A huge confidence builder

Nazaré to Cascais: a proper day’s sailing

After a couple of days staying put in Nazaré due to heavy fog, we awoke on 25 September to a clear sky. So at eight o’clock, we slipped our lines.

There wasn’t much wind to begin with, so we set off under full main and genoa, with a bit of help from the engine. It was a beautiful sunny morning, with the usual collection of pot markers to keep us occupied.

The wind steadily built from the north, which was handy given that we were heading south. After a few hours, we had 20 to 30 knots, with a fairly sustained 25.

This felt like the sort of conditions that we might experience crossing the Atlantic, and it was a really good opportunity to see how Juna and the crew handled it. With the genoa poled out on one side and the main on the other, we were running dead downwind.

She handled it brilliantly. Setting the pole and rigging the preventer were straightforward enough , and everything worked as it should. There are a few things we’ll refine along the way, but we’ve got a pretty solid and safe start point.

I’ve always thought of Juna as a fairly slow boat. She does need a bit of wind to get going, but once she does, she seems quite capable of keeping up with everyone else and ill have it known that today we were catching other boats too.

We carried on south with the coast to port, passing plenty of fishing boats and keeping watch for the gear around them. Avoiding it all is just part of sailing here, although as the seas built, spotting the smaller markers became increasingly difficult. I'm sure that there’s a lobster pot out there with your name on it. We kept looking.

By the time we were rounding Cabo da Roca and then Cabo Raso, the wind was a steady 28 to 30 knots. I managed to put a reef in the main while we were still going downwind, which was considerably easier than I’d expected. For some reason, it wasn’t something we’d done before.

We also had the genoa rolled down to its second reef by then, and Juna was sailing beautifully. Most of the time we were doing around six and a half knots, with occasional bursts up to ten or eleven.

The last hour got a little spicy. Broad reaching round the headland towards Cascais, I saw 35 or 36 knots on the instruments. still keeping us honest.

We’d been advised to avoid the marina, so we headed for the anchorage next door. It was busy but still a bit of room, and among the boats were some familiar faces: Lucy and Nick (a la Lucy and Nick Sailing), and Colin (Scatterling)

The last time we’d seen them was rafted up for an evening soiree in Portland before we left. It was really good to see them again, this time in Portugal.

Colin and Nick came out in their Ribs to greet us, along with Tully the dog, who was very keen to get aboard as usual.

We dropped anchor just before seven, A very good time to arrive, put some dinner on and watch the sunset.

I hope we get plenty more days of sailing like this one. 66 more miles in the books, bringing our total for the season to nearly 3,000.

Not bad.