Not exactly sinking

Tuesday we were told at the 9.30 briefing we were to sail to Laka in Paxos, a distance of some 20 miles south, the wind was forecast force 4 to 5 from the south east. We had a slight delay getting away as we had to wait for the lead crew captain to change one of our main sheet jammers that had been slipping yesterday, this meant that by the time we got away it was almost 11am. It later transpired that this replacement was almost as bad as the old one, but that was to be the least of our problems today.

We had been warned about lazy lines, they're ropes that lie in the water to tie your boat onto and can foul your prop, so you have to be extra careful as you leave the quay. I'm on the helm as we drift away from the quay, Jackie insists I should wait a little longer before putting her into gear but I'm keen to show off my getting underway skills and ignore her advice.

I push the tiller hard to starboard, engage the engine, and line her up with the port exit when the engine suddenly dies. I try starting her again but she instantly stops. We've snagged a line, we've got prop wrap. Sciroco, Sciroco,(thats our lead boat) this is Othoni, I think we've got a lazy line around our propeller.

This requires Hannah, one of the lead crew, to come over in their dingy who has to dive down and free the offending line from round our prop. This is not the best of starts and it's another half an hour before we're underway again. Luckily most of the flotilla have left by now so miss our embarrassing start to todays' voyage, Hannah wants Tom, the engineer to come and check that all is OK for us to go but Tom, , doesn't think it necessary to check it. We're drifting perilously close to a menacing looking rusty metal jetty when he radios to say that all should be fine. If the engine fires up we'll be OK to get on our way. When I press the start button the engine coughs into life and we sheepishly putter out into the open water beyond the harbour.

Once we're clear of the harbour and headland the seas are considerably bigger and choppier than yesterday and the wind is coming directly from the way we want to go. From our training we know that we can't sail into the wind and will have to tack our way south. Jackie has marked a waypoint on the chart which is about three miles off the coast where we will head before turning south. On reflection, the next day we realise that this was perhaps a mistake, but at the time it gave us a point to aim at. We turn into the wind and hoist the sails, main sail first, then the jib. With the wind blowing on our beam, that's the side of the boat, Othoni takes off at a pace, heals over and scampers off at a steady four knots, sometimes touching five.

About half an hour into our exhilarating sail I notice that we have a trickle of water seeping from the engine cowling which seems to becoming more of a flow with every passing minute. The floor of our cabin is very wet, not that we're actually sinking but we decide it's serious enough to call up Sirocco on the VHF. Scirroco Scirroco this is Othoni, over, Go ahead Othoni, Erm, not sure if this is serious but we've sprung a leak, over.

They are a few miles ahead of us and ask us to heave to. this is a way you can stop a sailboat, and as Jackie has accidently learned how to do this once or twice since we started this morning,we do, and they turn back to come check us out. This takes them about half an hour to find us and Tom leaps aboard to see what the problem is. He removes the bits around the engine and scrabbles around the back of it to check on our leak. After about ten minutes he declares all is well and that the prop wrap may have allowed some water into the boat. However there's none coming in now and this water is just old stuff sloshing about once we started sailing, and healed over.

He gives us the OK to carry on but suggests we keep an eye on it and pump the bilges occasionally. The only thing is we can't find the bilge pump handle. He gives us a spare off Sciroco, but it doesn't fit. "Have you got a wooden spoon on board?" Yes we've got one of them, OK he say's that should do as a makeshift pump handle, and we'll sort out a proper one when you get to Laka in Paxos. Great well that's reassuring, at least we'll be able to use the pump if things take a turn for the worse. We don't have cause to use the wooden spoon on the rest of this voyage but when we do try it the next day whilst in port it makes two or three pumps before snapping.

Grab a Jag

Grab a Jag, the advert said and sail the Greek islands, so last Monday we set sail with the flotilla of 16 yachts from Plataria on the west coast of Greece bound for Corfu town. The day was bright and sunny with light winds and although we were a little apprehensive being all on our own on a yacht for the very first time, the training we'ld had from our day skipper courses kicked in and we soon felt at home on our little caravan on the water. I had thought that being in a flotilla meant we would all stick together but we were soon separated by a good few miles and to all intents and purpose we were out there on our own. Othoni, was our boat, she was 27ft long and about 35 years old and in many ways it showed. But she floated, and when we hoisted the sails she managed to bob along at a sedate 2 to 3 knots in what I suppose they call slight seas. The voyage of about 15 nautical miles took about six hours with the last hour and a half with the engine purring away as the winds had completely died. We docked without incident, broke out a beer, and congratulated ourselves at completing our first solo sail without incident, tomorrow would be a different day.

Flotilla in Paxos, Greece.

It's really getting into autumnal weather here, today we had high winds and driving rain, so just the right time to get on a plane and fly to a Greek island. A few weeks ago we had one of those Fxxk it moments and booked ourselves a 7 day flotilla holiday in Paxos, which is a little island on the west coast of Greece.

This will be the next step in our learning curve, and we hope a way to ease us into handling a yacht all by ourselves, albeit with an expert on hand if we go wrong. We did think about going back to Scotland and doing a solo sail back up in Largs but then we spotted this end of season bargain on the net and now it's almost time to pack our grab bags and go do it.

We'll be sailing in a Jaguar 25 footer, which is a lot smaller than we have been training on, but funnily enough the same sort of boat that we almost bought a few weeks back on Windermere.

We're both excited at the prospect of casting off all by ourselves into the blue Med although the forecast is for rain at the start of the week. But Hey, who cares, it can't be anything like when we did our Day skipper up in Largs. The one thing we don't want is no wind, perhaps about force 4 or 5 would be great.

It's just over a year now since we started this adventure and I think we have a grasp of the basics, hopefully by the time next week is over we will have gained the confidence we need to take it to the next level. Day Skipper Coastal is the next one after this and then it's back to the Dominican Republic in January. Whoa, can't wait.

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.

Windfall

August bank holiday Monday was a wholly different day, the sun streaming out of a clear blue sky and hardly a breath of wind. After yesterdays skirmish with the elements we have decided today will be a day to go and look at some boats that are for sale near Bowness. You'ld think after yesterday that we would catch our breath and have a bit of a rest but not a bit of it. Jackie has found this old tub for just under 6000 that we should look at, and it gives us a reason to have a day out in the Lakes, even if it's the last place you should go on a bank holiday.
We take a leisurely drive up the west side, through Cunsey woods to catch the ferry over to Ferry Nab. Today is the day we should have chose to go sailing, as between the trees we catch yachts gently cruising the lake under full sail in light airs. Ah well, no matter we're still in a nautical frame of mind cause we're going to view a boat.
We have talked ourselves in and out of buying a boat, at the moment we're in an out mode, and have been eyeing up courses. Perhaps what we need is a passage making course, there's one going from Gibralter to Palma, which would give us the experience we lack. Or there's others in Scotland but they cost quite a lot, 6 or 700 pounds per person which ever way we look, this sailing is going to be expensive.
We have also poo pooed the idea of lake sailing as we want to do ocean stuff, but after yesterday we now see that even a lake can be challenging, especially in a boat one step up from a dingy. Maybe if we had a decent size boat we could learn the ropes here in our own back yard.
Maiden marine has three boats that are very cheap, and probably not suitable at all but it's some reason to be out in the Lakes this August bank holiday. David, the brokerage manager points us in the direction of a Jaguar 25 called Windfall. He tells us that if we're looking for something thats got decent rigging and we're not too bothered by the interior we should take a look. She's been in the ownership of a couple of guys who like sailing but are not too fussy about appearances. How right he was, but she is not as bad as we expect. In fact all in all this boat appeals to us in a big way. Ok she needs a womans' touch and some new rigging but overall for the princely sum of 5995 she's a bargain.
We just might buy her, although she doesn't look pretty with her dull brown hull all in all we could learn a lot in this sloop. We just need to weigh things up but looking at what it's going to cost us still in courses Windfall may be the chance to learn what we need to learn and at this price perhaps we could sell her on and not loose money as comparable boats seem to be a few thousand more than this one.
We'll arrange a sail in her and then decide what to do. She's a bilge keel so we could take her to Roa island next year and get some sea miles in as she would rest on the mud flats at low tide which is a real plus for these boats.
I think we have already decided that we'll buy her, that this is what we need to bridge the gap before we make the jump to the Caribbean in the next year or so.
It's what we need, our own boat to play with, when we want to, it's the next logical step and at this price I think it's the right move. It feels right, so if the trials go OK I think we may soon become the proud owners of Windfall.

Angle of vanishing stability

We had a bit of a reality check today when we hired a 20ft Hunter from the Low wood water sports centre. The sun was shining and fluffy clouds scurried high above Lake Windermere. The wind speed indicator on the website that we had logged into earlier was reading 18 to 21 mph, so it seemed to us that we had booked ourselves a fun day to try out our new found sailing skills. We had hired this boat a couple of months ago and so felt confident that we would know what we were doing, it would be familiar. What wasn't familiar were the conditions once we were out on the lake.
We met the previous hirers leaving the jetty and casually asked how it was out there. Exciting, came the reply, you just need to back the jib when your tacking. Oh, er OK, we both nodded, not wanting to appear ignorant, but we actually didn't have a clue what he meant by that.
We didn't get off to the best of starts. As we reversed away from the jetty the engine cut out and we drifted towards the launch ramp and ran aground. We had to be pulled off by the centre rescue boat, and then we discovered that the fuel line was detached from the engine, which is why after 10 seconds it had failed. Not exactly our fault then, but we should have noticed that, or maybe we should have waited for a member of staff before we so confidently set sail.

Once out on the lake it was apparent that today was a very challenging day to be sailing, even on a lake. We struggled with the lines, the jib sheets being fouled by a mooring line that we had not noticed was tangled and should have been tided before we left the safety of the marina. I teetered nervously for'rd on a wildly swaying deck as the wind caught our tiny craft with Jackie at the helm trying to tame the beast and head her into the wind. That problem solved we set about trying to cope, as best we could with the battering we were getting. All our best efforts were leading us into more and more precarious situations as the boat heeled ominously, and our ability to keep her on an even keeled were making us both very anxious indeed. We were discovering that we knew very little indeed about sailing. This fundamental knowledge was obviously lacking from our Parthenon of Day skipper practical and theory courses which we had passed with flying colours.
After about three quarters of an hour battling to sail anywhere, Jackie made the call. We don't know what were doing and we both feel decidedly nervous and just a little scared.
We drop the Main sail, let the jib flap about and start the engine to head back for the marina. By now we're both soaked with spray as we beat back against the waves to try and get this bouncing boat back to safety.
We limp into port, struggling, even with the outboard which is difficult to manoeuvre with the wind gusting at 20 odd knots as we drift towards the man waiting at the jetty to take our lines.
We feel very embarrassed, and somewhat stupid, but we have learned a big lesson, and that is, that we don't know how to sail. We might know how to identify a cardinal bouy, how to plot a course, how to read a chart, how to tie a clove hitch, but we don't know how to set and trim our sails so as not to pass that angle of vanishing stability. Luckily we didn't capsize, but I think we came pretty close, and it was scary.
Maybe it's different on bigger boats but it has taught us that we still have a way to before we can be confident sailors. We need to know how to sail.