Sagres ⚓

During our 63 nm sail from Sines to Sagres, yes you are reading that correctly we sailed, we went through about everything. We haven't had such an active sail since we can remember. We left Sines, but mostly Flip and Jo, together with Beautje around 7:15am. Therefore we started our day with a beautiful sunrise while we were hoisting the sails. According to the forecast we should be prepared for a stable wind of about 12-15 knots and gusts up to 25 knots. We decided to put a double reef in botht the genua and the main sail. Throughout the day we went from taking out a reef, to putting a second reef back in, to hoisting our full sails, back to one or two reefs again. To put a reef in our sails,or to take it out, we have to go to the mast, so the middle of the boat. Which isn't the most ideal, but also not the worst. However, doing this while the boat is going through and over 3+ meter waves, it gets a bit trickier. Luckily, we got to practice a lot throughout the day and by the end we had become reefing experts.

The strong wind gusts were almost always accompanied by heavy rain. Sometimes the wind would arrive first, sometimes the rain. Pascal, our autopilot, was put to test quite a bit during the heavier rains, but passed with flying colors. We did our best to use the clouds as our wind gusts predictors. We did pretty well. I don't think we missed any big gusts, but we might have been a bit overly careful a few times. But since it was our first sail in a while, I don't believe you can be too careful. One time when we were preparing for some strong winds by reefing the sails, I saw our paravane coming to the water surface. "Bart we've got one I yelled". As we were rolling in our fish line I didn't see a fish. From my angle the fish was camouflaged so well, I was unable to see it. Luckily Bart did see it and saw how big it was! A Spanish mackerel this time, another tuna type of fish I can add to my tinder profile. Since we are sailing together with our friends and buddy boat Beautje we call them on the VHF to ask if they would like some sushi for dinner, yes duhuh.

We were a little bit less fortunate during one of reefing sessions when a flapping genua, at least we think that's what happened, caused our portside spreader come down again. Luckily, we would be sailing over portside all the way up to Cabo Sao Vicente, and thus wouldn't really need our portside rigging. Do you have to make a plan for when we round the cape because afterwards we will be healing over to starboard instead and thus rely on our portside rigging. We bind together a couple brooms and a cockhook (pikhaak). Unfortunately, our construction isn't as strong as we thought. Endscore is the spreader is still down and we lost a broom and the cockhook to the ocean.

Somewhere along the way we receive a VHF call from Oso, an American boat who sped passed us a while ago, that they saw two female orcas. Since the three of us, So, Beautje and us, were all in much deeper water (80m) than would prefer due to the high waves near the coast, we all rerouted about 90 degrees to the coast. Luckily, none of us saw any orca for the rest of the trip. It was quite nice to have our buddy boat Beautje with us along the way. They were about 1,5 to 2 miles ahead of us so they were able to inform of us what was coming for us. And it was really funny to check in with each other every so many hours to see how we're both doing. Based on their cape rounding experience we knew we had to go around the cape pretty far because of the very choppy waves. Due to our loose spreader we also decided to lower our main sail, start the engine and use just a little bit of genua.

Rounding a cape in a bit tougher weather is always a little bit stressful. As a result, the calmness after rounding the cape is even more overwhelming. Slowly but steady we cruise to our gorgeous anchorage near Sagres. The cliffs are absolutely beautiful. After a delicious dinner in the good company of Beautje, the four of us can't wait to go to sleep. After a long and active day at sea the swell in the anchorage doesn't bother us. Before we know it we are vast asleep.Leggi altro