Baptism of fire

Melanie and I came out to Spain at Easter to christen our new boat. 

Melanie did the honours paying tribute to Neptune, asking him to take the old name 'Casa del Mar' off his register and to accept the new name Rock 'n' no Roll. We then proffered further quantities of champagne to the 4 winds to ask them to look after her.

Ceremony done we headed to Roca de Barra, a few miles south where there was a boat lift big enough to take a 7m wide boat out of the water

3 weeks later the antifoul was finished, the hull newly polished and her new livery complete, Rock ‘n’ no Roll was ready to go on the water. The huge boat lift necessary to pick up a 7m wide catamaran slipped into place either side of her, the giant strops were slung across. She was picked up as gentle as a babe and lowered onto the Mediterranean sea, we were ready for the next leg of our adventure.

My friend Mike has joined me for the first leg from the boat yard 50 miles south of Barcelona up the Spanish coast and 150 miles over the bay of Marseilles to France where I would meet Melanie in a couple of weeks in Nice.

The big objective, crossing the bay. The wind in the med is known as being all or nothing. Certainly, our few days in the yard were flat calm and our first day was a 60 mile motor past Barcelona to the foothills of the Pyrenees, our jumping off point for the bay crossing. Then the all bit appeared on the horizon. The bay is infamous for the Mistral wind. High pressure over the Bay of Biscay and a low over Northern Italy creates a northerly wind (blowing from the north to the south) over southern France that is then funnelled between the Pyrenees and the Alps reaching gale force in the Bay of Marseilles. The Mistral was forecast to start on Wednesday evening and blow at force 7 gusting 8 at its peak well into Thursday night, after which, back to the usual Mediterranean calm. 

This screen shot from the forecast on my computer shows the funnelling effect very well. The squiggly black line running top right to bottom left is the French and Spanish coasline, the sea is the south of the coast, the upward bulge in the middle is the Bay of Marseilles. The arrows indicate the wind direction and each strike on the arrows tail is 10 knots of wind, 3 1/2strikes – 35 knots. Windy! Notice the almost flat calm either side of the mouth of the bay of Marseilles. We had two choices. Sit and wait two days then motor across or set out into fray.

We had come to sail and we had already motored 60 miles. The wind would be on the beam so the seas created would be on the side of the boat so the very unpleasant thumping of heading into a big sea would be avoided. On the other hand the boat was new to me. Her motion, her rig and her handling all unknown. Still, you don’t find out unless you try and my much preferred option of first time out in a force 4 was not available. This would be a baptism of fire.

My one nod to caution was to wait until morning; every problem at sea is worse at night and problems I expected there would be. We would slip at 6 on Thursday morning. Because of the funnelling nature of the Mistral we would be sheltered for the first 10 miles or so with another 10 miles before we got into the worst of the wind. We would feel our way out turning back if we had trouble or things looked too unpleasant. The plan was set.

My alarm woke me from a fitful sleep; I had woken often with thoughts running through my head about what needed consideration before we left. I did a final check of the boat, everything secure and shipshape and Mike went to lift the anchor. He pressed the up button – nothing. The anchor winch contactor (switch) had been faulty when I bought the boat and it had been replaced only last week; it had gone again. Plan B. The anchor weighs in at 35kg and the chain at 3 kg per meter; in 10 meters of water lifting by hand was not an option. We clipped a rope to the chain and hauled it in bit by bit with Mike, down in the anchor locker,  stowing away the chain.

We were away. We still had the use of the anchor in an emergency; the down switch did work and there is a manual release to get the anchor down in a hurry should power fail.

We set a fully reefed mainsail and 2/3rds of the genoa. Within 5 miles the wind was up to 20 knots, so far so good. Half an hour later we had a steady 30 knots of wind, sailing on a close reach we were doing 8 knots exciting stuff! 

We were however taking a lot of spray so Mike and I got together to zip in the the soft windscreen the fits between the cabin top and the cockpit sun cover. As I reached over to do the zip – BANG – flap, flap, flap – the genoa sheet had parted leaving the sail flogging madly in the wind. I left Mike with the windscreen and jumped over to the genoa furling line. Pulling in the line wound the sail up round the forestay and all was quiet once again. I then noticed the large unused portion of the main sail was spilling over the sun canopy – the stack pack had broken. 

We don’t know what caused the apparently unrelated breakages, perhaps a sudden impact force on the gear as we fell off the front of a 3 to 4 meter wave. The genoa sheet looked in perfectly good condition but perhaps the core was rotten. The stack pack is two sheets of canvas fitted either side of the boom; it collects and hold the mainsail when not in use. It has 3 attachment points to a rope from the mast that holds it up, the forward attachment on both sides had parted. Looking at it afterwards I could see that the stitching was inadequate, a job for another day.

30 knots of wind soon gets hold of loose sail cloth and I had a beating monster on my hands. Lying on the sun canopy I managed to get a rope round the loose sail thet tamed it somewhat. The genoa sheet I could fix at sea but it would not be prudent to continue with the main sail in this condition. At 9am we turned back. However, we did still have 18 hours of wind left to make use of. We wold fix the breakages and head back for France.

It was a fast passage back at 9 knots with the wind just behinb the beam. This boat is fast! Our next problem was anchoring knowing the winch would not pick the anchor up. Although we could get it up by hand it was slow and left us vulnerable to drifting unsecured as the last 10m of chain came in. The solution was the kedge, a light weight anchor used either as a second or temporary anchor. It went over the side and we set about fixing things.

I kept a wary eye on our position knowing that the anchor may not hold us. Sure enough, the bow dropped away from the wind, the first sign that an anchor is not holding. I went back to the cockpit and started the engines only to hear that sickening ‘thud’ of an engine coming to a sudden halt. There is only one reason it does that – a rope round the prop. I looked about. It wasn’t one of ours and I saw no lobster pots. Mike pointed to the anchor rope going between the hulls – oh dear. The kedge anchor uses rope which makes it easy to retrieve. When I started the engines (we have two, one in each hull) the gear lever which has a very indistinct neutral position must have been slightly out of position and in gear thus sweeping up the anchor rope under the hull. I would have to watch the throttle positions carefully when manoeuvring or I would unknowingly be in gear.

I couldn’t cut the anchor rope as that would leave us drifting. The best plan was to get a second rope on the anchor then deal with the prop wrap. It was deep, about 27’, right at the limit of my free diving. I would give it a go. With a rope between my teeth I duck dived down pulling on the water for all I was worth. I got to the anchor but was running out of air. No time for fancy knots, a couple of quick hitches and I shot back to the surface. From there it was a simple matter of taking the weight on the new rope, reset the anchor and wind the original rope from the prop.

Back on board we fixed the genoa sheet and stack pack and by 11am we were on our way once again.

The wind was strong and the sea was big but the motion was surprising good. This was my first time in a catamaran in a big sea and I had heard the motion was not good. They had sailed in the wrong boat. I have been is some big seas in a mono hull and so far the cat was knocking spots off its narrower cousin!  This was fast and exciting. Woody however was not impressed. Comfortable is a relative thing! It was also cold.

The Mistral brings cold damp air from the north, one is not supposed to dress like this in the med! Still, at least the sun was out.

We hoped the banging and crashing would not last long; the forecast was for the wind to reduce to 25 knots and back 20 or 30 degrees to the west which would put the wind on our beam, a fast and comfortable point of sailing with the boat lifting over the side on waves rather than taking them on the bow.

The wind did exactly as forecast and by mid afternoon we were cantering along at a very respectable 8 knots with the hulls lifting gently as the waves passed underneath. Keeping watch forward I noticed that the anchor was bouncing in its cradle. Unable to use the winch to bring up the chain it had not been pulled tight enough. It needed a second attachment. Despite the improved movement the deck was still much too bouncy to go out safely. I put the wheel over with the sails tight and hove to, a useful manoeuvre that holds the boat almost stationary and fairly still. I went up forward to deal with the anchor closely followed by Woody who badly needed a wee!

We noticed many little jelly fish stuck to the deck,thrown aboard with the vast quantity of water that had crashed over the deck.

And so the sleigh ride continued. Mike took the first night watch at 9pm and I got my head down. When I came back on deck at midnight the stars were out and I could have read a book by the brightness of the moon. By 3am the wind had died as forecast. We had covered 110 miles by sail, the final 40 miles would be under engine. As I write this at 7am the French coast is in sight, croissant for breakfast!  

The boat has  a nice soothing motion whilst Mike sleeps, rocking gently but not rolling!