It’s a beautiful day to go sailing! After a short visit in the delightfully sleepy island of Porto Santo, which has a unique charm somewhere between the café culture of mainland Europe and the chilled out beauty of the Caribbean, we sailed off the anchor and got underway for the main island of Madeira. We’re due into the port of Funchal tomorrow morning, the second of the additional ports Captain has added to the schedule as more favourable for current weather conditions than Cadiz and Gibraltar. The sun is shining, the breeze is gentle, shorts and bare feet are suddenly in fashion, and everyone seems to be enjoying taking our world-voyaging barque island hopping.
SHIP’S WORK: The new jibboom was run out and the head rig set up while we were at anchor, so now we can bend the inner and outer jibs. We could have run the boom out underway, but since our schedule found us at anchor when the boom was ready, we did it there instead. Man overboard drill after lunch to practice launching and recovering the rescue boat in a seaway.
TOWARDS: Funchal, Madeira
TIME ZONE: GMT
NOON POSITION: 33°01.8’N /016°20.1’W
DAYS RUN: nm
PASSAGE LOG: nm
DISTANCE REMAINING: nm
COURSE AND SPEED: SxW (140°T)
WIND: ExS, Force 2
WEATHER: 2/8 cloud cover (cumulus), air temp 70F (21°C), sea surface temp 69F (21°C) barometer reading 1029 millibars, visibility good
SWELL HEIGHT & DIRECTION: 1-2 feet, E
SAILS SET: All square sails to the royals, main topmast staysail and foretopmast staysail, spanker.