We're now in Poros, having a day off, while waiting for the jib to come back from Athens. Wind is picking up from NW.
The main challenge we had was to be able to cross the Aegean sea before a heavy Meltem storm spreads all over the Aegean sea. There was a 7-8 bft N wind expected and we wanted to cross before is picks up.
Our plan was to motor North as far as we can before she picks up, and when she starts blowing, we would turn West and sail at 60 degrees to the wind so that we'll run fast and more comfortably. We would go west till we hit the Peloponnese and then go along the shore against the wind to the Corinth canal.
The minute Roy and Roded arrived from the airport on Wednesday night, in an unexpected flood of rain (that lasted 20 minutes), we left Rhodes.
We motored West to Kos and then up towards Patmos.
The night went smoothly, and then at about 10AM on Thursday, we realized we won't be able to pass beyond Amorgos so we decided to turn West and start sailing. We already had a fresh fish from the morning's catch, so we were ready to start sailing...
Click Here to see a video of what it looked like when we were still far from Amorgos.
At this point Gili was not feeling so well. The washing machine effect we had the whole day, sent him to bed and we didn't see him till after sunset.
Then, moving towards the South tip of Amorgos, there was suddenly and silent moment where the wind dropped completely. But it was only 10 minutes later that we could see ahead what's expected.
I think I've never sailed (with sails on) in such a strong wind. We had 40+ kts gusts coming down from the high cliffs of South Amorgos. When a gust hit us, it would "swivel" the boat into the wind even with ALL the helm going down wind. Steering was impossible. Every time the boat went into the wind, the jib flapped in bangs that were as loud as gun shots.
After two or three such bangs, we went all the way down wind to furl the jib (there was only a small napkin out there anyway). Then the boat went all the way upwind again and we used the opportunity to drop the sail.
There were only wind waves there but the wind was so strong that we got soaked with salty spray.
Once out of the island's shade, we got clear sea with calm wind and sea.
We then decided, to change the plan and motor up all night to Kithnos so we're high enough to sail west. The wind was supposed to start only around 9am so we should have had enough time to motor up the 50 miles we had till Kithnos.
It was a calm night, we had a great night sleep except Roy who took a long night shift.
When I woke up on Friday morning, I knew we won. We cross the Aegean right before the storm.
The only problem was that we had a long stitch on the Jib's leach that split open the day before. We had to fold it and hoist the 6 m2 storm jib instead. It was good enough, together with the mainsail to run at 6-7kts. As the crew regained their sense of appetite, Roy and his suchef, Roded, prepared a Mediterranean-Dutch style fish cakes from the Bonito we cached the day before, which was a nice relaxing end to this leg of our trip.
With Yael's help, we called "Greek Sails" in Poros who said they may be able to help us.
So we sailed to Poros, anchored and went to look for the guy. It turned out that we had two options to fix our jib: either try our luck with a 95 year-old and almost blind and deaf local tailor, who has a little shop on the island, or wait until the owner of the local yacht shop, Vangelis, will take the jib to another tailor in Athens. We opted for the 2nd choice as Vangelis 'promised' to do his best to return the repaired sail by Saturday afternoon.
The rest of pictures can be found at the trip's album
The main challenge we had was to be able to cross the Aegean sea before a heavy Meltem storm spreads all over the Aegean sea. There was a 7-8 bft N wind expected and we wanted to cross before is picks up.
Our plan was to motor North as far as we can before she picks up, and when she starts blowing, we would turn West and sail at 60 degrees to the wind so that we'll run fast and more comfortably. We would go west till we hit the Peloponnese and then go along the shore against the wind to the Corinth canal.
The minute Roy and Roded arrived from the airport on Wednesday night, in an unexpected flood of rain (that lasted 20 minutes), we left Rhodes.
We motored West to Kos and then up towards Patmos.
The night went smoothly, and then at about 10AM on Thursday, we realized we won't be able to pass beyond Amorgos so we decided to turn West and start sailing. We already had a fresh fish from the morning's catch, so we were ready to start sailing...
Click Here to see a video of what it looked like when we were still far from Amorgos.
At this point Gili was not feeling so well. The washing machine effect we had the whole day, sent him to bed and we didn't see him till after sunset.
Then, moving towards the South tip of Amorgos, there was suddenly and silent moment where the wind dropped completely. But it was only 10 minutes later that we could see ahead what's expected.
I think I've never sailed (with sails on) in such a strong wind. We had 40+ kts gusts coming down from the high cliffs of South Amorgos. When a gust hit us, it would "swivel" the boat into the wind even with ALL the helm going down wind. Steering was impossible. Every time the boat went into the wind, the jib flapped in bangs that were as loud as gun shots.
After two or three such bangs, we went all the way down wind to furl the jib (there was only a small napkin out there anyway). Then the boat went all the way upwind again and we used the opportunity to drop the sail.
There were only wind waves there but the wind was so strong that we got soaked with salty spray.
Once out of the island's shade, we got clear sea with calm wind and sea.
We then decided, to change the plan and motor up all night to Kithnos so we're high enough to sail west. The wind was supposed to start only around 9am so we should have had enough time to motor up the 50 miles we had till Kithnos.
It was a calm night, we had a great night sleep except Roy who took a long night shift.
When I woke up on Friday morning, I knew we won. We cross the Aegean right before the storm.
The only problem was that we had a long stitch on the Jib's leach that split open the day before. We had to fold it and hoist the 6 m2 storm jib instead. It was good enough, together with the mainsail to run at 6-7kts. As the crew regained their sense of appetite, Roy and his suchef, Roded, prepared a Mediterranean-Dutch style fish cakes from the Bonito we cached the day before, which was a nice relaxing end to this leg of our trip.
With Yael's help, we called "Greek Sails" in Poros who said they may be able to help us.
So we sailed to Poros, anchored and went to look for the guy. It turned out that we had two options to fix our jib: either try our luck with a 95 year-old and almost blind and deaf local tailor, who has a little shop on the island, or wait until the owner of the local yacht shop, Vangelis, will take the jib to another tailor in Athens. We opted for the 2nd choice as Vangelis 'promised' to do his best to return the repaired sail by Saturday afternoon.
The rest of pictures can be found at the trip's album
No comments:
Post a Comment