13 September 2008 - Almost no wind

17.6 nautical miles

The wind was very very light today. We sailed from approx 10:30am till approx 16:00 pm. Windguru reckons we were Bft 2 when we started off, but the sea was actually almost like a mill pond... barely steerage way. I actually hooked the outboard up and thought about motoring out to start with. We picked up a little and go about 3 knots speed. But the sea state was still very very flat.

My target had been to get round Cape Pila to Potamos. But with so little wind there was no chance. It was also slightly misty, so I was sailing off the GPS with waypoints for Cape Pila and returning off the club. Looking at the track you can see a curve. I am thinking that I really need to find a way to mount the compass and sail off a heading and monitor the direction to waypoint rather than sailing directly towards a waypoint.

Cyprus Meteo shows a similar but maybe slightly lighter wind speed. Certainly the 10:00-11:00 is credible for what we experienced.

My crew for the day was Micalis. He has never sailed before but just 'liked being out on the water'. It was a great day. I really enjoyed it.

I had also fitted a topping lift to the boom. This made getting the main sail up much easier as the main was not getting caught by the tiller. When we came back we flaked the main sail over the boom and tied it. Not something to do in a blow as the dinghy moves around quite a bit. It was not as neat as my normal method for flaking it. I will have to try and work out new method for this. Doesn't really behave like the main on a yacht!

We then tried out the outboard, since it had come back from being serviced. It ran much better and pushed Galini along at approx 3-4 knots with throttle at 50-70% into the waves. Increasing throttle increased noise but not speed. It was maybe 1/2 knot faster going with the waves, again increase in throttle made no difference to speed. I locked the outboard and steered with the tiller/rudder.