Now that sounds like sailing

I'm reading Heavy weather sailing, by K Adlard Coles, which according to the wisdom of the wise old seadogs is a sort of must read for all sailors. I'm sort of skipping across it as it's that kind of book, lots of individual stories, all about being out on the ocean when a big storm hits you. The one thing that comes over though is that (a) big storms at sea are very unlikely to have your name on them, and (b) that even when boat gets turned over, and you loose your masts and rigging, more often than not they will still float and if your a bit handy you can fashion some sort of a sail to get you underway again. So that's reassuring.
It's impossible to imagine the stories told in this book, although each is told vividly, when your sitting in your armchair in front of the fire. Storms of these magnitudes make for an exciting tale, and give me amazing insights into how to cope in a blow, but in all honesty this is not the sailing I want to do. But never the less it's proving a valuable insight into how we will cope if we ever get caught out.

I'll say hey Jackie,looks like we're heading into heavy weather, do you want to pop below and get that heavy weather sailing book down, maybe now's the time to refresh our knowledge, I'm sure old Adlard can help us here. Or maybe we keep an eye on the weather, have another G&T and stay in port waiting for a weather window.

Now that sounds like sailing

Change of tack

Well we waited and waited to hear from the broker regarding Windfall but never heard another word. Maybe the owners were out of the country, or maybe our offer wasn't worth him getting back to us. So we changed tack.

We have decided to go on a flotilla holiday to Paxos just south of Corfu. We leave next Sunday for seven days in the Med where we get to sail our own yacht, a 25ft Jaguar, sounds like fun and will be a great way to introduce ourselves to siling by ourselves but with the security of having a skilled boat and crew on hand should we get into difficulties.

It's getting well into Autumn here now and the weather is not really sailing weather so it will be a welcome break to get to the warmth of Greece and try out our sailing skills somewhere warm.