“Ready” is a term that is used loosely in maritime circles. For example each captain in the Royal Navy has to confirm to the Admiralty before setting sail that he is “in all respects ready for sea”. Every time this message is sent and received, both parties are complicit in a lie, because nothing as complex as a ship is 100% operational and entirely ready. And so it is with a yacht.
The Fox had been lying virtually unused in a Marina for 16 years when we bought her. 500 hours on the engine, 2836 nautical miles on the log, and amazingly just 25 hours on the radar testified to just how lightly used she had been in those years. Such a history has a mixed blessing; on the one hand we had bought a boat virtually unmarked despite her age, but on the other hand sea air has away of destroying equipment left unused for any length of time.
We had arrived in Marbella on July 11th with a pretty clear understanding of the work that needed doing and had booked a lift out of the water for 2 weeks to complete it and we planned to complete further non-urgent work at the seasons end. In the event the work took double that length of time but after 4 weeks we were “ready”
We were then joined by our friends Millie and her daughter Charlotte for a week’s shakedown cruise which revealed more work to be done and there then , followed another fortnight of maintenance before we were “ready to set sail.
Our first commitment was to meet Steve and Joy, friends from Warrington, in Barcelona for along weekend and to pick up a second hand water-maker bought from a fellow live-aboard from the YBW forum. We waited several days for a suitable break in the weather before deciding to grab a half chance of favourable winds followed by calms.
Our grand plan was to cover the trip to Barcelona in a number of discrete chunks: -
Marbella to Almerimar - 110 miles
Almerimar to Cartagena - 110 miles
Cartagena to Ibiza - 90 miles
Ibiza to Barcelona - 120 miles
In the days of the old sailing ships it was considered tempting fate to say that you were “going to” a particular destination; the accepted term to use was “bound for” because that allowed fate to intervene and …well you ended up where you ended up!
So, “ in all respects ready for sea” we set sail at 2:00pm “bound for“ Almerimar expecting to sail for around 20 hours. The wind was strong Westerly force 5-6 blowing us towards our destination. This was forecast to fade away the following day and be replaced by equally strong winds from the East by teatime so we needed to make the most of the current westerly by sailing through the night.
We made good progress to start with….although we lost a fender overboard (
Had it run out one cup of tea earlier I could have changed it in the peace and quiet of a marina! Changing the gas bottle in a locker, only accessed from the plunging side deck in the fading light, took about half an hour and resulted in some splendidly bruised ribs. Yet again Steve & Joy’s humorous present of a baseball cap with a light fitted to the peak proved to be very useful indeed.
The weather continued to deteriorate but around about midnight the promised calm came early, only to be immediately followed by stronger easterly winds that were gusting force 7 at times. This was for me a novel experience. We were actually surfing down waves created by the westerly winds whilst sailing close hauled into the new easterly wind. It was also quite bizarre to sea easterly waves slowly build up over the underlying westerly swell. By the time the sun came up we were battling a near gale and it was time to use the iron topsail (engine) and furl the jib. We made the rest of the journey under engine and mainsail alone. This is a combination that keeps the boat stable whilst enabling progress pretty much directly into the wind.
Progress had to be slow because at anything above 4 knots the bows buried into the oncoming waves rather gong over them -and that was just too wet! Even oing slow, sea water and spray was constantly covering the decks and finding the perished sealant in the saloon windows. The resultant leak allowed water inside the saloon where it tracked down the inside of the side decks for about 6 feet until above the navigation station where all the expensive equipment is fitted. Of course this equipment is marinised and is waterproof .
Now, we did mention in our opening comments that we were in all respects ready for sea and part of that preparation was the fitting of a brand new CD-Radio bought tax free in Gibraltar and fitted by yours truly in place of an old and corroded system. The leaks tracked past the waterproof electronics attracted by some malignant force to the vulnerable CD-Radio which was destroyed almost unused.
Did we mention that BOAT is an acronym for Bring On Another Thousand?
Talking of expense I didn’t mention it to Mags but I really didn’t like the way the engine vibrated under load, I think we could have a prop shaft problem…….
We eventually arrived at Almerimar Marina after 27 hours, tied up in a nice safe berth without crashing into anything and went to sleep. Our plan was to stay one night and press on towards Barcelona but Almerimar turned into our own Hotel California in that no matter how often we checked out we couldn’t leave and a further six weeks were to pass before our next sail.
Oh - and to this day we remain bound for Barcelona
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