Will we ever have a passage that's just plain sailing?!

If we felt like a minnow before, in Monaco we really are a minnow!

Monaco is the oldest monarchy in Europe where the monarch still has executive and legislative powers. It is in effect (though not in appearance!), a medieval kingdom that has survived into the 21^st century. It all started when the Grimaldi family bought Monaco from the Genoese in 1308; it has remained in their hands to this day. In 1869, down on their luck, they opened a casino, abolished all taxes and quickly developed a reputation for high living, fast money and loose women! Today it is very much for the rich and famous and known as mini Manhattan – there isn’t a square inch of the one square mile principality that is not built on!

Next weekend is the world-famous Monaco Grand Prix but this weekend they have a historic grand prix where all cars of yesteryear race. We were off for a day at the races!

It wasn’t quite Ascot but dressed in our best shorts and shirts we walked into the stands conveniently placed around the harbour in the little district of Monte Carlo. It was free on trials day and we had the place almost to ourselves!

There were to be 3 races in the morning, pre-1949, the developing formula one cars to 1961 and 1961-65. 

It was wonderful to see the old racing cars belting round the track.This was the place where many of the big names were made, Lamborghini, Ferrari and Maserati with famous drivers such as Sterling Moss and Jacki Stewart. 

Then came the fledgling F1 cars.

There were said to be cars on the track that these men had raced back in the day.  

It was quite a spectacle as they raced round the streets of Monaco with the old Victorian buildings on one side and the luxury yachts on the other. What the photos don’t show is the noise and the smell of high octane racing car fuel; we had thought that watching cars going round in circles wasn’t really our thing but it was all very exciting! Trials day it might have been but they were not holding back. Of the formula one cars over two races of half an hour each there were at least a dozen incidents of cars spinning out and hitting the barriers, most of which were either craned off the track or taken off on tow trucks at the end of the race.

After a good day at the races we decided to set off on the next leg of our adventure to Corsica, 100 miles south. Having had no wind for the last few days my old friend the Mistral was going to make  an appearance again. With 40 knots of wind forecast for Sunday, at sea was not a place for Melanie (or me for that matter, once is quite enough!) so we set sail on Friday evening in what promised to be a pleasant per-Mistral breeze of 10-15 knots. We should have a nice uneventful crossing. I still dream of one of those!

We motored for the first few hours looking for the breeze which arrived just as I took over my watch at 3am. We had rigged the sails before leaving Monaco so we would not have to go on deck at night. As I hoisted the mainsail something did not feel right as it neared the top of the mast. I couldn’t really see what the problem was in the dark so I stopped hoisting and went up on the foredeck to drop the sail a little before hoisting the last bit. It wouldn’t come down. Oh dear. 

Shining my finest torch at the top of the mast I could see that the main halyard (the rope that pulls the sail up) was twisted.

The cat has an unusual double halyard, I suppose because of the size of the main sail. As we had motored with the halyard in place the two lines had become twisted and despite a swivelling pulley block at the attachment point had remained twisted, unseen in the dark and become jammed at the top of the mast. It would mean a trip up the mast get the sail back down. That was not a job to be done in the dark and as the wind was not strong and slightly behind us we continued under sail with a rather soggy looking mainsail. I would tackle the problem when we arrived in a sheltered anchorage.

Its beautiful at sea at night.  Just you and the stars, disturbed only by the rushing of water past the hulls and the occasional creak of the sails. By 5am the sky was just brightening to the east; we were in for a lovely day. We do 3 hours watches, 3 on, 3 off. I handed over to Melanie at 6am with a nice breeze and heading for Corsica at 6 knots. Melanie was lucky enough to be paid a visit by half a dozen dolphins which played in the bow wave and stayed with her for an hour.

I got a  lie in waking at 9.30. After getting some cereal and a cup of tea I headed out of the cabin bound for the fore deck and a peaceful breakfast. Glancing back I noticed our second problem of the passage. 

On our last passage we had had a lot of trouble with the dinghy being thrown about in the davits on the back of the boat. The stern lifting pulley (over the outboard engine) had ground into the front of the engine breaking the start switch which I had since replaced. To prevent the same thing happening again I had inserted a rope loop in the system to keep the pulley block off the engine. I knew this was a weakness; rope chafes very quickly. As the system worked well I would replace the rope with a wire strop as soon as I could but until then I would keep an eye on the state of the rope strop and replace it regularly. Not regularly enough however! After 12 hours of gentle rocking, chafe had struck and worn right through the 10mm thick rope. The stern of the dinghy had dropped as it broke, happily to be held by a second security line I had attached to keep the dinghy tight in to the davits. As the dinghy had only dropped a couple of feet the problem was easily fixed but it could have been a whole lot worse had the security line not been attached.

Dinghy fixed I could now return to my breakfast. However, they say things come in threes and its no different at sea. Breakfast in hand I turned once again to head for the foredeck when I was caught by a movement of the boat. My plate tipped as I watched helpless as my toast slid over the precipice to land sunny side down on our nice teak floor. Oh well, worse things have happened at sea!

Corsica was now well up on the horizon. My word what a mountainous place! The snow-capped peak of the largest mountain on the island at 9000’ was visible through a halo of local cloud. By lunch time we were at anchor tucked behind a little headland just north of the town of Saint Florent at the northern tip of Corsica. A quick shinny up the mast soon had the twisted main halyard sorted and the sail secured in the boom cover. It was time to sit back and relax and soak up the sun and the scenery.