1850/10th 3411 01405

Berri is rolling and flopping around and I'm wedged in with everything except the fingertips helping to keep me there. Not a comfy way to go sailing. In any but the softest conditions Berri is not a comfortable boat when she's so packed full of stuff - there's nowhere to sit relaxed, even in the cockpit.

Later - 0100/11th
Jumbled thoughts - I've got several books going - Obama reading himself on the gadget, Brian Greene and the Cosmos, Wrath of God by Edward Paice, about the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and fire (Thanks John - and for your article. What a grim tale - I think the irony works but that's perhaps because I grew up in England. There are people who would see it much more literally and be offended) and The Barefoot Navigator by Jack Lagan. Bit of a luxury really.

Art forms of our ancestors - sailing to windward and tacking a square rigger, using a sextant, finding ones way home across an ocean for the first time. First, perhaps, the Polynesians, then the Vikings then the Portugese...easy to see how the C15 Portugese found Madeira - just leave the Tagus at this time of year in a square rigger and six days later, bobsyer! But the question is why would the first man to do it actually want to do it? In those days they hugged the coast down to Africa. And Bartholomeu Dias setting off for the Cape of Good Hope via (almost) the coast of Brazil? Mistake, force of circumstance or deliberate? And by 1755 they had lost all that fire and vision. Dissolute, profligate and obsessively religious on the profits of slavery and the overseas territories

Back in this blog, there's a photo of the replica caravel on the Tagus. It is lateen rigged - 2 masts, triangular sails on huge yards - effective to windward but very difficult to tack because it's not easy to get the yard around to the other side of the mast. I couldn't get close enough to see whether there was some arrangement. The alternative, much less efficient, is to wear or gybe - a 300 degree turn instead of 100. The Portugese probably developed this rig by copying the Arabs whose dhows would have used it for at least hundreds of years.

The moon is up, black patchy cloud, glimpses of Kochab, Polaris, Mizer, what I think is Deneb - moonlight on steel black water...glorious night. We've just sailed across the Seine seamount - 4000 metres up to a hundred or so - almost another island in the Madeira Archipelago.

Now it's 0700 - at 15 W we are an hour earlier in local time than Greenwich.
Position 3321 01456 Trip 1269 (134/24) and we should pass Madeira this evening AGW

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Goss's Thousand?

Posted by I&G in the UK

Pete Goss' bottle

0700 position Oct 10 3452 01305 GPS trip 1135 so 120 miles/24 hrs. Actual distance to Falmouth 974 miles.

Gloomy overcast night - two other boats, probably sailing, in the distance and the mystery of the disappearing ship. Biggish ship about 3 miles away going north. I went below for 2 minutes - no ship in sight when I came up again. Big southerly swell, but it wasn't hiding the ship before I went below. Odd. AIS isn't coming through to Sob - to do with early crash and I don't know hoe to get it back, so no help there.

Almost at Sydney's latitude but a hemisphere away. Sigh! Roughly a year ago, Pete Goss gave me a bottle of Talisker when I went to see him and wish him luck on Spirit of Mystery in Falmouth. It's with us, unopened, carefully wrapped and stowed and I think cracking the real first thousand miles might be an excuse for a taste. I doubt whether Pete is reading this but somebody out there might thank him for us.

Now for a GRIB to see how we're doing versus the front.

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For those of us who travel the world at walking pace

Francis Joyon and the Volvo boats go so fast that they can chase weather patterns and use the tops and bottoms of circular systems to slingshot themselves further and faster. Ain't necessarily so for us Farty Old Plodders in what many real sailors see as stone age dinosaurs of boats. We have to look ahead and try to use the advance knowledge to improve our positions relative to nasty pearshaped stuff and the good stuff by heading - slowly - towards the good sides of these systems. As now. I've just pulled in the GRIB for the next three days and it shows nice northerlies like we have until a 25 - 35 knot southerly front arrives from the west at the leading edge of a low pressure system (for the meteorologically challenged, these things may be 500 miles across and they always rotate anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere so the leading edge will always blow from the south). So - The Plan - head east of the Madeira archipelago and try to get as far south as possible in the hope that the low will ride north on what remains of the current high. That should get us south of the worst of the front and we can tack out into the Atlantic if we do cop the blow. But I hope we can dodge it!

Should have said 'listening to Barack Obama reading his book'

For those in the know, Pete has progressed from Aubergine through Peach to Apricot and now something more like Kiwi or even Lychee or Longon. And the tooth socket is behaving - I can now chew on both sides again.

Proper Berri breakfast just accomplished and fabulous day out here. Charging the battery with the engine - not enough apparent wind for the whizzer to do its stuff. First 1000 of 13000 behind us. Wooohooo.

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Further still

Last night we could see the light at Cabo Espichel all night. And ships - cruise ships like blocks of flats, bulk carriers, container ships - the works. Busy all night - rain squalls making things uncomfortable early on - then they cleared and the moon and our bit of the universe was there just for us.

Tonight - fluffy clouds that look black and sinister but aren't, not a ship to be seen, bits of the constellations between the clouds and the occasional aircraft winking its way high above. Dark horizon, moon still to rise. Lumpy rolly seas with the wind just aft of the beam so very messy.

So the second night of about 110 if we use the last one as a guide - some of these watches seem very long, some go in a whiff - tonight very hard on the bum and the back in the cockpit as Berri moving so violently.

Big feed of mussels - yum! Approaching two huge seamounts, Ormonde and Gorringe, rather like the two on the race from Sydney to Lord Howe - volcanic peaks that rise steeply from 3000+ metres to about 30 metres below the surface if my chart is correct. Spectacular profiles if only one could see them underwater. I wonder what they will do to the seastate- a lot of water moving out here and has to get around them

0700/09 position 3629 01151 trip 1015 24 hr run 119nm

A shoal of fish - perhaps 30, each about a foot long - dazzling silver in the low sunlight of the early morning - lovely piercing curves as they leap from wave to wave - luminously there and then gone in seconds. And I'm reading Barack Obama - piercing commentary on being black in America. And Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos - piercing intellect that can tell the stories of General Relativity and Entanglement as the astonishing insights that they were, but within even my less that piercing grasp.

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Happy 50th Gordie

We're having a talk with Dr Murphy the better to celebrate in good health. Onya mate - go talk to your gargoyle about looking your age! Our little Coolgardie fridge has worked its magic overnight and Dr Murphy is satisfactorily cool.

And we've knocked over our first 100 miles since Lisbon. I wonder how the early Portugese sailors felt around about here - I'm playing with images of little, heavily loaded caravels and naus wallowing around in the sun and trying to catch enough breeze to send them south. Pennants, decorated sails, at least one priest per ship and religious statues and probably black hulls. And the three Trafalgar fleets must all have been close to here in the months before the battle.

Poor Berri is so heavy that she was doing her wave piercing act in the big rollers - no graceful climb over the top. They have subsided now - brilliant blue sky, a ship just passing astern pointing towards New York - about 10 knots of breeze and we're flopping along.

We're aiming for Madeira - more or less as the wind allows.

Position at noon 3721 01015 920 miles from Falmmouth but that includes up and down the Tagus.

Now 1630 - 24 hour run 128 miles.

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A bit further out

0700 position today 3738N 00953W - we're now about 10 miles SW of that. All systems seem to be working - except this laptop which is still crashing regularly - refusing to talk properly to the USB device. Very frustrating.

We get about half an amp from the Airbreeze at about 9 knots apparent. Better than nowt but we need nearly 2 to break even.

Ships everywhere - will do a better blog later AGW

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Hopefully, not Counting Chickens

Update position images are meticulously prepared by a handpicked team
of round-the-clock observers in the UK, in this case with the sincere
hope that the addition of the "leaving Lisbon" image won't ensure
another round of snaggles and a return to the Doca. I&G

3823N 00930W

Tentatively - we're on our way. Dipped our lids to Henry with an ample dose of medical compound from Carol's magic bottle and on down the Tagus into a dark and rainy sunset and a horrible boat stopping sea - big Atlantic rollers with wind waves all over the place on top. Rain and a dying wind, lightning behind us.

And the wind dropped right out so we're pottering along - read rolling all over the place - at about 2.5 knots with the engine. Not much fun but at least we're out.

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Maybe today?

0645 Wednesday and it's still packing in from the SW  but I think the front went through last night with heavy rain and lightning. Passage Weather.com says it's going to soften and shift to the north before the next one, which is building over Newfoundland and looks like a doozy. Due here in a week but I hope we'll be down near Madeira by then and south of the worst of it.

 

I now have a schoolkid's portugese dictionary, complete with little pictures of piglets (leitao but I don't know how to put the ^ on the a) and the like. Things make a lot more sense – especially the spelling – Dues cervejas should be Dois cervejas, for instance, which provides a bit of a handle on pronunciation and the local slur. Anyway, I've got a couple of magazines to translate on the way home. Some of it may stick.

 

So – the plan is still to leave on the tide this arve. And again, we'll dip the lids to Henry on his pedestal as we go past. Third Time Lucky, Carol! And Z is getting twitchy – too much fishe smelle.

 

I've done some notes on Lisbon for visiting yachties – here is a link that will last for 7 days or 100 downloads. https://www.yousendit.com/download/Z01Od0VEMGNUWUJFQlE9PQ

 I don't have the internet grunt here but perhaps some kind person out there could put it somewhere more permanent with a link sent to Berrimilla2@gmail.com so that Steve can add it to the blog. Thanks

 

 

OMDF - with deference to Kurtsy

The Portugese seem to favour the rather florid and pretentiously heroic in their statuary.

This guy is anything but – he's under a giant Moreton Bay fig in the Jardim de Estrela and I couldn't find anyone with enough English to tell me who he is. There's no inscription anywhere – perhaps google later. But to me he's the universal and humble mover of mountains, unsung and mostly forgotten by the florid and pretentious. He is dressed like an Australian but could be any worker anywhere. No seagulls for him.

 I took his photo on the 15 k walk to the dentist at Saldanha and back. Pete had a go at barber surgery on my stitch this morning and we decided that the tools at hand are not fine enough so up to the dentist again, where Dra Bruno removed it in a nanosecond.

 And the new wind generator has at last revved up enough to demonstrate its efficacy so, subject to major change in the forecast, we will wait for this little SW blow to soften and leave tomorrow afternoon on the tide. Cross em again please.

 For me, the usual inertia based partly on apprehension – but there will be yet another farewell coldie at the wharf Caff tomorrow and then into it. I won't really feel we're on our way until we are clear of Brazil and heading east.

Meantime, off to Pingos Doce to stock up on rather expensive snickers and mars bars. We've been a bit profligate here in the Doca. The dead fish seem to have evolved beyond the smelly stage so life is a bit easier.  

A bit of wisdom and a mini update

From Con and the Munster Rugby team over there in Crosshaven:

To the brave and faithful, nothing is impossible

And from my sister:

Maybe the Doca is thinking this about YOU..

 

"As we say in Athens, fishe and gestes in three dayes are stale".

 

1580 John Lyly from Euphues & his England II. 81 

 

If you are mystified, gestes has a hard g

Thanks to both of you!

We now have a new Airbreeze wind generator installed and it seems to be behaving, Thanks to Ketter at Southwest Windpower in Flagstaff and Sonia and Fernando at Telextronica here. We're going to watch it for a day and then, weather permitting get out of town. Been here way more than three dayes.

You makes your own luck - or not?

Stop yer whingeing, SisyFart. Looked at in any way but as a Conspiracy of Examiners,   we have been lucky.

 

The AirX died out there in the Bay of Biscay. Not off Tristan da Cunha. We were within easy sail of Lisbon and there's a Southwest Windpower agent here. Score 1.

 

My tooth went berserk after we got here – not out there in an Atlantic gale - and we were introduced to a local friend who kindly and competently pointed me at his own dentist and organised an appointment. And took us out to dinner. Twice. Thanks John! Score 2.

 

And the damper plate self destructed here in the Doca. Not out there in the ITCZ. Score 3.

 

And I can say Dues Cervejas in Portugese. Score 4 and onward.

 

And who knows what a 3 week delay might mean when we get down to 40 S. Score to be determined.

 

Been amusing myself with the tools of self justification – proverbs like 'Fools rush in…' or its opposite 'Fortune favours the brave' or even 'Carpe diem'. There's one for every circumstance. Anyone got any good suggestions for this pongy Doca? 'There but for the grace of God…' perhaps for you lot but what about us? Actually, I like the one in the Baez song about the juniper – 'there but for fortune go you or go I' meaning into gin soaked oblivion but it works in more devious ways.

 

Post them on Berrimilla2@gmail.com if you've nowt better to do. And thanks to everyone who have sent us messages and support. Fantastic and I'm trying to reply to you all as we go.

The engine lift, summarised

The first couple of times we lifted the donk, in Dutch Harbour and Falmouth, we had a chain hoist hanging from the boom above the aft end of the coachroof. There are photos on the /tng website if they haven't been corrupted by the bloody Viagra mob. The problem with this is that the hoist is angled forwards (towards the bow) as it passes around the coachroof coaming and down to the engine, so the lift is not vertical but pulling aft and hard against the coaming of the coachroof.

 

This means that to move the engine towards the bow to get it off its mounts and into the saloon, you must pull it against the backward pull of the hoist – tricky and a pain to do, with tackles everywhere and massive tension on them and having to ease the hoist at the same time.

 

So this time I pondered a bit and decided that a better way might be to use a couple of small tackles to suspend a bar, post, spinnaker pole or – in Berri's case – the jockey pole under the boom but inside the boat. To do this you do need a hatch somewhere in the coachroof, with one small tackle going up through it. The other end of the pole is suspended by the other tackle just aft of the coachroof. You need to be sure that the pole you use can support the weight of the donk from its centre while it is suspended from each end (I hope that makes sense). Berri's jockey pole is a hefty bit of tubing.

 

Then a 4 or better still 6 part tackle from the point of the pole directly above the suspension points on the donk gives you a vertical lift. Ever so much easier and you can get fine adjustments by playing with the two smaller tackles. It also allows you to tilt the pole slightly to assist the movement of the engine fore or aft once lifted. Worked like a dream. You can see most of the arrangement in the photos posted on the blog earlier. But here they are again

Sisyphus' shadow in the Doca

I'm told that Sisyphus achieved peace of mind by closing all thoughts of anything but the task at hand. And then got on with the job. I think we are a small jump ahead of him in that we stagger up the hill with our load of trivia but each time we get up there and roll back we have some small achievement ticked off that means that we don't roll back quite as far.

 

Dunno really. It's the hanging around that gets me. So I'm trying to learn Portugese, mostly by reading the newspapers which gives the words a bit of context. I need a dictionary and the place is closed for the long weekend…Reading it and getting the rough meaning is easy enough but understanding the rules of pronunciation and the way the locals slur the words is another ballgame altogether – it sounds like a sort of bastardised Russian. Little things…Dues cervejas …obrigado is a useful combination and I can pronounce it too.

 

The wind has changed – bliss! We were directly downwind of a fishing boat alongside the south wall with a pile of nets and dead fish on deck. It hasn't moved since we got here the first time and the fish are not just dead dead but gut curdling meltingly pustulating dead – the smell is probably stirring the great Prince Henry in his grave.

 

There he is in the top photo, at the head of his heroes, looking outwards to the world on a foggy Sunday. With the help of a Seagull. The next photo (with a large chunk of grot on the photoplate that must have been inside the Nik since I bought it) is one of the old schooners that sailed to the Grand Banks for cod – bacalhau in Portugese . The schooners carried up to 50 dories on deck, all stacked inside eachother – the third pic is  our smelly friend with his modern dory.

 

My internet access is now limited so doing these as word docs and pasting them into gmail when I have a connection. So they may lack a bit of structural integrity. Right now. waiting for Fernando to arrive with a new generator to see whether we can decide whether the problem is in the boat or the old generator.

 

Happy 50^th Gordie – all y'all please Consult on Oct 8^th. I think there will be a huge party in Falmouth. The final pic is a Gargoyle for Gordie – hasn't looked a day over 50 for 500 years – Go Gordie!

 

Apart from which, trivia reigns. Love youse all.

The state of play

So – where we are at. A hot humid Saturday morning in Lisbon and we will be here at least until Monday but more likely Tuesday. Fernando arrived in the throes of a seemingly terminal attack of the flu + bronchitis + you name it and we set up a ladder against the backstay and ran the Air X with a drill to simulate wind. No charge indicated by the Xantrex although the AirX LED said it was charging. No obvious reason except perhaps the new PCB incompatible somehow with something in the boat – the unit worked under test in the lab.

 

So – dismantle it all over again – tools resurrected from the bowels where they are screwed down under bunkboards for the ocean voyage that wasn't. Unit back to lab. Monday Public Holiday but Sonia and Fernando will work anyway to get us going. Service! That is, if poor Fernando survives that long – I told him to go home to bed.

 

The good news – yep, there is some! I wrote a polite note, quite a long one for me, to the Sales Manager Europe for Southwest Windpower (the manufacturers of the Air series) who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona (always wanted to go there!) and she came back almost immediately with the offer of a new one. The complication is that Telextronica only have the slightly less rugged newer model in stock – meant for these latitudes and not really the Southern Ocean. Anyway, I'm even more impressed with Southwest Windpower. Not only do they make superb gear, seems they also look after you if you can get in contact.

 

I think our best outcome from all this would be to get the old unit fixed and re-installed and to leave with a new one, even if a bit less grunty, in a box somewhere in Berri's nethers, just in case. The new model, called Air Breeze is rated to survive at 110 mph or about 70 kts. Marginal for the Southern Ocean but we can always tie it off.

 

But full marks to Telextronica and Southwest.

A burst of trivia to follow if I have enough left on this link

What was all that guff about threads of equanimity?

Off we went, out through the swing bridge at the end of the dock and 180 starboard into the Tagus. 15 knots of wind right on the nose but no movimento from the wind generator's whizzer. It ought to turn at that windspeed, even with the engine running but it should stop itself charging the battery. So 180 port, back to the end of the mole, another 180 port and back in the queue for the swing bridge. Here we are, back in berth 825 and the techie will be here in the morning.

Probably only a small adjustment needed but best done by the expert.

So Henry's Sagres is in consultative mode and we ain't weeping. Yet!

We'll keep you posted...

Final shore based coldie

The weather not brill for the next week - light to moderate headwinds - but we're going to go. This may be the last from gmail for a while. Odd feeling having a last coldie at the caff on the wharf with perhaps two months minimum at sea to come...

We'll have a somewhat warmer drop of Sagres as we pass Henry and his mates. Sagres is local beer and also the place where he lived and watched for his ships to come home.

Cross 'em please - I think we're off.

IDA

or Infante Dom Anrique and the monument to the sailors who made the voyages.

And the world map in the Maritime Museum with the C15 voyages

Unfortunately, I stuffed up the technology and the photo of Pete doing his laundry, Lisbon style - treading it in a bin full of fresh water and Fairy liquid on the pontoon - wont download as a video or a photo.

Off again?

So much to write and so little time. Lisbon has been at one level fascinating - an amazing city with such a history. And at another level just one little - or huge frustration after another and the only way forward is to hang on the the threads of equanimity and patience and just keep on pushing. We think we are ready to go - with an untested repair to the wind generator - but Telextronica is confident so we'll go.

And we will sail down the Tagus in the wake of a line of truly legendary sailors who departed from here not knowing where they were going, fully aware that their chances of returning were minimal, in boats that today look primitive, with all the superstition and fear of their religious age. We will pass the monument to Prince Henry the Navigator and salute them all.

Thence we will head towards Madeira. We will be back on sailmail from about 1400 UTC today so messages via Berrimilla2@gmail.com please.

Carol, thanks for good wishes and yep - we'll dip our lids.

Love yose all.