Raggy Doll - 30th June - 2nd July - The Last Leg

Friday 30th we were up at 5am for an early set off. There had been lots of talk of high winds, possibly force 6 or more and nobody wanted to be late leaving. The sail down the coast was good, we were nearly at Cape St Vincent when the theme tune to jaws became very appropriate as a shark glided passed, we'd seen dolphins but this was the only shark. As we rounded Cape ofSt Vincent, the wind started to pick up. We dipped our ensign as a sign of respect for Commodore Nelson (later to become Admiral Nelson) on 11th February 1797 he managed to sail through the Spanish fleet in the fog, identifying their position, but not their number, thereby allowing the British Navy to attack and defeat them.Grey Goose who were roughly 5 nautical miles ahead, warned us that at the second headland the winds. read more...

Raggy Doll - 27th, 28th, 29th June - Sweet sweet music

It's Thursday and we're sitting in Sines (pronounced singe) Marina, it's the second night here, the wind is howling around all the yachts and the water is slapping up the boat 24 hours a day, making sleeping an interesting concept. It's a beautiful bay with a local town and it would have been nice to stay longer, but we leave for our final destination tomorrow.Tuesday day time is a bit of a blur but the evening was spent with the whole rally on Wiki Wiki, a great evening with home grown music by Mike and Marty from Sweet Harmony and Colin from Serafina of Maldon. For anyone reading this, look up mikevass.com he's a very talented Scottish musician and he has several easy listening albums, in fact Marty, his brother is also a very talented musician. Wednesday, we sailed to Sines, winds. read more...

Raggy Doll - 25th, 26th June - The stowaway exposed! The Raggy Doll.

The sail from Peniche to Oeiras was pretty uneventful, we left Peniche around 0815 and as we were pretty knackered we really just wanted to get to Oeiras as fast as possible. We motor sailed the whole way and just before reaching Oeiras came round headland with winds just about perfect, that we reached the dizzy speed of nine and a half knots. Wiki Wiki was hot on our tail and it was only when we had to take the sails down that she out sailed us as she has lots of electric gadgets that operate sails etc, whereas we have to do everything manually. Not helped by the fact that Andrew let go of the wheel to take an action picture of Wiki Wiki, making getting down the main sail down slightly harder work than usual!Our berth in the marina was luxury compared to the night of rafting, we had. read more...

Raggy Doll - Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th June - The Feast of St John

Friday should have been a nice relaxing trip to the local town, but we spent the day sucking water out of the bilges that had been put there by the delivery crew, whilst they were trying to unblock the heads, I hasten to add it was not sewage!We had been warned at the sardine dinner, that today was the eve of the celebration for St John the Baptist's birthday known as the feast of St. John. There would be a parade and fireworks and lots of celebrations. We ate on board as we quickly realised trying to eat out could prove tricky with the amount of people in the town. Around 2100 a small group of locals came down to our berth and we could hear a rather excited conversation, so duly went out to investigate. It transpired that it was their boat we were wedged up against and they wanted to. read more...

Raggy Doll - Thursday 22nd June - Dolphins

Porto to Figuera de Foz. Today was, for the other members of the rally a race start, we had decided not to get in the mix too early, so basically we crept up from behind to join. It was a bright, warm, blue sky kind of day. Not much wind, but now and again enough to tease us into putting up the cruising gennaker. This, for the non sailing people, is a huge sail that is attached to the front of the boat to give you more speed. We designed ours, red white and blue and so, it seems, did a lot of other people.The wind was so temperamental that the gennaker became more of a hindrance than a help so we took it down.We were relaxing and enjoying the sunshine when we were visited by a group of dolphins, it was great watching them swim around and under the boat, we knew other members of the rally. read more...