MY YEARS OF SAILING and ANITA GOES UP THE MAST

MY YEARS OF SAILING and ANITA GOES UP THE MAST - May 10, Day 17

Today we did some outside work including attaching a flag halyard and new lazy jacks for securing the mainsail. It was Anita’s first opportunity to sit in the bosun’s chair and go up the mast, which she enjoyed. Thanks to John who appeared from no-where and gave some help.

From time to time I will write more than what happened in the day. Here for example is a very small summary of my sailing, sometimes life was with boat and sometimes without boat. My first sailing experience was on the three masted topsail schooner, Malcolm Miller, in a Tall Ships Race just after I turned 16. It was also my first visit of many to Scandanavia.  After that great adventure, which was also great teamwork, I realised that sailing is a lifestyle which I enjoyed and I joined the sailing club at school to learn to sail 12’ dinghies on a narrow river in Worcestershire. Many other experiences followed including a trip to Alderney on the TS Royalist, a week with the Ocean Youth Club and later a week doing my Yacht-master practical course and assessment with the island Sailing Club of Salcombe. I have also sailed in USA (Cape Cod to Brooklyn), Thailand and Seychelles.

I raced GP14 dinghies including experiencing the back half of the fleet in National Championships where 180 boats were racing in one fleet. I have done mono-hull sailing including a RORC Race Cowes – Dinard, passage Dartmouth to Gibraltar (Moody 30) and in the same boat the 1983 AZAB (Falmouth to Azores and Back Two handed race) of 1200 nautical miles each way and navigation by dead reckoning and daily sextant noon sights.

Multihulls were my real interest and I immersed into reading everything possible about them and their voyages. My first at age 25 was the mini ocean cruiser, 26’ Heavenly Twins and others  followed. I sailed a Crowther Buccaneer 28 trimaran for eleven years and in 2000 bought  from a friend Apataki, the Danish production Havcat 27 catamaran, which I sailed from UK to Mar Menor, Spain in 2001. In 2004 I sailed her to Sardinia and onto Malta. She was based there until I took the winter berthing contract at Marina di Ragusa in Sicily last October.