Glorious day sail down to Cape Kiti

18 nautical miles

Yes, it was cold, but not freezing cold, but it was an absolutely glorious day sail. The wind was perfect for a sail down the coast and then a sail backup.

Weird weather

The forecast said winds of 37 knots at 3am tomorrow. Today at 4pm the sun was shining, the water still as a mirror and deep dark cloud above. This meant the water in the marina went inky black and reflected the masts. Very strange and quite beautiful.

Finished reefing lines

Final part of the new sails fixed - added eyes for the reefing lines, so that the reefing lines run along the boom and don't get caught on anything.

Sailing with no wind!

12 nautical miles

Last day sailing with Dan and Becky, sadly, they are back to the UK on Monday. 

There was almost no wind today: In the morning it was 4-5 knots and in the afternoon it was 8-10 knots. Still it was a very enjoyable sail, broad reaching out with the asymmetric towards Cape Kiti, lunch of our traditional halloumi, bread, tomatoes and lettuce followed by fruit. 

Then we turned back and motored round to the anchoring point north of the port where we rigged the reefing lines for the new main sail. While we were doing this the wind came up to a blistering 8 knots so we decided to go off for a small sail.

Sanding, sanding and more sanding

I'm trying to restore the for'ard cabin, so most of the week was spend sanding down teak or carefully sanding down teak veneered marine ply. The high point was to discover that the shelves in the peak came out to make sanding them easier. One more week and I hope to have finished.

Water tank guage

My intention had been to remove and clean the water tanks and fit a new depth gauge. So I removed all the nuts and tried lifting the cover.

No way on earth was this going to move - the bolts had nicely corroded themselves to the metal panel. Hence it would require manufacturing a new panel to remove it.

Taking photos inside the tank showed that the tank was actually amazingly clean, so other than a small amount of cleaning I left it as it is, and will check water purity some time in the future.

The depth gauge mounted easily and works well. Shows up how we need to repaint the bilges with bilge paint sometime.

Reefing lines

A very pleasant morning was spent fixing cheek blocks, clutches and rope tie offs to the main and mizzen booms. We finished the reefing for the mizzen, but still have to run the lines for the main.

Sea Trials with new sails

18 nautical miles

The aim for our sea trials with the new sails was to sail to Agia Napa and back. The wind looked fairly reasonable for this, with a northerly 12 knots gusting 15. We started early, motoring out of the marina before 8:30, but the wind was higher than forecast, being 15 gusting 18, so we decided to start with new genoa and the old mizzen.

This worked very well indeed. We had also changed the running backstays, to being two rather than one. This made tacking a whole lot easier. The mizzen sheet we had changed to a bridle fitting. This wasn't quite right and we will work with this to get it right.

The wind dropped slightly so we decided to raise the new main sail too... the stack packs made this a lot easier.

Actually, when we came to drop the main, since the wind picked up, and despite gusts, it dropped easier than we ever have before, this was definitely a major plus for the new stack packs.

The new main, a Long Distance Cruising Sail set beautifully. The shape significantly better than the old sail.


King Malu felt very much more in control than she had with the previous sails.

However, it was definitely cold... at least for those of us who are Mediterranean summer sailors. I toughed it out to start with then gave in and put on my foul weather gear!  I think I need some better base and mid layers.

Jacob, who normally runs around in shorts even when there is snow on the ground even had on a hoodie, though he wasn't running his feet in the water.

The genoa was very slightly smaller than the old sail, but being a Performance Cruising Sail, made out of Hydra Net, it set better and the speed was slightly higher than before.

Being cut higher also meant that we could see under the genoa, which made keeping watch easier.

For the final 30 minutes or so we even raised the mizzen staysail for the broad reach back to the marina. This gave us about half a knot of extra speed.

Coming into the marina we always try to keep at least part of the genoa up. It's often a little choppy just outside the marina and with an outboard on the back it tends to cavitate. The genoa holds King Malu on a constant angle and also helps to hold the bow down. The new Furlex meant it furled very much easier, so I think we can hold off final furling of the genoa till we are through the marina mouth now.

So, if you want to know the summary of our feelings about the new sails...

just look at the smiles!