Quote:
Originally Posted by tdw
Mate, thanks for that. Your talk of that boat has always made me wish to see her. That must have been a seriously splendid time. I'm thinking the coast of Portugal must have been a wonderful playground all those years back. I can almost taste the grilled sardines.
So ... rig. Lateen main with a couple of jibs by the look of it.
Love the fender. 
Long time ago but is she still afloat and/or do you know of her current condition ? |
Yes, you don't need to have a lot of money to have a lot of fun
No, it had not a latin sail. It was a Gaff rigged boat, like these ones:
The front sail is not a stay sail but a thing I thought that I invented: It was a geenaker
Look at the difference of bulk between the stay-sail and the front sail: You can see that it is a huge sail. The traditional sailmaker that had done that (cloth sails) thought that I was mad. He said that I was going to capsize the boat. Nah! never happened but with wind I had always the lines in my hand to let go. Even at that time and with an heavy boat I liked speed
I had lost track of the sailboat mainly because I didn't like the guy that bought it from me. It was a Navy sergeant, full of sh*t and I remember that I have delivered the boat for him to Lisbon and he come along supposedly to give a help.
We got little wind and the night come. I mounted the small position lights (that had small individual batteries) and carry on. I was quite used to sail at night but the guy seemed scared. Around Cabo da Roca, as usual the wind picked up to a good force 5/6. The boat really started sailing and as I had no autopilot I asked the guy to go down to pick the lighthouse book. I wanted to properly identify the Cabo Raso lighthouse.
I was sailing well offshore because I wanted to give a wide berth to Cabo Raso before turning to the Tejo bar. Raso means shallow and some miles around that cape a strong wind against the tide makes a hell of a sea, kind of Colorado river, if you know what I mean.
Well the guy was so afraid that refused to go down and you should see his face when I asked him to take the tiller for a while. I had to play it by memory.
Better solo than in bad company
. If I was alone I would have that book and the maps close at hand and not inside the boat.
After that I lost contact with that guy. Even if I asked him to keep in touch I guess we was so ashamed of that episode that he never called me.
Regards
Paulo
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