If you know the captain a bit longer, then you know, that there is no holding back, if his “Port ceiling” fall on his head.

So we started on Friday afternoon despite clearly uncomfortable weather conditions. First, there was no wind at all in the game and from the afternoon we should get a lot of strong wind on the nose. Since we had thought us, first to go under motor south, thereby testing the watermaker and then easy to sail a blow towards the west at the onset of south wind, until the wind on Saturday morning finally would allow a direct course to Gran Canaria. Soweit also zu unserer Planung 🙂

Directly after leaving the Marina, we had already suffered the first setback. Although the new navigation works just fine and our AIS could really help us see ships in distance, but our autopilot – Hydra 2000 from B&G – had been angered by the new components probably somehow. Instead obediently to compete as at the last crossing his service, produzierte er nur noch Fehlermeldungen 🙁 So nahmen wir direkt unsere Windpilot-Steuerung mit dem Pinnenpiloten in Betrieb und erfreulicherweise funktionierte er ohne irgendwelche Probleme. So the journey could yet go further, because 650 Nautical miles without the autopilot we would not want to travel, nor can. A bit queasy us was two but still to Mute, so without any back-up with a yet untested system. That was not a good start for this crossing.

Contrary to the forecasts we had until the early evening and pleasant sailing wind good and so we set sail and moved the premiere of the watermaker to a later date. Then, when the south wind began, we were centered in front of the large traffic separation scheme, which runs along the Portuguese coast. So we had no chance, simply turn off westwards. When sailing Eight have to cross traffic separation schemes as possible at right angles. And it was a lot of traffic. Wir wollten ja nicht unter den nächsten Tanker geraten 🙂 So mussten wir unter Maschine kräftig gegenan halten und im Schiff fühlte es sich an, like on a roller coaster. Because in addition to the wind on the nose came the wave directly from the side – optimal conditions, to be seasick.

So I left the field, and Dietmar pulled me into our berth. Although it was not quite as bad and placed for emergencies within reach bucket remained unused, but from the feel-good sailing we were really far away. Thus, Dietmar had to fight alone through the night and actively monitor the wind pilot and possibly. correct. Only in the morning put the longed Northwind and under sail came finally some peace into the ship. After looking at the distance traveled, we were quite disappointed. If we continue to move forward so, wären wir bestimmt eine Woche unterwegs 🙁