Light winds, gentle sail

15 nautical miles

I had Melvin, a friend over from the UK, plus Peter, a sailing friend from the marina is returning to the UK this week, so invited both of them for a sail. Really of course, it's as much a social gathering as a sail in the light winds we had today.

The regular crew of me, Tim and Jacob was down to just me and Jacob as Tim is still in Thailand on holiday.

When I say light, the predicted winds were 8-10 knots, maybe gusting 12 knots.  We headed south and that was all we got!

This was great in some ways as it allowed me to let Melvin take the helm with no concern at all that there would be any problems. Even the odd accidental gybe was gentle! It was a great teaching day for a first sail.

Peter, of course, was playing with the sails. How many knots could we get out of the the new sails in such light airs?

The answer was we could get about 4.7 knots 9 knots of wind at 60 degrees (close hauled).

It was all really gentle.

We turned back and cooked up our traditional sailing lunch of haloumi, pittas and tomatoes. The haloumi we have found from the fruiteria and is the best we have found in Cyprus. 

We passed the Zenobia dive sites and one of the dive boats fell in alongside and then passed astern of us. Not remarkable you might think, except that the so called 'rules of the road' are often ignored in Cyprus and it's really nice to have a courteous skipper from a power boat.

As we were sailing back the wind picked up. So we headed north for half an hour just for a bit more of a blow and then back to the marina, since Peter had some work to do on his boat before flying to the UK on Sunday.

Sail out towards Cape Kiti

18 nautical miles

The predicted wind was 10-14 knots, but when we set off we were getting 15-18 gusting 25 knots. We tried reefing our new main (a Malu Marine Long Distance Cruising Sail) and were extremely pleased with the results. With 2/3 genoa and 1st or 2nd reef on main the boat balances beautifully. 

The reason for reefing down, rather than riding it out and enjoying it was that we had three guests on board, so I was spilling wind whenever a severe gust came through to keep the ride gentle.

Mick went below to checkout all the new work we had done on the yacht since his last visit some months ago. You can just see the new wood trip in the companionway behind him.

Two of the guests, Mary and Roger, had never sailed before, but you can see from the smiles that it was a great day out!


On the way back the wind dropped to predicted levels and was about 90-120 degrees to beam, so we hoisted the mizen staysail as well. With reefed main this worked well. Gave us an extra knot of speed.

Coming in to the marina, almost whatever direction the wind and waves are from produces a choppy sea just at the marina entrance. 

With boats coming from two channels in the marina towards the entrance it's important to keep a very good lookout!

Varnishing finished

Hopefully finished varnishing for a bit. We had repaired and varnished the steps down into the saloon plus the woodwork behind, but there was a piece of black plastic on the port side as you came in that just looked out of place, so we removed it and cut a piece of marine ply which I stained and varnished to match in with the teak behind the steps. We are very pleased with the result.

The for'ard cabin had been used as a workshop when the boat was a live-aboard around the world. This meant the woodwork was in a terrible state of repair. I have slowly been repairing, stripping and revarnishing. The wood is such it will never be perfect, but the cabin is very much more liveable in than it was.

The final part is the forepeak, Again not perfect, but looking very much more presentable. We have just ordered new covers for the mattresses, and I am sure when finished the cabin will look very nice indeed.