S/Y Safari
45°22'45"N
004°54'15"W
1200 UTC+1
16.08.08
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Read this manual carefully before you put to sea so that you can make the most of her [i.e. the boat ~ ed. note] and avoid any damage and difficulties.
- lagoon 440 manual
whew! nice to be on passage again (finally). just getting settled briefly before lunch - a short pretend-nap, not so much an actual nap, but no worries. happy days, hey?
lost one of our instrument panels, regrettably. the one below decks, by our nav table.
lost a furling line, when it jammed its sorry self between a pulley wheel and its housing (or 'cage').
the boat comes from the factory with this covery thing that regrettably effectively obscures the view of the furling line skipping out of place. so now it's bare spectra, the sheath has been fully pulled off. the fellows in carriacou would say 'that will be not a problem' and continue to sail on it. the strength of the rope is in the core, not the sheath so they are mostly right. but the feeling of taking an unnecessary risk would tend to not leave me at least. and, seeing as we're not in carriacou, the sacrifice furling is being replaced with the factory furling line. one thing that happens with this delivery contract is that the lines are all replaced with cheaper, shittier lines for the ocean crossing. which is extra good, because when we're in 4000m of water and 1000 km from land in any direction, something breaks we have a replacement. (several replacements!)
and at the moment we're headed for france. are we supposed to be headed for france?
| sail | area in square metres |
| full main | 71.30 m2 |
| first reef | 59.10 m2 |
| second reef | 44.20 m2 |
| third reef | 29.46 m2 |
no. we're headed /from/ france, around cape finisterre - the so-called 'cape of death.' we're reached the blue part. just off the edge of the continental shelf and into the deep water. finisterre takes us down the coast of spain toward... cascais. it's not a dread thing; yet i think i might be just fine without seeing the sights again. they're fine and i know at least where everything mostly is.
a funny thing about this current crop of sailors, since we left (or should i say, since i left the caribbean, it seems like there are no 'young' people sailing. the demographic includes an large number of early retirees and a few under-40s, even fewer under-30s. i suppose, unless you're working in the luxury yacht i.e. service industry, you'd be either a delivery captain / crew or necessarily independently wealthy to be sailing up and down the spanish coast.
on this delivery, one of the owners is aboard, actually interesting in a way. i have heard that there's a rule about doing deliveries with the owner aboard. teri works hard, has sailing skills, and a great attitude. she's here to learn about the process and about the boat. this is her first atlantic crossing. a graet thing. we're still a crew of three so it's myself, russ and teri. chris went off to açores to do a delivery to ft. lauderdale. looks to me like i wouldn't be able to get back to canada before october at the very earliest, sort of defeating the purpose - if the purpose was to get to the SJR job teaching canoeing in pinawa bay at the end of sept. we'll see how things go on the next leg, but so far no delivery i know of has been early.
this vessel is a Lagoon 440 catamnaran. two refrigerators, 4 ensuite cabins and two forward berths. there's even airconditioning, but i certweainly don't expect that we'll be using it on delivery. like the 'fruits de mer' boat, the interior is covered in stylish cardboard, indoor/outdoor (grey) carpet and lovely orange plastic tape.
i'm glad-a i brought:
~ a cup. the one i found in the hot water shed(TM) when doing close a few years back.
~ chopsticks. these improve things more than slightly. unlike norm, i don't have a favourite fork, but i do appreciate and prefer a heavy 'nice' one to the flimsy excusese for a fork that we have aboard. i am pleased they're not plastic.
