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05/01/13 - Tenacious
Dated: 07/01/2013
5th Jan 2013
TNS 361
We’re sitting anchored just off the island of Ibiza, after a 24 hour sail from Valencia. There was a small bit of excitement after we first departed Valencia; we spotted a line of buoys in the water and had to send the DOTI boat out to go check to see if there were fishing nets attached. Nothing was found, and the ship passed through without problem. After that, the trip was largely uneventful. We set the inner and outer jib sails, the mizzen topmast staysail, the fore course, upper & lower topsails and t’gallant sails, as well as the main upper & lower topsails and t’gallant sail. With all that sheet set we reached a comfortable 6 knots, the highest our watch had seen under sail this trip.
On our approach to Ibiza, we had to steer through a [relatively] narrow gap a nice, jagged piece of rock and a strange cylindrical object stuck in the sea. Meanwhile, this was made more difficult at the same time we had to wear ship (changing direction from port to starboard), which involved bracing the main yards to square, bracing the fore yards to starboard and lastly bracing the mains to starboard. Just to make all our hard work worthwhile, we then had to hand sail as we came into the port. We were unable to go alongside in Ibiza town, so we anchored just outside the port and used the RIB and DOTI to run people ashore. Some of us nearly didn’t catch the last boat back. However there was a hard core barbeque waiting for us at the foremast, oh and not forgetting the delicious Punch, thank you JC for making sure it was just the right strength! So after a night of much merriment and a disco in the Bosun store, we shall be making waves back to Mallorca tomorrow morning.
Also, engineer Shiny would like to say HI to his Mum!
Night Night!
F’wd Port (and Tim for his superb censoring skills)