Wing And Wing

From: Island Elafonisos, Southern Peloponnesos, Greece
To: Geralimena, Southern Peloponnesos, Greece

The morning promised a nice sailing day. 15 knots from the north, we needed to go west. Perfect. After a few hours — yes, it still takes us some time to get started in the morning — the wind had increased to 22 knots. Ok, it would be more ‘exciting’ than just ‘nice’ sailing today then. All the same for me. Barbara had a slightly worried look on her face.

I put a reef(make the sail smaller by rolling it in or lowering it a bit) in the main and off we went! Vite & Rêves, always eager to be sailing, accelerated straight to 9 knots. We almost had a collective whiplash. We went as fast as the waves, which makes for a very comfortable ride.

Later in the day, the wind decreased slowly and turned to the south, luckily via east, not via west, where we are going. During few hours, we could go wing and wing(when you have both sails each over a different side of the boat), which in a monohull is always slightly disquieting because the possibility of a broach(when the wind pushes your boat so hard your rudder comes out of the water and you lose steering) or chinese gibe(sudden and violent turn so the wind comes from the other direction). On Vite & Rêves, with her double main sheet(a line you use to control the main sail) system, there is nothing to worry about. I took a nap on the trampolines.

We passed cape Tainaron, the middle finger of the Peloponnesos hand.

The wind died a very slow death. The last hour we motored again to the unexpectedly lovely town of Geralimena, perched between a cliff (that is strikingly lit at night) and a gigantic mountain.

Andreas would like to make a public announcement that everyone is very safe on the boat, even the cuddly toys.