Ca Canny - Ca Canny ARC Portugal - Blue Peter Mural

The result of our artistry in Oeiras on the harbour wall - my wife commented that it was "very nice but it is a bit Blue Peter in style" ( a long running children's Programme on the BBC)Viking inspired mural - Ca Canny is a Swedish boat ( Najad) and the name Means Go Carefully in Gaelic. Not sure how the Cornish flag got into the picture but we have a Cornishman aboard. Needless to say we didn't win the competition!Geoff Ca Cannyphoto. read more...

Ca Canny - Ca Canny - ARC Portugal - Oiesras Near Lisbon

Just 2 more legs to Lagos.The Northerly trade winds have not established so we found ourselves motor sailing or beating into a Southerly wind to get to Oiesras which is down river from Lisbon. On the trip we rounded what is apparently Europe's most Westerly point Cabo da Roca. One of the challenges we have been given is to paint a mural on the harbour wall - non of us claim to be artistic but after some general harrumphing about the task we came up with a good result based on a viking long boat sporting a Cornish Flag - Brian come from Mevagissey. The boat is from Sweden and it has a Celtic name Ca Canny meaning Go carefully. The biggest challenge was however wrestling the dwindling supplies of paint and brushes from other crews who also left the job to the last day. So we are now the. read more...

Ca Canny - Yacht Ca Canny ARC Portugal - Crew Change and loss of our creative blogger

It's is now Monday the 16th of June I think! Steve Chalker has long since left and his stories of Ca Canny's crew will be missed. Farewell, Ohura, Scottie, Bones and Sulu. We have a new crew or nearly - Ian Pringle and BrianHunkin joined in Porto before we sailed to Figueira Da Foz where Tony Frazer joins the crew today.Crew changes are not easy for the crew or the skipper - the team has learnt to work together and bond with the boat and it becomes a bit like a surrogate mother - particularly when the wind is blowing and the waves get bigger. We have all become close to the boat - forged by various experiences: getting a rope wrapped around our prop in Ushant, the loss of the liferaft blown from its cradle in heavy weather ( never needed it anyway), the strong wind warning that turned. read more...

Ca Canny - ARC Portugal Ca Canny - day 12 (ish)

So, after multiple requests I’ve been persuaded to write one more blogentry. I am more than a little surprised by the enthusiasm for our regularupdates but am happy to go with the flow and am glad you have enjoyed reading asI have enjoyed writing them. What you don’t realise is that its become moredifficult to write them in recent days after the deck washing incident. Sufficeto say that its important to ensure that all windows are closed before washingthe deck especially those over the chart table (which happened to have thislaptop on). Since then the computer has had a mind of its own and only decreesto wake as and when it can be bothered. Two other interesting impacts was thatthe screen started to display upside down (fairly easily fixed but still a pain)and the keyboard worked. read more...

Ca Canny - ARC Portugal Ca Canny - day 11

So our real skipper, Geoff, decreed last night that I was to be skipper forthe day for our journey out of Bayona and down to Povoa de Varzim. This was adecision the crew later came to regret.   We made an early start off the berth in order to get our racing line acrossthe start line. I’d decided to keep to the Northern end of the line so that wecould make a nice starboard tack which would take us completely out of the ria(and probably get in the way of everyone else). Unfortunately there was notenough wind to make such a dynamic start and so we rev’d engines instead. Thestarter horn sounded and we were all off to the sound of marine diesel enginesstraining at their mountings....well almost all of us, one or two brave soulsattempted to sail off the start line – quite a challenge in. read more...