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Chuckled In from Portugal
We (MMR and I) are back from the harrowing experience of dinghy sailing on the Atlantic Ocean. We took a couple days to sample the culture and food of Portugal in and around Villamora and Lisboa prior to suffering through the long flight home and it was worth it.
Let me say first of all that Alex, Guilietta, Fred and Luis are indeed some of the nicest and most welcoming people I have ever met. I am truly awed by the hospitality and warmth of the entire family.
Okay, on with the fun. We departed bright and early (that's 9am in Portugal) on Tuesday morning, and after a refuel Alex passed the helm to Mary to motor us out of the marina and into the Atlantic at 9-10 knts under motor. Shortly after exiting the marina the main and jib came out and off we went on a close reach at 10-11 knts and 25 degrees of heel, Mary still at the helm. Guiletta sails like a over sized dinghy pivoting on the 9 foot fin and 7 foot rudder with an agility that is amazing. A very sensitive boat to helm, I’ll admit right now that I could not get the feel of the helm in anything other than dead down wind. A Gemini helm has no ‘feel’ in comparision.
Note if you will we had already far exceeded any heeling that Mary and I normally did, even on our old Hunter 31 and pushed Mary’s limits of experience – she met the experience with grace and proved she’s a keeper.
Then we hit the fish pot line and spent a few minutes salvaging the boat from the fisher’s catch of the day list, and went off again.
I’m not going to give a second by second accounting, there was too much going on.
Day one saw seven dips of the spin in the water, one with Becky at the helm, the rest with either Alex or his bowman (Alesandro, nick named Leadhead) at the helm. Once we dragged the boom in the water for a couple of seconds – as close to a knock down as you can get and not be a knockdown. At least we didn’t break the boom this time. All of us helmed for at least a short time with the Spin flying, I just couldn’t get the feel for it at all until we got to a dead downwind phase then I got my groove on finally. We managed a top speed of 13.1 knts on day one, speed thru the water for the purist out there, I have no idea what speed over the ground was.
For some strange reason, no one had a hand free while dragging the spin in the water, so there are no pictures of that.
Alex had rigged an ‘emergency brake’ for the spin that was a quick release shackle on the clew, when pulled it detaches the clew and lets the spin fly. Unfortunately the only time we really needed it was when the boom went in (about three feet of boom in the water) – and of course it didn’t work – trust me, Mary was jerking the line and it didn’t release. Taking the spin down got us another solid dunking of the nylon as Mary was pulling on the break, Leadhead was kicking the shackle and it never broke free until it finally just broke apart. After stuffing the big blue Spin in the bag and unfurling the jib we examined the shackle and found it to be defective as all hell.
Coming into Sines, we blasted into the marina at 12 knts, 40 degrees heel on a tight close haul in what Alex later reported was wind in the 30 knot range. No reefing. We were all a little too busy to take pictures.
After tying up and learning that the local regatta had been cancelled for the day due to too much wind, we showered and headed for what was the best fish dinner we had on the whole trip. We finally collapsed into bed about 11pm while Alex worked on until past midnight – the man is a dynamo, he never stops. I, meanwhile developed the opening stages of a serious head cold that migrated to my chest by the next morning.
In hindsight, the reason I caught a cold was because the Portugese do not drink rum, and I was at that point completely clear of my normal 'antibiotic' having had no rum for days and days. I was soooo dry.
The next morning Alex and Leadhead took us out of the marina, the scratch crew pulled ourselves out of bed and huddled in the **** pit and we motored off in zero wind doing about 10kts on the long leg of the trip. The autopilot took over for the next several hours as most of us maintained a loose watch on a very empty sea. The cold meds kicked in and I retired to a vibrating aft cabin to let them work.
I’m very disappointed to report that for the majority of the second day that was pretty much the situation, I was sleeping most of having been hit with what was a very serious case of the fever, sinus infection and chest full of crud. Mary and Becky filled in while your’s truly sat out the day sleeping. I did however manage to be in deck and on watch at about 10am when visited by a pod or two of dolphins who stopped in to check us out.
Throughout the day, the sails went up and down occasionally to check out the wind, but mostly it was motor, motor, motor. We rounded the cape under sail in what looked like 6-8 foot of swell, not too bad at all and obviously much better than it could have been, then motored some more, then sailed some more, then motored some more then sailed some more. I have no idea who was doing what, I was sacked out in the salon for all but about 2 hours of the entire day; I popped up for a smoke and went back down fitfully throughout the entire day.
I really did not ‘carry the flag’ for the American sailor on this day.
For what it’s worth, none of us, Becky, Mary or I were ever bothered by the heeling – Mary reported one ‘eek’ moment on day one; more a ‘surprise’ than an actual ‘eek’. At the gut level we 'knew' we were safe and the boat, and Alex were not even close to their limits.
Anyway, we dropped off Leadhead in Portamao where he keeps his boat, then went back out for another two hours to Villamora, and even though I was feeling better I went back to haunting the salon and sleeping off the meds and cold.
Villamora is a wonderful marina, with big tourist filled hotels and every imaginable type of restaurant / shop etc around it on three sides, wonderful beaches and enough nightlife for even a british tourist. Giuletta (Alex’s wife) and Luis met us at the dock and after some cleaning and stowing we trotted off to the local Chinese restaurant for a late (midnight) dinner. After that, we came back to the boat and tumbled in to our cabins while Alex continued working on and around the boat (did I mention the man just doesn’t stop?).
Anyway, that’s the sailing portion of the trip. I have large gaps, because, well, I slept through most of it. I’m pretty sure that despite what a lot of you were thinking no chunks were blown, no screams at excessive heeling were wrenched from catamaran owners and in fact a very instructive, enjoyable time was had by all – despite the fact that we were essentially sailing a Laser over two hundred miles of coastal Atlantic.
As you can tell by the almost total lack of humor I’m still somewhat under the weather from the cold I managed to catch; that and the 24 hour’s of flying and flight delays on the way home have been a bit of a drag. Mary and I spent an additional five days hanging around and being tourist and have 300 plus pictures of the trip, some of which we will post in the near future.
I strongly recommend that anyone and everyone add Portugal to their list of places to go, and things to see – it truly is a sailor’s home.
Pictures and contrary posting by Mary (MMR) and Becky (Valiente’s wife) are sure to follow.
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- once you get the feel it's not so hard.
