesday I had further trouble with the reefing lines on the mainsail, and after the boat gybed while I was below making a cup of coffee, I took the main down and carried on under genoa alone.
On Thursday conditions deteriorated further and I reefed the foresail right down. It was clear by now that I wouldn’t make Mindelo on Saturday, so I wasn’t pressed for time anyway. It was still frustrating, and in retrospect I probably could have pushed it a bit more, but I’m still pretty cautious and I didn’t want to put the mainsail back up with the reefing issue.
About 2.45 am on Friday, I had a surprisingly close shave with a yacht called ‘Koo Tiki’ apparently sailing under anchor light alone (which I initially took to be a star!), so with no red and green navigation lights that would have allowed me to judge her course. She also had very low AIS range, so I got very little warning, and ended up avoiding her by about 40 yards or so. It was pretty sobering to think that our two yachts almost managed to crash into each other in hundreds of miles of open ocean, despite the vanishingly long odds. She was one of only two boats I saw between La Palma and Cape Verde, the other being the tanker ‘Neo Trader’ heading for Panama, which I avoided by about a mile.
Friday and Saturday were the worst days weatherwise, although it was at least sunny. The wind was pretty strong, apparently too strong for my crappy wind instrument to cope with. The wind was howling pretty constantly in the rigging, there were breaking waves and a fair bit of blown foam, so I’d guess force 6 to 7. And the swell got up quite a bit, with nasty cross seas that occasionally broke over the cockpit. I foolishly hadn’t rigged up the canvas screens that prevent this, so had to take a few good dousings.
Sunday however was beautiful, sailing down the very dramatic coast of Sao Vicente with the genoa poled out. I took the waterproofs off and sat on the lee rail in my shorts with my feet in the sea, which was pretty idyllic after the previous three days. Getting into the harbour was easy, as it’s a massive commercial port in a wide bay. The marina didn’t answer the radio, but after hanging around for a bit waving my arms in the air I was directed into a berth.
I’ve since been to see both the policia fronteira and policia maritima to make my presence legal. I was wandering the port area looking lost, and a nice chap walked up, said “Immigration?”, and pointed me in the direction of offices I think I would have struggled to find otherwise. The police were also nice and helpful. I have to go back on Friday to get my outward clearance and retrieve my ship’s papers.
The marina is certainly interesting. As it’s very much a transatlantic stopover, it has a lot of ocean-going yachts. There’s an immensely strong and powerful looking aluminium one two berths over that looks like a proper go-anywhere expedition yacht:
There are also lots of live-aboards in various states of repair. Pretty much every boat is interesting to look at. There are loads of french folk, and the usual smattering of other nations. My neighbours are a nice young french family who apparently spend their life sailing around. They are off to Grenada shortly. The marina also has a floating bar, which is where I am sitting while posting this, as it has wifi.
All-in-all, it seems a pretty good place, and I wish I had more time here. I’ve booked in for five days, which should give me enough preparation time, although I will stay longer if the weather isn’t ideal. It’s extremely windy at the moment. The chap next door recorded a gust of 37 knots on his wind instrument the day I arrived, which is lively (force 8). People I’ve spoken to have said that the weather forecasts aren’t really accurate except in the short term, but as we’re well in the trade wind zone and given the time of year there shouldn’t be too much variation hopefully. My course will be straight along the line of latitude.
I’ve started reconfiguring the galley somewhat. The cooker is gimballed, so it swings with the rolling of the boat. But it isn’t able to swing entirely freely – I realised that it was being brought up short behind by the gas connection hitting a shelf, which is obviously far from ideal. I’m in the process of making some proper retaining bars to stop it swinging around when not in use.
I’ll also be sealing a few bits on deck, unplugging certain devices I don’t need in order to reduce my electricity consumption slightly and most importantly going over the hydrovane, tightening bolts and whatnot. It’s really been immense and I need to make sure it’s in top condition for the crossing. Aside from the hull and rig, it’s probably the last thing I’d want to see fail.
I also need to get my storm sails out and organised (I should really have done this before sailing the last 800 miles, but hey ho), and think about how I’m going to set the rig up for the crossing. I wanted to sail with twin headsails, but actually getting two large genoas hoisted may be too tricky for various reasons, so I might have to make do with a conventional setup for now, or possibly cobble together some sort of weirdness involving the storm jib.
I found on this voyage that sleep was actually not as much of a problem as I expected it to be. I generally slept in one hour spells from 10 pm to 1 am, then from 5 am to 7 am. I had a few daytime naps when I needed to. Sleeping for half an hour or an hour whenever I got tired did the trick, although I was certainly very tired when I finally arrived. Two to three weeks of that will definitely take it out of me. If I get becalmed at all I might have a longer sleep perhaps.
I have filmed quite a lot of video footage on this most recent trip, including video diaries most days. I’m not sure when I will get the chance to edit it all together, but I’m hoping to get that done at some stage and will update the blog accordingly.
Here are a couple of photos of Mindelo harbour to finish:
I will take some photos of the town before I leave hopefully. Best wishes to all, and a happy new year!
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