- Beautifully cat sailing -
I realized that sailors always have a lot to report from "longer" passages - I don't. Basically it doesn't matter if we go for 7 days or 3 - after the first day a kind of board routine kicks in and on Summerwind that often means that we go each other out of the way. I know that sounds strange given the fact that Summerwind is a sailing boat but reality is that there are many living areas where one can spend time and it's not needed to jump on each other. No. 1 of this areas is ones cabin, as I have maximal 1 person per cabin the large bed and woody boat y atmosphere makes people like to stay just in bed. No. 2 is the trampoline where it's so peaceful to see the boat moving in the wind. But one can choose also to stay somewhere in the cockpit or as Michael normally finds his place on the sofa in the saloon. For the future I might be open for experiment's and let "Weibsfolk" on board, I'm sure that will change everything and live on Summerwind will end in chaos.
With this photo and a small story Shakar and me were in the German sailing magazine Yacht telling from the nice times we hat together under the headline - hitchhiking on boats. But back to sailing .... about 10 nm after Tarifa the Gibraltar breath was worn out and from there on we had four days very little wind. We went more west from the African coast then necessary with the hope to catch some more wind but it was already late in the year and the typical north passat is not strong enough any more. About 50 nm to Lanzarote we got a south west what is sign of a low pressure south of the Canary islands. This low pressure stayed with us for some weeks (coming and going) and made the winter in Canary Islands one of the coldest in years. Despite the south west I saw a chance of arriving the very same day and we went the last 30 or so miles with sails and engine to support.
There was another reason I wanted to arrive fast - more and more I felt a tension in the crew, between Eckart and the rest of us. Eckart felt I guess that his sailing experience were undervalued while Michael and Shakar couldn't come along with Eckarts way. Eckart was very much a schoolbook sailor, well educated but his experiences were more from sailing dinghy's and reading textbooks and we have our way on board which he didn't appreciated much. Already in Gibraltar Eckart complained a strange smell in his cabins but instead of solving the problem he moved into another cabin (one of the starter batteries was running empty, we replaced it, took 30 minutes). Running downwind in the street of Gibraltar he couldn't hold the boat and made 2 accidental jibes instead of (as ordered) bear away - we didn't run a jib preventer at this time, something that we normally do, and Michael fall in the cockpit and was from there onwards where pretty pissed. The last piece was when arriving in Lanzarote. Eckart not pleased with our efficient but not textbook docking maneuver asked if we can moor his way. Open for everything I agreed. His way was - as I learned - to work a lot with springs (what is in principle correct) and let the marina stuff (marinerus) deal with the knots. His way was also not to tell anybody about his way. With lot's of side wind in Marina Rubincon (Cat's don't like side Wind) there was no way to motor with "for-back spring" support to the pier and that marina stuff didn't really know what to do with the robes. Somehow the situation was funny but I really wanted an ice cold bier or two and so I told Eckart what I expect now to be done. He disagreed but I'm not exact the right person to argue with and especially not during a maneuver and 5 minutes later the boat was moored (my way) and our biggest problem was how to handle the ice cold beer. Next morning Eckart was gone and he left us his Summerwind crew t-shirt which was a present to him - but well - now the shirt was a present to Shakar and he accepted with pleasure.
Here you see Eckart happily eating what I cooked for him - we were eliminating about 60 cup noodle cups during the trip - all organized from Michael. On the photo below our first glimpse of land after 4 days - interestingly the camera saw more then we at that point.
