Sailing to… Columbretes ? – Sunday 14th

3rd day, after a very short night. When I was getting asleep, my phone rings. Me dumb. Why do I never remember to switch it off ?? And, what was that noise that lasted all night ? Sounded like rain but it didn’t rain. I even woke up to check that out. However, the next morning the bot was soaked. So humid.
I wake up early. Idea last night was to leave before dawn so they could experience what a night-sail is. Unfortunately, harbour office does not open till 9am and I have to pay. Why can they take a big deposit at night time and not do all the paperwork so we can leave when we want ? So, at 9am I walk to the office. All across the bar area. Looks like war area. And smells worse than rotten eggs. Aren’t there toilets in the bars, you club-goers ?

We leave at 9h30. We have some wind until noon, roughly. Very weak but enough to sail that huge boat. One can see this is the last day and that we didn’t sleep much. Unfortunately, wind changes direction and falls. A lot. We end the day with 2kt. I don’t cook today either. I just help with the heating of the leftovers (read veal stew and pasta – still really yummy leftovers) and the salad.

Boring day at sea. No wind, flat sea. We want to go back to Sitges at about 5pm so we can be home by 7.

We do.

Sailing to… Columbretes ? – Saturday 13th

2nd day. Original plan was to have spent that night at the Columbreta Grossa, then somewhere in the Costa Brava. We are still in Sitges. Well, no worries, let’s just hope we have a calmer day today. Weather forecast has dramatically changed: instead of slight to moderate sea, we will have smooth to slight sea. Unfortunately, wind is not expected. At least, not as hard as the day before.

When I emerge from coma, nobody seems to be awake. All is silent, though I thing I’ve heard some noises before. Well, this gives me time to go for a walk in the harbor, have a look at the weather forecast and go back. Everybody on board is awake now. And a toilet is flooding. Cool. I like starting the morning by draining a toilet floor. Luckily it’s just water. Another toilet smells like saying that if we have to drain something there, it will surely not be water. Bucket & sponge. Issue fixed.

Breakie splits the crew in two sides: the ones having a salty breakie and the ones having a sweet one. Some of us try to close the gap by eating a ham sandwich and some croissants.

Off we go. Heading for Tarragona. Very low wind. 4 – 5 kt. Jeez, I hope it increases. It does. 9 – 10 kt. Yes ! We might have some fun finally. We do. Everybody seems in a much nicer state today. Maybe it’s me who is calmer and not seasick. Again a close haul. Way nicer today: we manage to do a 45º, we try trimming the sails differently to see the effect and everybody has a chance to be on the rudder. The sweet-looking blonde reveals herself as a tough skipper once she touches the rudder. We had a good laugh with that.

By lunch time, pasta is al dente. I guess Team Italia would not have allowed us to eat pasta in any other condition. Keep sailing. I do the dishwashing. I am sort of ashamed of not having helped on the coking. We reach Tarragona by 5pm, roughly. We decide to go the sea inside just to practise some manoeuvres with a glorious failure. We can’t manage to do a decent beam reach, nor a long haul and, of course we can’t run the wind. It gets late and gives us a perfect excuse to stop it before anyone gets hurt.

We get to Reial Club Nàutic de Tarragona for the night. That harbour is ill-conceived. One needs to walk for 10 minutes to reach the showers. All across a bar and nightclub area. Whilst I do all the paperwork and have a shower, a risotto has been started. I manage to do some contribution: I have to grate some almost-melted havarti. Not much, I know. This risotto tastes really good. When we’re done, we see that the guys in the Mahé moored next to us look at us with envy. We share our risotto (the rest of) with them. Imagine a bunch of crows fighting for a dead cow’s corpse. Same image in that catamaran. Cooking pan comes back shining clean.

I had a chance to have a look at that boat. All lines are sent to starboard side, where the rudder is. Looks strange and the guys tell me it’s very uncomfortable and slow. I don’t like either the interior space. 3-people beds, no cupboards..

France loses to England in the RWC2007. Looking at the score (14 – 9) this looks as if it has been an ugly match. I don’t like the way France has played this world cup (can you imagine Brazil playing catenaccio ? why has France stopped rugby-champagne ?), but I wanted them in the final. England is even more boring.

That night we decide to check the bars & clubs on the way to the showers. Can’t just describe the atmosphere ther. Freaks parade. Monster’s ball. One big ugly thing: the two smartest-dressed guys (I’d say overdressed compared to the rest of the animals there) are two black guys. They are systematically refused entrance to some bars we had been into with running shoes and gear.

Sailing to… Columbretes ? – Friday 12th

Well,

I’ve survived. That’s the most important thing I can say after coming back. I was on a Bavaria 50, a huge boat to maneuver in a harbour with if the helix in the bow is not working. But hey, I even managed to teach a girl in the crew how to moor it.

As I told in this earlier post, forecast was not good for heading south, so we decided to try to head north to the Costa Brava. Forecast was to have some swell, slight sea with areas of moderate. Good, this sounded funny. Except that virtually nobody in my crew of 9 knew how to sail (I later discovered this was false, some had known but forgotten). Some of them were even absolute beginners. So, we got on the harbor by 9am (cool, I wanted to leave by 9am), the girl with the food got lost, people were late… I started the briefing at 10:30 and we managed to leave by 11h – 11h30 I’d say.First bad surprise of the day: bow helix didn’t work. The previous day, with the guy from surcandomres.com, it did. Well, there was plenty of room, but I had to start the day with more care than foreseen. As usual, wind was blowing from the direction we had to go to (why is it always this was ?) and we tried to sail close hauled. I let the crew do it, just to see how they were handling it. My fault: instead of being close hauled, we were sailing a close reach. And back from the other side of the boat. Took me to long to realize we were just going back and forth from the same spot. Then, I had them trim the sails for a close haul. But I had already 3 of the guys throwing up. Well, the sea was slight with some moderate waves, not much, but more than enough for a beginner in the Mediterranean (wavelength is very short here).

After trimming the sails correctly, we started moving NW. After fighting against swell and wind sea (both from N), we managed to sail the astonishing distance of 5 nm in 3 hours. I mean, by 3pm we had reached Castelldefels. I was asked then by the 3 throwers to drop them at Barcelona harbour. They could not bear it any more. The rest of the crew was just tired and hungry. In order to shorten their pain, I decided to turn the engine on and head straight to their relief. There, shit happened: the engine (VOLVO PENTA 75) was turning at 2000rpm and I only was managing to move at 1kt. Ok, I know I am going against the stream, but I can’t believe that with 20kt of wind (oh, hadn’t I told you the wind was wonderful that day ?) with sails correctly trimmed and a 75 hp engine at 2000 rpm, I can only do 1 kt.

Jeez. The girl who wanted to see if she liked it was already blue, her boyfriend who had never sailed was turning green and asking God for mercy and me for a quick escape. He was also having an imploring look at the dinghi. There was a harbor we had just passed, so we thougth it’d b better for everybody to just head there. But nobody seemed to be aware that without a working engine, we were not going anywhere. At least, not unless we were towed.

I managed to get close to the beach (1 mile back, btw) and tried to anchor the boat there. Oh, surprise. Second bad news: anchor motor is working funnily. Despite that, we managed to anchor ourselves with the engine turning at only 1kt even at 2000rpm. Engine off and diving gear on. Let’s see if something happens to the helix. It’s 4pm and all I have inside is a croissant at 8h30. As the blue girl is on port side, there might be some fish there. What if… ? Nah, let’s focus on the heli. Starboard side, 1m waves, with current, hungry, autumn water on a not-so-sunny day. Wonderful. After a gale: 0m visibility. Can’t see a damned shit and swimming against current is exhausting. Back to the boat. I throw a line to the water to tie myself. Helix looks fine and I am freezing. Back on board. 3 people who are praying to die so they stop suffering, 6 who are starving and 1 who is freezing, starving and fucking clueless. Oh, I had my manager’s manager on board as well. Looking at me and saying: “what do we do ?”.

Can’t wait anymore. In 30 seconds 3 people are going to try to swim to the shore and the rest will try to bite me. Engine on. We go to Port Ginesta. I cross my fingers. The bastard seems to work. I call my friend who owns a Bavaria and was waiting for me at noon in El Masnou to lend me his IMRAY pilot.I love this guy: not a laugh, just suggestions, advice and troubleshooting options. Hey, he rents his boat as well. New, fully-equipped and with an extremely kind owner. A sure bet.

4:30 pm. Here we are. Port Ginesta. 4 hours, 5 miles. Cool. I’ll get to Barcelona for Christmas, thank God. Somehow all is better now. There’s a veal stew for ten at the table, people’s face is pink again and my butt is safe. Who the hell is able to have a lovely stew on board on such a day ? Somebody from Galicia, of course. Love you, guys. Decision is done: I lose 3 of the crew there. I propose them to join us the next day in case they feel like. Deal.

The rest, we’ll try to sail to the Costa Brava, even if I have to stay awake all night long. I’ll take these guys to a nice place or I am not sailing any more. 5:30 we are out. 6:30: Barcelona is still veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery far and it does not seem to get any closer. I try the engine again, to help us move. The bastard decides to go on 1kt at 2000rpm. I crack. Can’t bear it any more. I tell the remains of my crews the facts as I see them: I am not going anywhere with a broken engine. I am going to call the guy, abuse him, tell him he’s robbed us, bring him his floating shit back and ask for a refund. That’s it. Let’s call it a week-end for me.

U-turn. Now, it’s a long reach. Cool, that’ll be fast. I call the guy. I tell him the problem and that I’m going back. Asks me to call back when I am almost there, just in case he needs to tow me. After that, I go to the upper deck. Mmm, nice wind. Oh-oh. Please, move away from leeward. NOW ! I do some fish-feeding. I hope they appreciate the veal stew. I feel better now. Meanwhile, my crew have other plans: we go back, we sleep there and we try to do some sailing training on Saturday. We ask for a refund only for Sunday. No fair to use my weakness to change plans. I just don’t answer, but how the hell are we going to get out the harbour without engine ? Rowing ? A 15m ?

Night falls. Cool. No engine, no visibility, unknown harbour. God bless us. The guy calls me when I am about 0.5 miles with troubleshooting instructions. We discover that the bastard works when accelerating very slowly but it doesn’t if it’s being asked too much. A known defect from these engines. That’s why it did work in the harbours and not when I was in open water. Yippee ! Couldn’t you son-of-your-mother tell that when I got the keys ? VOLVO engines have a 2-stage helix and with age, the kernel is worn out and doesn’t gear well with the helix. Now you know. Me, too.

Anyway, we moor beautifully (I’ve discovered I am pretty good at manoeuvres) and I refrain from abusing the guy. I am too tired for that. I tell him that the bow helix does not work either. Tries but doesn’t succeed in fixing it. Apologies a few dozen times and I ask him what to do now that we only have 2 days left. Suggests Tarragona and spend the night there. Cool, what had to be a sporty sail has become The Love Boat. Without barman.

Day ends with another good surprise. Chicken breasts appear in a dish under my nose with a salad. Galicia calidade, again. With some Forza Italia ! Cool. I love having these 5 girls on board. No only they don’t care about doing the cooking, but they cook really tasty stuff. Uncommon when sailing.

I enter into coma at about 11pm.

Columbus Day

Hi there,

this year, October 12th (Spain’s National day, aka Columbus day) falls on a Friday. Which means I have a 3 day week-end. The plan is to go sailing with some workmates (10 people overall, including my manager’s manager). I am the skipper.

We have a Bavaria 50 Cruiser, the NEW DREAM which is located in Aiguadolç, in Sitges. It is the first time I skip such a big boat. Actually, it is the first time I skip for more than one day. The other times I have been sailing for a few days, another guy was the skipper. So, planning was sort of an experience.

Besides people hesitating on whether to come or not, getting the boat was a nightmare. I could have had a 36 ft (hosts 8 ) boat for 750€, but there was 9 of us. Including 2 who had joined at the last moment. So, at the very last moment, I had to get a bigger boat. I got it at cursosdenautica.com, for quite a good price. The same I had at Yates BCN, by the way. I guess these companies just do brokerage.

Second, I realized I needed to do some paperwork to skip a boat with a length over 12m (40 ft). I hate dealing with government offices, but they were quite efficient and I got it done quite rapidly. Though I only got it on Wednesday (we are leaving on Friday). And I had already paid for the boat. Ack !

Third, change of plans. Original idea was to leave on Thursday night and sail till Columbretes (about 95 nm), get there by Friday afternoon / evening and spend the night moored there. Spend Saturday there (main island can be visited with a ranger) and sail back the same afternoon. So, two night sails and a good night sleep moored inside the main island ring. However, there are two drawbacks:

1. my crew are not very experienced, so doing night shifts might be risky. I can very easily end up not sleeping at all.
2. because of boat insurance reasons, we are not allowed to leave harbor till Friday (even if it’s at midnight).

Given the shape of the island, I am, by no means, not willing to get there without daylight. So, the only viable option is to leave Friday morning (this way, crew will have had a good sleep and I can train them with daylight for a night shift) and try to get to the island by Saturday at sunrise and spend the day there before we sail back on that same afternoon. A sporty plan. I seriously doubt we can make it.

However, my biggest worry is the weather. October is a particularly tricky month: weather changes rapidly, often there are gales and there is what is called “gota fría”, this is a polar (very cold) air mass trapped inside a tropical (warm) air mass. This contrast creates very intense weather phenomena, with usually lead to heavy rain, winds and, often a gale. Well, there is one now (36 hours before take-off).

Forecast is that this storm will be heading South. Just were I intended to sail to. After the storm, we’ll have virtually no wind, but a strong swell. Horrible. I think I will have to re-think the whole plan. Maybe instead of going to Columbretes, I’ll have to completely change plans and sail North to the Costa Brava, where weather will possibly be calmer.

We’ll see. Will decide Friday morning. Will let you know.