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Farfelu - Ready, steady, GO!



Preparation

It all seems so long ago now. We returned from the warmth of the Caribbean with a month ahead to prepare Farfelu for adventure. An immense job list, shopping list as long as my arm, starting with A and ending somewhere around Z; lots to do and so little time! Mark Bowden at Endeavour was first to leap to our assistance, like a knight in armour. Farfelu was lifted out, a comprehensive "bottom job" was extended to include new shaft seals and cutlass bearings. Profuse thanks to Tim, for juggling his yard schedule and to Charlie for lending me his team of superb engineers.

Relaunched after DIY electronics and very-much-not-DIY hull polishing and back to Haslar for rigging work and fitting out. Our contorted carbon mast was straightened up, Norths delivered the sparkly clean sails and finally we had a sailing boat again. After much deliberation we decided on Waypoint as our liferaft supplier: Yiannis personally and very patiently helped us up the learning curve and I think we have made absolutely the right decision. Can't make the same claim for our original AIS supplier: on D-Day minus three with a bank holiday in between, we learnt that our Watchmate hadn't been manufactured, let alone despatched from New Zealand. Disconsolate, I found Peter in his office at Colmar in Cowes on the Sunday afternoon who arranged for a complete system to be put together for collection on Tuesday; Peter completely saved our bacon, had it not been for his superb support we wouldn't have been able to leave. Mothers-in-law come in all types, mine proves to be star shaped as she collected the bag full of goodies and brought them to Yarmouth to intercept us in transit to Plymouth. Half way across Lyme Bay AIS was up and running, right out of the box! Extraordinary technology, it was later to prove its worth on numerous occasions.

Minor irritations, like the electronic charts failing to arrive by mail, the still unexplained leak from our fresh water system, the high pressure gauge on the water maker exploding in my face at 1,000 psi seemed trivial by comparison. All, or at least most, can be fixed fairly easily. We had a floating boat with sails and a motor in time to make passage to Plymouth as planned. There wasn't much need for the sails, we drove all the way from Yarmouth to our dock at Mayflower, so they weren't put to any test until we approached the Rally start line. Such confidence!

The tool boxes were all finally stowed away at 4pm the day before departure. I think Karen and Hugo were happy to be able to move around the cabin without being snarled at for standing in the way; I'm afraid I wasn't very sociable as the jobs list grew longer rather than shorter after kit inspection. Never mind, it's all done now! Briefed, provisioned and watered we collapsed into our beds, comfortably digesting a splendid curry supper in good company.

Racing start

Being very casual cruisers, we have never had any experience of Yacht Racing. On Sunday morning we ambled gently towards the start line to realise that everyone else was already milling about in the holding area, straining at the leash. We did our best to keep out of the way and trundled first one way then another over the line. We didn't mind being nearly last to start but Farfelu, who has a mind of her own, had other ideas and made a determined lunge southwards so we found ourselves in a respectable position in the pack before the Plymouth breakwater. The wind died so we saw a lot of the Eddystone lighthouse; it seemed as though we had become attached to it by elastic. Then suddenly there wasn't any land, just sails, water and distance ahead. We tried to get some westing but didn't make as much progress in that direction so settled for a rhumb line course. Half the pack seemed to vanish from sight so we had a meal and sorted out out watch pattern: three hours on, three on standby and three asleep. That never actually worked but we've got a pretty good chart to show how it should have done.

Sunset, solitary sailing and a new instrument to watch. AIS is amazing, a new experience and I love it! We could see all shipping in our vicinity, exact course and speed, identity and description displayed on a small screen; if concerned about a particular vessel we could simply call them up on the radio for a chat. Brilliant!

Steady progress

We passed west of the traffic separation zone off Ushant and then set our reefs for a quiet night, plodding along at five knots or so under a star lit sky. It's magical to sail offshore at night, gliding along silently with phosphorescence streaming astern… a mesmerising sensation and, for a man with a very simple mind, quite sufficient entertainment. The moon rose in the very early hours of Monday morning, an orange segment in the eastern sky only a couple of hours before daybreak, the amber sunrise presaging a continuation of calm weather. The breeze a steady 15 to 18 knots finally started to conform to the forecast of an easterly airstream, perfect weather for Farfelu to stretch her legs as we loped along at 8-9 knots. A few other rally boats were always within range so we knew that our navigation wasn't too far awry, it was just a question of maintaining present course and speed.

The next excitement was reaching the continental shelf, where the Atlantic increases in depth from 150 to 4,000 metres in a distance of less than five miles. In this area the turbulence is considerable, the surface rather confused and in places very short steep seas were encountered. It took a couple of hours to settle down to a long swell, by which time we were bounding along again under full sail. It took a fair while to cover the next two hundred miles - little to report, happily, but we had cause to ask first a fishing vessel and then a freighter to change course. This fisherman was most courteous and altered his heading to go astern of us; the duty officer of a Dutch freighter diverted to give us sea room and minimise his wash. I said that was very kind of him and he replied "I'm a sailor myself so I'm happy to do that small thing for you!" The third mobile obstacle was a sea tug towing a newly constructed Arctic trawler; the skipper said that he wanted a one mile clearance as his tow was swinging wildly. We gave hime two to be on the safe side and passed the message down the line.

We had half expected sinister weather around Cape Finisterre, it's reputation is fearsome. The weather forecast indicated a high pressure north of us squeezing against the low to the south, suggesting high winds from the east. Having decided to take the inshore passage east of the shipping lanes we have routed close to the land. The forecast strong wind never materialised, in fact someone upstairs turned off the fan completely and we were stuck in a gentle south-westerly, tacking for 20 hours. Reluctantly the motor was started, to get a few miles southwards before we could raise sails again and finish the leg. All that tacking cost us hours of southward progress, we lost a lot of ground against the smaller, more nimble yachts and slid drastically down the field but hey, "It's not a race!" Oh yes it is!

Exhaustion

A word must be said about exhaustion - we had a duty rosta and should have kept to it more rigidly. Sleep was in very short supply and tiredness led to some reappearance of the grumpy shirt. During those periods the calming influence of more experienced sailors over the VHF radio gave confidence and reassurance. The comforting words from other cruisers on the rally meant that the other component of emotional fatigue was kept well at bay. We thank all who responded for their patience, calmness and sharing of information. It was exactly what we had hoped that cruising in company would provide and what this rally is all about - a community of like-minded individuals, acting as individuals but with an eye and ear open for their fellows. We thank you! I have seldom felt such a lasting rush of emotion as experienced on arrival in Baiona. We are still glowing with the sense of achievement, excitement and the anticipation of more to come. We covered nearly six hundred miles, our longest voyage ever, at sea for four and a half days in almost perfect conditions. Two days of local hospitality, fabulous sea-food, great white wine and cheerful company have restored the spirits. Oh, and sleeping ten hours a night, that helps!

JPT


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