Leg 3 Mindelo, Cabo Verde to Catu, Bahia, Brazil

Rather amazing! It was my first Atlantic crossing, with more than 2000 miles my longest sailing trip ever – and writing about it three weeks later I am struggling to think of something to write. In a way I guess this is a good thing, because it goes to tell that nothing too spectacular was happening. In sailing this usually is a desirable thing. Luckily there is the log book to go back to and refresh my memory.
On the eighth of December we sneaked out of Mindelo marina in the pitch dark. The timing was not exactly intentional, but of course everything took much longer than expected and I sure did not want to go back to repeat the whole paperwork at immigration for the stake of a one day extension. The net effect was that I switched on the radar in despair – you just don´t see anything when you leave a brightlly lit harbour heading into the dark. Not that it helped all too much, especially because I had no idea how to set the radar at that time. But it did show the limitation of my budget radar in no time.
Anyway, we were soon between the islands of St.Antao and Sao Vincente, heading south on our intenden course.
On the next day we got a chance to hoist our newly aquired blister sail for the first time which delivered proof that it was not a bad investment after all. Also I was very chuffed to see that the setup I installed to trimm it worked perfectly without and need for modification. A rare thing I honestly cherished!
Next thing we learned was that bringing down the blister in a 15kn breeze is quite an adventure, especially if the ropes are slightly tangled at the top.
When you get hit over the head by a loose end of the sail, or at the latest when a loose line tangles around your neck coincidentaly you understand why bowman is considered the toughest position on board.
Still, all in all we really enjoyed the treat of seeing this massive sail standing.
The night to come offered even more entertainment value. At 1:17a.m. on December 10th the genoa halyard snapped once again. This time it was not our newly installed rope, but a stainless steel rope fitted to the slider. So first thing next morning I hoisted Albert up the mast to get the slider back down so we could actually make a repair. It wasn´t fun judging by the look of his legs afterwards. By the way, having a proper rope cutter really pays in moments like this!
After that the trip became blissfully recreational.
On day four we were still on 13° N, but allready the sun established itself as our biggest enemy. The most pleasant time of the day was the first half hour after sunrise, and the last one before sunset. The remainder of the day we were busy hiding away from the sun as much as possible. This meant that we had all blinds of the wheelhouse down, quite literally flying blind. The prospect of being hit by another boat seemed much less frighting than the idea of being exposed to the sun.
Apart from that the days to come were mostly filled by discussing at which point we should change course to the South and to which waypoint exactly we should head once we did. Hard discussions to have!
The other main ocupation was trimming the sails, my personal field of specialism.
A cutter rig with a very particular main sail does add considerable excitement to this exercise. And since we were sailing under windpilot it meant you really had to put the effort in to get it right if you wanted the windpilot to do the steering. I kept learning about new possibilities every day, sometimes two turns of the roller reef making all the difference. And after a sail trim, which took anything between one and two hours including finetuning the windpilot, I was exhausted enough to spend the rest of the day in semi consciousness.
On day 7 we arrived at 7°N and, more importantly, at the ITC. Next day we got a bit of what you can expect from the ITC, absolutely no wind. This gave us the chance for a short excursion into a live featuring body hygiene – we took a swim around the drifting boat. A 3000m deep swimming pool is really something special. Only when the musical theme of the white shark approaching got too loud in my head I got back out of the water.
After a bit of motoring we figured that we got the boat moving in as little as 6kn of wind.
I thought that was good for a heavy steel boat. So even in those light airs we made a minimum 80nm per day.
By now, made worse by the absence of air movement, the heat had stripped me down to my pants. In fact I was in he right mood to declare my boat a nudist camp for the sake of the additional thermal relief. It must have been the presence of my brother that stopped me.
The following days were quiet. So this is the time to talk about the mental state you get into on such a venture. When we headed out we were determined to learn Portuguese on the go. It ended up not being a single word. O.K., I was studying a scientific book on yacht design a couple of hours every day and this was about all intellectual capacity I could muster. Certainly, baking heat is not exactly conducive to brainwork, and only sleeping three hours in one piece all the time does the rest. If you think you might get inspired by the vastness and tranquility around you and your thoughts will start to deep penetrate the big questions of life, well, you are very much mistaken. I figured that the brain seems to protect itself by switching into a base mode only just sufficient for a sail trim once a day, leaving you in a trance like state for the rest of the day. The few noteworthy thoughts I had tended to be the same over and over again, until I wrote them off as mental elevator music, best not to pay any attention to.
On day 12, after 4 days of steady but slow progress, we finally did it. On December 19th, 2009, 10:06 UTC we lost our innocence and crossed the Equator. Needless to say that we brought a sacrifice to Neptune. And since Neptune sure appreciates a drinking buddy we made our one and only exception to our no alcohol while sailing – rule that day. That way I carry nice memories about our first crossing. I also posted some mail. A friend of mine had given me an instant bottle message kit for a good bye present which I duly sealed and sent off to the unknown. Let´s see!
For a nautical account of our trip all I can say is that we had pretty good fortune. Our calm zone was pretty short with 15hrs of motoring, and even that includes half a night of enough wind to sail but not enough motivation to do the hoisting.
Also, there were plenty of thunderstorms with one thing in common, they always were around us but never hit us. We just sailed merrily along between the dark towers occasionally lit by lightning. All we got was a bit of rain and short outbursts of wind topping at 25kn. With a bit of gutts you didn´t even have to reef. We of course sailed reefed allready since it was night.
After 4 days of really slow progress things picked up again and gave us a record etmal of 134miles on our 15th day of sailing. And that was on a broad reach, a course we thought our boat is not able to sail properly.
Then, on day 16 something really noteworths happened. We slightly changed course and as a result could open up the front hatch for extra venting after several days of suffering. Believe me, around the Equator this is a prime reason to pop a cork in celebration!
For not to step outside my tradition of mainly reporting failures and desasters, there were two more. First the cutter stay snapped. The noteworthy fact is that it was a stainless steel loop that broke through clean. I thought this was not possible. However, it was much more spectacular when our spinnaker boom came loose with a bang. The steel loop welded to the rail gliding up and down the mast came off just as clean. Luckily we always have a halyard to the top and one to the bottom, so at least it could not go very far. To envisage the situation bear in mind that my spi boom is 6m long and 10cm in diameter, it could easily double as a spare mast. When we then tried to mount it to the side of the boat we had not enough focus on the angle of the lines holding the boom down. The effect was rather interesting, when we started unrolling the Genoa the boom cam up vertical. Of course, the boom head has room for movement, but not that much. Another thing that came off clean! For the rest of the trip we had to tie the boom to the mast with a bit of rope, and this worked at last.
The last four days the steady SE wind we sailed against for days changed direction, including to the NE, but never gave us a really awkward course to sail. So during the night of our 21st day we approached the bay where we hoped to find our friend whome we met in Las Palmas.
We manouvred the shallow waters in the dark, merely following compass, computer and depth gauge. Exactly the thing they warn you not to do. Had the charts been accurate we would have managed at the first attemt, instead we hit the ground. After pulling ourselves free we then tried the area they call the “Channel” on the map. No surprise, this time it worked. Teaches you trying to outsmart the chart.
At 5a.m. UTC, that is 2a.m. LT, we dropped anchor and all we had to do the next day was to find our friends house.
The day after next I finally lived the leisure life often associated with sailing. So far we were on a performance trip of some sort. The shortest leg we sailed was 884nm, with a total of 4.635nm in 5 months. Two and a half Months we spent repairing the boat. That is pretty strong going.
Now in Catu, a small fishing village in Bahia, life turned into something more comfortable. The bar “Colibri”, owned by Wolfgang from Hamburg who settled down here a while ago, quickly became a second home. Sitting under a palm tree I am now sipping cold beer and all sorts of cocktails, with a view on my boat. Don´t feel you should not be envious, it is well justified!

So long and Prost!