We headed off from our buoy at Rörbäcke Kile first thing in the morning heading for Vindö Marin to sort out Charmary ready for the delivery crew. With some fairly strong gusts coming through we decided to hoist just the staysail to run down out of the bay we had been moored in. After twenty minutes or so, we needed to head east and north and …. guess which way the wind was coming from …..
However, not to be put off we hoisted the main with one reef in, sheeted in and prepared to deliver a masterclass in tacking. First tack, we psyched ourselves up, checked everything looked right, put the helm down and tacked. The crew meanwhile did nothing …. This was mainly because they didn’t need to. One of the joys of having a self-tacking headsail is that …. it tacks itself …. all on its own ….. without us having to do anything. So, we proceeded to tack our way up past Henån towards Vindö Marin. Tack after tack after tack, but all done with almost zero effort. We could get used to this!
Just short of Vindö Marin we took the sails in and motored across to the boatyard. Charmary was moored close to their lifting dock with sails fitted and everything apparently all sorted out. Later in the afternoon we recovered the car (which they had stored in one of the boat sheds) and headed off to Uddevalla to pick up the delivery crew who are going to sail Charmary back to the UK. A weird feeling …….
