So our real skipper, Geoff, decreed last night that I was to be skipper for
the day for our journey out of Bayona and down to Povoa de Varzim. This was a
decision the crew later came to regret.
We made an early start off the berth in order to get our racing line across
the start line. I’d decided to keep to the Northern end of the line so that we
could make a nice starboard tack which would take us completely out of the ria
(and probably get in the way of everyone else). Unfortunately there was not
enough wind to make such a dynamic start and so we rev’d engines instead. The
starter horn sounded and we were all off to the sound of marine diesel engines
straining at their mountings....well almost all of us, one or two brave souls
attempted to sail off the start line – quite a challenge in 5-7 knot winds. Once
out of the ria the winds were heading up to 8 knots or so and one or two
gennakers appeared. Ours went up very smoothly but was soon doused as there
wasn’t enough wind to keep it happy. Within the hour the wind had picked up and
we unfurled the asymmetric.
With the wind coming directly from the North and us needing to progress
South, that puts us on the worst point of sail for Ca Canny. At lot of the fleet
have symmetric spinnakers which are just perfect for sailing directly with the
wind, we only have a gennaker (or asymmetric or cruising ‘chute depending on
your point of view). That meant that we were going to have to gybe (zig zag)
down the coast – well that would have been the normal approach any way. With
Captain Steve in charge things took a rather different course. My plan was to
head out to sea for a bit to pick up some stronger winds and see where that took
us. Well I found out the answer when my crew started grumbling about not really
wanting to go to the Azores today and wouldn’t actually be nice to see some land
during our cruise. Spain disappeared into the haze, along with all the other
yachts. Mutiny was threatened and so “we” decided to gybe (skippering by
consensus) and head back towards land. Just at that point the winds strengthened
further and we had to douse the gennaker anyway. Land was spotted (and more
dolphins) and we soon made good progress into Povoa de Varzim – the last boat to
arrive. To be honest, it was such a beautiful day we were just enjoying
ourselves out on the sea and trying a few trimming techniques (not all
successful). Other boats were racing to the finish line in order to win a rally
prize, but we preferred to be out enjoying the sailing.
The change in landscape is very noticable – the Rias of Spain were
beautiful hilly/wooded inlets with small towns and villages. The Portuguese
coast, so far, is fairly flat and built up. Quite a change to the rural life we
were leading when we first made landfall on the Iberian peninsular. There is
also a noticable change in the rally feeling – it’s all becoming more of a
larger family now.
So another port and another reception; the Commodore of Povoa de Varzim
marina did us proud last night providing great food and some fantastic
entertainment – a guitar and harmonica duo who were really excellent. It’s more
of a lazy start to the day today as we are not leaving until 12 – although there
has been some confusion because of the change of time zones as we are now back
on BST. Ian did his usual foraging trip – he is excellent at just disappearing
at random times (obviously not whilst we are sailing) and coming back with
useful information or provisions – and procured 8 freshly made rolls for
EUR1.20.
Today is just a short hop (15-20 miles) down to Porto and will be my last
time out on the water with Ca Canny.
As an aside, talk of asymmetric sails/gennaker/spinnaker etc. has generated
a lot of discussion on board today. It’s clear that in the sailing world if you
need a word for something then it’s a good idea to come up with 3 words instead,
and then use those words for different things at different times. I’m sure
there’s enormous potential for confusion. Even normal everyday words that are
also in use for sailing terms have non-sensible meanings. For example, in the
non-sailing world a “sheet” is a large piece of material so if you were going to
use in the nautical world then clearly it would be a great world for a
sail.......but oh no the sailing fraternity uses that to describe ropes attached
to the sail. That’s just one example but you get the gist. Unfortunately the
discussion degenerated into a conversation around whether you could have two
pink asymmetric sails out the front of the boat and rename her HMS Busty
.....we’ll leave it there I think.
This is likely to be my last Ca Canny blog – I hope you have enjoyed
reading my deliberations, thanks for listening and, in the words of Douglas
Adams, so long and thanks for all the fish.....