We Are Off Again

We are off again, heading down the English Channel at 20 knots. Seems like these boat like to go 20. They get there fairly effortlessly. Going 20 on a reach means getting soaked through do there we were, one hour out of town and getting the full firehose, getting us nice and damp for the remainder of the trip.

The forecast is for northerly winds 15-20 knots tonight then going NE and diminishing tomorrow. Tuesday should have easterly 15 knots as we go through the Bay of Biscay. So we should make good time today, tonight, then slow tomorrow and good speed again on Tuesday. We should arrive Wednesday morning in Sanxenxo.

We only got a 30 minute sail with our new mast last night but all was working well. We took about 10 locals who had been watching us work on the boat all day, along for the sail. They all got a thrill out of that and it was our way of saying thanks for the Dutch hospitality over the three days.

Freddy and I were invited to an old friends home last night. Boudwin Binkhorst who represented Holland in a few Olympics and his crew Ko Vandenberg came down to the boat earlier in the day to say hi. Binkhorst was second in the Finn Gold Cup in the 70’s then sailed the Star for many years. He was an innovator in the Star class building the first double bottom, self bailing boat in the early 80’s. We had a very nice fish dinner at his home in Breskens. It is amazing how you can go to the most out of the way place and meet some guys who you knew 20 years ago.

This morning we did a bit more tuning of the mast and waterproofing of the deck around the mast before shoving off at 1000.

All is well aboard and I think everyone is looking forward to getting to Sanxenxo and staying put for a while. We have quite a long list of little things we want to do to the Pearl now that we know what it is to sail these types of boats so we will not be sailing for a week or so starting Wednesday.

That’s it for today.

PC