Swagman Log – Monday 6^th June 2005

Rally Portugal Leg 2 – Bayona (Spain) to Povoa (Portugal)

This second leg of the rally is a 50 mile hop down the coast to see the fleet  enter Portugal at Povoa.  It proved to be a good sail for Swagman. 

After a dead calm at our 1000 start line, we persevered to limp away from the Monte Real Yacht Club start vessel under sail to find a NE’ly gently filling in one side of the Ria.  As we then reached away towards the turning makr and open sea, it gradually increased in strength.  Once heading southward, the wind eventually built to top 30 knots in some gusts.  Swagman took off to blast past all other participants under her new spinnaker - and was back in front of the pack by the time we crossed the border line.

Our flat cut cruising spinnaker worked well in the fresher conditions and we frequently held 10/11 knots - and came close to 13 several times as we picked up and surfed or a wave or two. 

All very manageable. 

This Hanse 461 is clearly a good boat for heavier offwind sailing and it would be very interesting to try her one day with a full race crew and a proper racing cut kite.  As it was, the cruising spinnaker was not best trimmed (wrong sheeting angles and a lack of tweaker blocks), but it worked well enough for us.

We rocketed down to Povoa in pretty quick time.  Approx 6.5 hours to cover the 50+ miles to take line honours in front of XII Bar Blues and Discovery Magic.  It felt good to tie up first and the crew soon had cold beers in the cockpit.

Marcus and Angie had left us in Bayona to return to the UK, and we’d been joined by Sara – Gerry’s partner.  They will both stay until we reach Cascais giving us a crew of five until then.

Our thanks need to go to Marcus and Angie for such good company of the Biscay leg, so we hope they are reading this.  Really nice people and good sailors too.

John

SWAGMAN