SV Calypso

UK Bound....

2016-07-16T07:56:00.002-07:00

I'm sure you've all heard the events of the past few weeks but in no particular order, Portugal won the UEFA Euro 16, Australia finally elected a new Prime Minister, there have been various attacks all across Europe, and the UK decided to leave the EU.

Without underselling the other events, the UK's exit vote has caused considerable uncertainty within the UK and has effectively caused us to rethink our travel plans. Will the GBP rebound as a strong currency? Will UK passport holders still be able to travel visa free throughout Europe? Will UK boats be able to stay within the EU? Effectively, it lead us to decide now is a good time to bring Calypso back to the UK and sit tight to see what happens next.

With that in mind, I booked a Thursday night ticket to Lisbon, flew down to catch up with our delivery crew and also catch some summer sunshine. Lisbon was a completely different city to the one I visited in Feb... temps hovered in the mid-high 30s, cafes and shops were open and full to bursting, and the tourists were everywhere... I spent the couple of days prepping Calypso for the trip - filling the tanks, running up the engines, checking the spares, drinking beer, enjoying the sunshine, etc etc. With all that done and a quick test sail completed, it was time to hand over the keys. For me, this is when reality set in and I realised how hard this was going to be - having laboured over the boat for the past 6 years and every mile sailed with me on board, trusting someone else with the responsibility of bringing the boat back in one piece was not an easy thing to do.

Well, that's it for the moment.... Calypso is UK bound with the delivery crew and all going to plan, we'll be able to haul out in Chichester Harbour in a few week's time and work out what to do next....

Progress? Well, not really.

2016-06-13T10:50:00.002-07:00

Another month in 2016 ticks by and not a lot of progress really... we're still waiting on good weather to get Calypso back to the UK / on the market, and the catamaran that we were interested in has been removed from the market for the time being. The cat owner has invited us down to Portugal though to test sail her at some point, then we can start the discussions on when we can take ownership....

What else... not a lot really. I forgot how much it rains in the summer in the UK (a lot), work is ticking along nicely and putting ££ back in the cruising kitty, and I'm keeping myself amused with motorbikes and planning trips..

All for now.

Has it really been a month since my last update?

2016-05-04T01:23:00.000-07:00

Geez.... how time flies. A month ago, we were still job hunting, still catamaran hunting, and still freezing our butts off in one of the latest UK winters for a long time.

Skip forward to early May - Lauren and I are both back at work, we've pretty much settled on a catamaran, and the weather is *finally* warming up. There's even talk of 26C this weekend. Crazy, I know.

I won't go into the work side of things too much, but needless to say we're back on track for setting off again in the not-too-distant future.

As for the catamaran, we decided to give that utterly annoying broker one last chance. We made a very low offer on that Lerouge at HIYC (where I built Calypso) too which the broker never got back to us... two weeks later, he pops up again advising the seller will take slightly more than we'd offered. I tell you, the man has zero business skills. We passed on that as we'd since been down to Plymouth and made an offer on a 42ft custom cat. That first offer was knocked back, as was our second, but we've been advised our third offer (yet to be made) will be accepted..... The big difference for the Plymouth boat is the broker is amazing - very helpful, always gets back to us, and is willing to work with us to make the deal happen.

We've also decided to keep the catamaran at HIYC again; it's not my first (or second. Or third) choice but at 7.4m beam, we're quite limited on where we can get into. Price-wise we're up for a 50% premium courtesy of the increased beam (even though we'll likely be residing in the same spot we were with Calypso) but hey ho, it'll be great to have a boat back on the south coast and start prepping for another trip.

On that note, where to next? Well, we've got a lot of sailing to do this year on friends' boats, plus the Plymouth cat will require a bit of work before we can really start using her (windows resealed and a re-rig). Calypso is also due back in mid-June / early-July and I have a couple of week's work planned before we sell her, where I need to move all the cruiser bits (watermaker, SSB, etc) across to the cat. Once all that's done though, we'll get a few test weekends in to get the rig and ourselves dialled in, then maybe a round the Isle of Wight trip before we attempt a cross channel as the year closes out. That timeline's all up for debate though and we'll see how 2016 progresses....

Anyway, all for now. Updates to follow....

n

Update!

2016-04-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

So it's been six weeks since I wrote last.... and boy a lot's changed. Here's a brief update.

We first up thought we'd only be coming back for the summer, so left Calypso in a ready-to-go state for our Atlantic crossing later this year. Well, one thing led to another and a seed of thought that's slowly been growing in my mind really took hold one rainy London evening, as I sat surfing the night. Maybe now was a great time to change to a catamaran. I mean, I've had Calypso for 5.5 years (longer than any car I've ever owned) and frankly, the fun has just gone. It's time for a change.

Fast forward a whole lot of trawling internet ads later, and we had a short list.... right down the road from Emsworth (where we re-fitted Calypso). Down we went one weekend and had a look at three boats, a Prout Escale, a Dazcat 12m, and a Solaris Sunstream. All good boats on paper, all terrible in the flesh. The broker (who will remain nameless at this point) had the boats listed in all their glory, but frankly they'd been left to rot for a few years and now needed a good £30k pumped into them, on top of their already inflated prices. Here's an example - the first two pics are from the Dazcat brokerage advert, the last pic is what we found, after the Dazcat had been left to rot for a couple of years....

Back to the drawing board. We then went back to Hayling Yacht Co (where I built Calypso) to look at another potential candidate. Same broker, same issue. Massively inflated price for a boat that has sat for 12 years (!!!) with no attention, and didn't even have standing headroom in the bridgedeck salon. I put in an offer anyway, as it's a great boat that I've been looking at for years. Surprise, surprise though, the broker didn't even bother getting back to me. Back to the drawing board again.

(It's worth mentioning at this point there's a smaller 33ft Prout at Hayling Yacht as well, that's also sat in the water for as long as anyone can remember. Mouldy interior, no sails, needs a new rig, etc. This thing's only worth £25k done up, but after Hayling Yacht spoke to the SAME broker, the wrecked shell was priced at £15k. My oh my).

Right, back to it. There's a final boat located further down the coast - about a 4 hour drive away and funnily enough, right near AllSpars (who supplied Calypso's new mast). The boat is a cracker but we initially wrote it off due to 1) small berths and 2.) a 50% premium in price the SAME broker had whacked on top of it whilst it was located near his marina. Thankfully, the new broker talked the guy down that 50% so the boat is back in reasonable common-sensed pricing territory. The new broker also had a chuckle about the previous broker, saying how he never moved stock due to his massively inflated prices.

Anyway, that's it for now. We're off to look at that Cat this week and likely make an offer, we're still doing the job hunting rounds here in the UK, my motorbike's off the road for three more weeks 'til paperwork arrives for it, and once this all goes ahead, Calypso will be skippered back to the UK and put on the market.

Never a dull moment! Photos to follow.

n

Test Sailing & a Pause

2016-02-21T10:39:00.004-08:00

It's been sunny and warm in Lisbon this past week so with the wind finally dropping, we motored out of the marina for some test sailing.

First impressions - we're very happy with the new rig. It still needs dynamic tuning as we test, but we're already seeing a notable increase for the same conditions as our old rig, with no discernible additional heeling or rolling from the extra windage. There was a lot of talk on one of the sailing forums about the taller mast and extra sail area being a bad idea, but so far we're not seeing that.

Sail #1 - 10-12kts. 4kts downwind (genoa only)
Sail #2 - 5-7kts. 1-2kts upwind (1-2kts foul tide)

We're heading back to London tomorrow for a while as the season doesn't restart for a few months, and there's a few things to do before we crack on with crossing to the Caribbean later this year. The past 9 months have taught us a lot about Calypso and also allowed us to explore a number of great places - we're both looking forward to what lies ahead with the new rig and a whole bunch of new countries to explore later in the year...

Albufeira (by train...)

2016-02-19T06:11:00.000-08:00

After all that rain in Lisbon, we decided enough was enough and it was time to get some sunshine. An evening on the internet later, we were booked on a Saturday morning train for five days in the Algarve. Brilliant.

Lisbon gave us a fine rainy send off, but the weather cleared as we headed further south before the blue skies broke through as we neared the coast. Nathan had come down with man flu the day before so Day #1 in Albufeira was spent watching TV with this view outside....

Day #2 - we grabbed the airport shuttle and headed to the beach and the old town area.

The beach has either an outdoor escalator or glass lift to get down to the sand and old town; who needs stairs with modern technology????

Day #3 and #4 was more exploring around the old town and at the resort's private beach. Nathan was saying he hasn't seen skies that blue since Australia.

That was pretty much it really... just an easy five day break away from the boat, exploring a coast we might not get to (if we head direct to the Canaries, that is). On that note, we've decided to store the boat in Lisbon and head back to London for the summer. It's a two-fold reason really - the new mast put a dent in the budget that we might as well top up now and secondly, we're out of season, it's cold and windy, and we can't head further south for at least a few more months. We've just spent a few months sitting in one place and neither of us fee like doing that again, so with the boat in a secure marina and the airport only 5 mins away, it makes sense to get some work in while we can't sail, so we can sail longer when the season comes about again.

Lisbon

2016-02-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

So Lisbon. What a picturesque city. We went for a wander earlier this week and visited the oceanarium for a good few hours of poking around.

It turns out there are hop-on / hop-off bus services here, so we picked up tickets for a couple of the lines and started exploring.

Day 2 of the tour bus rolled around, and we headed back into the Baixa district to hop on.

This is the Santa Justa Lift, built in the early 1900s.

After meandering around the central streets for a bit, the bus headed west along the Tagus. We had a few spots of rain at this point, but figured it'd just be a shower blowing through.

Boy, were we wrong. 8 miles out of town, it started to really come down.

And then it poured. This, believe it or not, is the Monument of Discoveries. About all we discovered is that an open top bus in the middle of February is the wrong place to be.

I don't even know what this is, it was raining so much by this point.

Anyway, that pretty much sums up the reason we're flying out of here in a couple of weeks to spend some time back in the UK. I'd rather be on the boat than living through another British winter, but we can't head south (HUGE waves in Nazare this weekend), we're out of season and the marinas are pretty dead, and I'd rather be killing time in an office, preparing for the Canaries and beyond, than twiddling my thumbs aboard.

Oh, and sitting back in the UK with broadband is infinitely more comfortable than perching in the salon when the tide goes out. I kid you not, this is one of the only berths in the marina where there's good wifi aboard, but of course at low tide three days a month (springs), it means we're slightly cock-eyed. Just slightly. The price one has to pay for facebook.

Nazare - Lisbon

2016-02-07T10:09:00.000-08:00

Greetings from... Lisbon! We finally had a weather window to leave Nazare, when both the wind and swell were down, and made the most of it to get down the coast. Light winds (well, non-existent) of course meant we couldn't test the new rig, but we did get to test the new spray dodger, steering and props, and everything worked like it should.

Anyway, Thursday was time to say goodbye to the gang at Nazare, and head to Peniche.

What can I say about Peniche... well, it was great to be in a new port, but wow... the inner harbour surge on a calm day was horrendous. Here's Lauren, smiling and happy about 4 hours prior to having the "worst night's sleep of her life".

There was a great fort in Peniche however, which we spent the last few hours of daylight walking around.

And of course, an awesome sunset.

Next day, it was up and at 'em for the 47nm motor down to Cascais. Cascais is a holiday town and was bustling for a February Friday, but was also easily one of our favourite stops so far.

You just know a marina's going to be swanky when it has it's own helipad.... (and they give you a complimentary bottle of wine on check in!)

And when they have tall ships in town....

We had some pretty impressive scenes coming down the coast as well - thousands of years of pounding waves makes for some interesting coastline.

After Cascais, it was time to motor up the Tagus into Lisbon. The scenery was great but wow, was it ever a chilly morning.

In total it was about a 3 hour motor from Cascais to Lisbon, and gave us a chance to see the City's waterfront.

Once we were tied up at the new marina, it was time for a quick walk around the local area, then laundry and dinner.... the rain came through which meant conditions on the boat were slightly crowded.

The new marina is a good half hour's cycle out of town so we thought we'd head central today and see what the in-town marina was like. Blue skies, sunshine, and a nice cycle (Lauren scored a bruise or two)...

Which leads me to now, and my current view of Calypso in the Marina Parque das Nacoes.

In the end, we decided to stay at this marina as it's very secure, a good price and we're close to the airport. We're out of season at the moment so things are quite quiet, but the office has a nice lounge area with good wifi and there's a big mall plus an aquarium (25,000 fish!) in walking distance.

Anyway, that's all for this week. The plan for this summer is still up for debate - we can't head to the Caribbean 'til November and the Med is frighteningly expensive in summer - so we're going to spend the next couple of weeks weighing up our options then going from there.

Leaving Nazare...

2016-02-03T23:43:00.000-08:00

It's been something of a bittersweet week, what with the knowledge that we're moving on today for new, exciting cities, but also tinged with the fact we're leaving behind so many great friends and a quaint fishing port full of good, down to earth people.

We started the week in town at the opening weekend of a festival. We couldn't work out what it was for, but everyone seemed to be having a great time.

And other than a few dinners and visits to the beach, there was time for just one last sunset....

It's hard to sum up somewhere that was supposed to be a 48 hour stopover (and that we came SO close to skipping altogether), and instead transformed into a five month home. The crazy carp, the fishing boats surging back & forth, the mix of the surfers, fisherman, liveaboards and civil servants, and the constant crash of waves on the south beach.

It's not been all smooth sailing - the intermittent internet, the creak of the broken pontoons (7 weeks and going strong!) and the weather (sometimes amazing, sometimes horrific) - but we've enjoyed ourselves all the same.

We say goodbye to the fisherman, Avo Ricardo, the dogs - Boris, Whisker, Lilly, "Bubbles" and Cabbage, the crazy beagle who would come bounding up everytime Lauren or I left the pontoon gate - the community of liveaboards who for one reason or another, sat out another winter in Nazare, Luis and his cafe, Helder & George, and eternal Nazarites (Nazarians?) Dody and Alec. A huge thank you to everyone for making our winter 2015 / 16 the experience that it was.

..

2016-01-29T08:40:00.001-08:00

I can't believe it's almost the end of January already.... we've had another busy week while we await a window to head south. It looks like we might get one this coming week, but then we've thought that before, so for the time being it's a case of tinkering with the boat, playing with the resident beagle & staffie x lab, and enjoying the brilliant January sunshine and warm temps.

We thought we'd start the week with a hike along the hill tops that surround Nazare, given the harbour entrance looked pretty grim and test sailing just wasn't going to happen.

After that, we were pretty worn out so took a couple of down days to let our legs recover. Our main mast had some grease left on it from when it was craned on, so Lauren strapped in and cleaned everything up.

I then spent the next day pulling apart our engines exhaust system to remove these elbows. Another "quality" marine product - not even a couple of years old and already falling apart..... Anyway, Alec and I had welded up some stainless replacements and they're now in place with the engines running sweet again.

Last up, the new sail covers needed buckles stitched on to finish them off, so out came the trusty Jones sewing machine to knock off that job. Funny how the Jones was built in the '60s and still works spot on (best £8 ever spent on ebay), yet all this new "quality" marine rubbish lasts a year or two before breaking down or falling apart. Ok, I'll leave that topic for the time being.

So that's it for the moment. The winds are all coming from the north so once the swell drops off a bit, we're hoping to get out for a final tweak & tune of the rig, before scooting south sometime mid-week.

22C in January....

2016-01-24T01:21:00.003-08:00

And another week rolls by. Hard to believe we're almost done with January, but there we have it.

A pretty quiet (ish) week this week - Alec knocked out the two toggles for our lower rigging, I fitted all the toggles and tightened the entire rig, then we also banged out a couple of sail covers for the new booms. Oh, Alec & I also welded up the eight stainless exhaust elbows to replace the crappy aluminium ones. So quiet, but busy.

We were hoping for a test sail yesterday but the wind never really got going, whereas the swell did. To be honest I'm not sure we'll get any testing done in Nazare (there's just no point heading out to test in 5kts / light winds) - our marina month ends on the 3rd Feb so we're going to try and go for a sail or three this week. Otherwise it might just be a relatively easy motorsail down to Cascais where we'll try and get some testing done out of the Atlantic swell.

The weather's holding out nicely for us (22C today!!!) and looks to stay just under the 20C mark this week, so if we're not sailing, there'll be a great chance to do one last tour of Nazare before we get going.

..

2016-01-16T02:34:00.002-08:00

Well, it's a balmy 14C here in Nazare (we're back up to 19C next week) and calm blue skies... can't complain for a January day really, and it sure beats being freezing on the UK south coast like last year.

We're still waiting on a few bits & pieces for our new mast (more on that lower down), so the last week and a half has been pretty easy going around here. There was a vegan brunch at Armazam 52 that kept us going for most of the last wet & windy day we had here...

While Lauren was busy writing, I also got stuck into helping out on another fishing boat re-launch.

The weather then turned good enough to start eating outside again (plus it gave us a chance to test the new aft deck seating).

And then onto boat jobs. It turns out the new taller rig needed the bowsprit connection plate to have a different angle (and be reinforced), so Alec from Nazare Nautica came down for a bit of welding work.

It's one of those jobs I could have done, but with the boat moving around with harbour surge and the fact it was a stainless weld, I thought it best left to the professionals....

After that, we swapped the bobstay wire for 12mm stainless chain. The chain is stronger by a long way, and also more chafe resistant should the anchor chain rub on it.

As ever with boat projects, it turns out one thing leads to another.... We ordered stronger turnbuckles for our new mast (they tension the wires holding the mast up) but it turns out the stronger versions are shorter.... ugh. So now we're waiting on toggles to extend the turnbuckles. In true leisure marine fashion, we've also found the aluminium 90 / 45 degree pipe connectors for our engines have started corroding after two years (quality stuff, that), so we've got some stainless replacements on order. Frustrating, but it'll all be here this week. What else... on yes, the Rutland 914 wind gen has broken for a second time in 12 months (only 14 months old!!!) and our Garmin anenometer (wind speed reader) has decided to seize up. Ah well... as it turns out, the wind here is either full force or non-existent so we couldn't test sail even if we wanted to. There's plenty to do to keep us amused (I think we're off on a cycle through town today) and we'll keep planning towards the next hop down to Lisbon, then onto the Canaries....

And we wait...

2016-01-06T07:45:00.001-08:00

It turns out while this part of Portugal has exceptional summers, it doesn't have the greatest winter weather.... how do we know? Well, other than the rain and gales for the past five days, the seagulls have also given up and settled in for January. Always a fair sign that it's going to be a bit diabolical for a while...

Still, we continue to amuse ourselves looking after the local dogs, baking various cake-related concoctions, and wandering to the beach / beach bars / various other beach related locations. The stainless chain for our bowsprit (ordered 28th December) is apparently, maybe, possibly arriving today. Potentially. That will allow us to test sail next week, IF the weather plays ball. Ah well, lesson learnt about sailing out of season.

Stay tuned.

Happy New Year!

2016-01-03T03:56:00.003-08:00

I know this is a few days late (courtesy of my iphone not syncing with the laptop), but happy new year to everyone - we hope you all had a great evening. Nazare got it's festive on and threw a great party evening for the few thousand that were here - the fireworks were pretty impressive as well.

Otherwise, not a lot going on around here. Found a beach bar...

... and watched the swell.

We're still waiting on the stainless chain for the bobstay (holds the bowsprint down) which is holding up test sailing. On top of that, we're out of season at the moment - a rare day crops up when it's possible to head south, but then four days follow of strong southerlies which impede our progress. Given we need a five day window to get to the Canaries, it's become somewhat of a waiting game. Ah well, it's still pretty mild for a north Atlantic winter, it doesn't rain that much and the other cruisers here in Nazare are great.

Christmas in Nazare

2015-12-26T08:53:00.002-08:00

Well, with the festive season rolling around again all the cruisers in Nazare got together for a Christmas Eve dinner in one of the surfer's storage lock-ups. Dirk's done a great job of turning the area into a place where surfers can hang out, and it made for an excellent setting for great food and plenty of mulled wine.

Christmas morning started with bacon and eggs aboard (plus an awesome Christmas cake slow cooked by Lauren) followed by a pretty leisurely day. Australia is 10.5hrs ahead of Portuguese time and with me calling home at 0700 and 0030, we pretty much hung about in our pj's and watched Christmas films.

After all that relaxing (and food), it was time to burn some calories on Boxing Day. First up, a visit to the local stray cats to a.) take care of the leftovers and b.) get Lauren her cat fix.

Next up was a cycle around the marina and then into town to stretch our legs a bit. All in all, a pretty easy kinda day.

New Year's Eve is fast approaching now and there's talk of a dinner then heading into town to watch the fireworks and find a drinking establishment. I managed to finish and fit the new instrument consoles but unfortunately the winds are conspiring against us getting out for a test sail (40kts or 2kts), so we're making plans to watch more big wave surfing this week and keeping an eye on the forecast.

PS - does anyone know why carp do this in a marina? Not only are they schooling, they also hang about on the surface with their mouths open, seemingly gulping air. It's got all of us beat.....

Merry Christmas!

2015-12-24T01:01:00.000-08:00

Ply, paint and pontoons.

2015-12-19T06:40:00.001-08:00

Another week passes by with more progress. We've had some fairly strong winds recently which have prevented any chance of test sailing, so instead we've been cracking on with a few other jobs around the boat. One of them was to move our sailing instruments outside - they used to be in the wheelhouse back in the day but now we've fitted the aft cockpit it makes sense to have our chartplotter, autopilot, wind and depth readings all displayed out there. That meant I got cracking again with some ply and the jigsaw - just waiting for paint now.

We refitted the mizzen boom as well, plus spent some time tightening our rig and getting it setup for test sailing. This week there is zero wind... like literally, four knots at most, but then between Christmas and New Years we're hoping to get out and get the new rig sorted.

What else.... today our pontoon broke. Not just our hammerhead we're on, but the chain holding the main pontoon for 12 boats. Not a big deal, but with the office shut we had to get something done so out came some heavy duty lines and we had everything lashed together to see us through the rest of the weekend. Kinda reminds me of the fun and games we with the Hayling Yacht Co when originally rebuilding the boat, but that's another story.

So that's about it for now. We'll be taking it easy for the next two weeks while Christmas and New Years happens, then as long as we get our test sailing done, the plan is still to get going early in the New Year.

Watch this space...

Update...

2015-12-12T05:50:00.003-08:00

So I know it's been a week since our last update, but there's been good reason for that - finally, finally, finally, both our masts are back up and ready to go (other than a quick tune).

After spending three days rewiring the mizzen (aft) mast, we motored around to the concrete dock to start the mast raising process.

First we had to setup the boat nice & tight so it didn't move while we were placing the mast....

Then the mast was craned over....

Before being raised to the vertical using another crane....

Then swung over the boat and attached in the socket.

I then went up the mast....

To disconnect the crane strop...

Before we motored away from the dock....

And headed back to our pontoon in the marina.

What else. I finally finished the new aft deck seating and refitted the winches, which leaves only a rigging tune to do and a gas locker to build. Nothing to it. Looks like we're still on for leaving early in the New Year; weather permitting of course...

And some photos...

2015-12-03T05:31:00.000-08:00

Here's some photos of what's been going on around here this past week.

Alec welded up our new winch bases.

Joao then spent some time at the top of the mast, fitting a new backstay toggle.

With the weather hovering around 22C, washing day inevitably came about.

And then there was the obligatory BBQ and photogenic sunset.

Just another week in Nazare really....

....

2015-12-02T00:26:00.002-08:00

Just a brief update today as there's been nothing for the past week and a half, Nathan continues to work on the extended cockpit seating, the new winch bases have been welded on (and the roof lining subsequently re-fitted in the aft cabin), and the new mast should have it's last piece of rigging fitted today. We've been waiting on the parts for it to come from the UK for the past two weeks (hence not a lot has been going on) but now with a calm day and plenty of sun, we've perfect conditions to get everything finished off.

Nazare continues to be low 20's (C), the northerlies have blown themselves out, and a few new boats have arrived, including Eric on Fiona (www.yachtfiona.com). If you like your sailing, you'll want to have a look at Eric's site - 320,000nm sailed on Fiona over the past few decades, and every continent visited, including a trip to the Antarctic.

Anyway, update to follow this weekend when (hopefully) all the last few jobs will be finished and we'll start testing the new rig.

Wet & windy Nazare...

2015-11-21T00:55:00.003-08:00

So we're currently here early in the morning....

.... because it looks like this outside and Calypso is being hammered against the pontoon. After a great night playing pool at the local, the wind started in the early hours and doesn't look like letting up for the day.

We have every fender out and anything flappable on deck tucked away - it's still more comfortable sitting in Luis' cafe than being on the boat.

Still, this is the first day we've had poor weather - the past week has been mild and sunny with virtually zero wind. It's almost December after all, so I'm not surprised things are getting a bit ugly out there.

A lot of progress this week on extending the aft deck boxes as we're still waiting for our backstay components to arrive from the UK. There's still a few other jobs to do as well (winch bases being re-made, shortening a steering column, etc) but we should be good to get out of Nazare at the end of the month (IF the parts arrive this week)....

Sunnier update to follow.

n

Surf's Up!

2015-11-13T11:08:00.002-08:00

So today we took a day off boat work and headed up to northern Nazare to watch the swell roll in. Nazare's known for it's BIG winter swell courtesy of the undersea canyon and today didn't disappoint.

The view was excellent from up on the cliffs and we settled in for a couple of hours in the sun.

And the swell just kept on coming....

After all that fun, we wandered around Sitio (a neighbourhood on top of the cliff) before heading back down the funicular railway into town.

Tomorrow heralds another day of boat work - we visited a scrap yard today to get some steel for moving the winches to the aft deck, running up a total bill of 3,60 EUR. Given the same steel would have cost us 60GBP, we've pretty much paid for tonight's beers.... We also have to tweak the new rigging slightly, finish off reefing lines and joy oh joy, move the wind gen 2m further up the mizzen mast so it doesn't foul the mainsail - basically, we'll be here another couple of weeks. With the temps hovering in the mid-20's and our weekly grocery bill struggling to break the 40EUR mark, we're not exactly in a rush...

And another update....

2015-11-10T05:48:00.002-08:00

So another update after last week's sneak peak of the new mast. It's been quite busy around here in Nazare.

Prepping the mast to be raised was no small undertaking - we had to strip the old mast, add all those fittings (plus wiring and halyards) to the new mast, then join them together....

Once that was all done, we raised the mast on the boat, measured and cut the remaining rigging, dropped the mast, fit the new rigging, then raised it again. It was on the second occasion we almost lost our new mast - I'm not kidding, we were about 2 minutes away from it coming crashing down.

I owe a HUGE thanks to Olly from Mars (who sadly departed this morning for Madeira with his lovely wife Issy) who helped us salvage the situation - basically, a line that was meant to stop any tangles in the rigging, caused one almighty tangle that meant we could only connect the bare minimum of wires. The tide was dropping which meant we were running out of time to get the job done, and I was at a loss as to how to get more lines connected to secure the mast (at least in the interim until we could free the tangled line). In the end, the only solution was for me to quickly climb the mast without a harness. I was 11m up the mast freeing that line when the crane operator advised us the lifting hook had come loose - had Olly not had the foresight to connect a fore and aft line *just in case*, quite simply we would have lost the mast, and I would've been thrown either into the harbour or onto the pier. It really was that close, and we were very thankful to have someone so experienced helping us set the mast.

After that fun, Lauren and I had a very quiet day, absorbing what had almost happened and getting the remaining rigging connected so as to get the mast as secure as possible.

The rest of the week was slightly less eventful, getting the mast ready for test sailing and also taking care of chores.... we've had some great weather recently, so time to catch up on washing.

There was also a beach BBQ as the weather is still hovering around the mid 20's (C).

Last up, a friend of ours was sailing from Falmouth to La Coruna, a distance of about 550 miles. This trip would normally only take 5 days and we were getting concerned by day 7 that something had happened, so notified the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC). To their credit, they kept us regularly updated and our friend was located just north of La Coruna, 10 days after setting off. It sounds like he's got some damage and the weather held him up a bit, but we're very fortunate as sailors to have as great a service as the MRCC. I'm sure there'll be beers and tales to tell when he makes it down to Nazare.

Mast Update

2015-11-04T23:46:00.003-08:00

It's been a pretty busy week back here in Nazare... after fitting the new props, we cracked on with setting up the rigging for the new mast. We've gone with sta-lok lower fittings so we can fit them ourselves rather than waiting a week or so for a rigger to make up all the fittings.

We then went back in the water this past Tuesday (Monday was a washout) and temporarily erected the rig so we could measure up the remaining rigging. Here's a sneak peek....

If the wind drops down today, we'll drop the rig again, fit the head sail furling gear then we can spend the next few days fitting the new boom, rigging up all the lines, fitting the sails, etc etc. In between all that, it's been great to catch up with friends at the marina and await the return of big swell...

Back in Portugal!

2015-10-29T02:53:00.001-07:00

And... we're back in Portugal after a 34hr trip back from Australia, and a morning travelling back from the UK. Our last week in Adelaide was fantastic, with plenty more catch ups, a couple of BBQ's and generally seeing Nathan's family. Our weekend in the UK was spent watching the rugby and a dinner or two.

Anyway, we arrived back in Portugal and were greeted by our freshly arrived parts - mast pieces, a boom, sails, folding props - the list goes on. The mast transporter hadn't done a very good job of keeping all our bits together, but everything arrived and we cracked on with fitting them.

First up, the folding props. All was going well until we found out the main securing bolt wasn't quite big enough, so after a mild panic, Nathan headed to an old school engineering shop and an hour later, had the bolts drilled out on the lathe. Total cost - 5 Euros. Bargain!

Next up, fitting the rigging to the new mast, and our new rudder stock. We were getting a bit behind with jobs as we were due to relaunch today but as lady luck would have it, the crane driver decided to take an impromtu holiday, so we now have until Monday to get everything done before going back in the water.

On the bus trip back from the airport, we spotted some big swells off the point and found the boat yard awash with Red Bull surfers - big wave season is finally here so the plan is to go check out the surf tomorrow.... update to follow!