Twin-Keeler sailor Tony Bennett sent us this article for the old PDF-issue. As he already did make the effort I thought it would be a pity to be wasted so I publish it here, although the sail itself did not take place onboard a twin-keeler.
The engines of the Monarch 757 roared as the reverse thrust slowed the plane landing at the short airstrip of Preveza on a sunny May morning earlier this year. My brother and I had arrived in Greece for our second sailing trip in the Ionian Sea with Sailing Holidays Ltd. This company is run by a bunch of crazy Kiwis led by one Barrie Nielson who is no relation to the company of the same name. Their mission in life is to ensure that one has the best time possible while on holiday with their company and some great sailing to boot. This they achieve with a combination of well maintained boats, friendly staff and value for money prices. We had booked a Beneteau 331 for two of us for a week for less than 1000 pounds all in, but fate intervened in our favour. A few days before we were due to leave the UK the company telephoned us and asked if we would mind taking a slightly larger yacht as they wanted ours for a less experienced couple who needed a smaller boat. Needless to say we didn’t mind! Our new boat was to be the Beneteau 361, some three feet longer than a 331 and a yacht I had always wanted to try as it had a much larger heads than the 331, and was said to sail better.
They do have some smaller boats, Jaguar 27’s, which were made in twin keeler format but all of Barrie’s are fin keels. The Jags are over 30 years old but allow the cheapest way of experiencing a sailing holiday in the Med. In spring and autumn a week can be had for two for £790 which includes flights, diesel, transfers and the services of the lead crew. There’s a damage waiver of about 50 quid and a fuel supplement of £35 each and that’s it.
We had an hour’s ride in a luxury coach to Platerias on the west coast of the Greek mainland where Sailing Holidays have their northern base. Platerias is a typical small Greek seaside village, not particularly pretty nor particularly busy, but benefits from a well sheltered and large harbour where our flotilla awaited its guests. The staff were on hand at the airport and again at the sailing base to help with luggage and to guide us to our boat. It is quite a long walk from the coach drop off point to the yachts and so the luggage was ferried round by a minivan. After a briefing on the yacht and its equipment, we walked back to the village for essential supplies such as Greek olives, cheese & beer. It is best only to drink bottled water which may be purchased frozen and helps keep the fridge cool when under sail. Once the boat was ready to go we were able to meet the flotilla crew and relax in a waterside taverna. The crew comprises a skipper, Jono, an engineer, Shannon, and a hostess, Sophie. It’s the skipper’s job to get you safely from place to place, the engineer’s job to look after the boats and the hostess’s job to point you in the direction of the best showers, cash machines and tavernas. Not that we needed a shower as the one on the boat was of such a reasonable size to save frequent visits to the shore facilities.
One of my favourite foods is Mediterranean prawns and so I tucked into a dish of these on the first night while Mark, my brother, had stuffed tomatoes; both dishes were washed down with substantial quantities of lager. Beers generally available are Heineken which is palatable, Amstel, which is bearable, and Mythos which tends to give me a headache. Needless to say after the travelling and the beer we both slept well that night. The next morning dawned bright and cheerful allowing us to get to know the other crews over breakfast. It turned out to be a small flotilla of only five boats; the more normal size is 10-12 yachts, so we quickly got to know each other. Skipper Jono’s plan was to take the yachts north up the west coast of Greece to a small port known for its fish dishes called Sayidiah, some 10 miles away. However a strong wind was forecast for that evening from the south of force six or more and it seemed safer to take the longer trip to Paxos Island 15 miles to the south west. Paxos is a small island with only four ports all of which are quite delightful, I was not disappointed to be going there. Brother Mark had not been to this part of the Ionian before and I was looking forward to showing him the best spots. The skipper asked us to motor across the open sea and to arrive no later than 4.00 in order to avoid the strong winds. We set off about 1030 under motor as instructed although we noticed one or two other yachts with sails, making the best of the stiff breeze that had already blown up. By midday the wind was already a good force six and the odd wave was breaking over the bows from the four foot swell that had already started to make the boat roll uncomfortably. It certainly didn’t look as if things were going to get any easier so we increased our speed to some 2 ½ thousand RPM allowing us to make around five knots. The Garmin GPS gave an estimated arrival time of about 4 to 5 o’clock so we expected a few hours of discomfort. An hour later the winds were stronger still and the seas had risen to some 6 to 8 feet at which point brother decided a lifejacket would be a good idea. I had the wheel to hang on to and felt that it would be more dangerous to try to struggle into a lifejacket at this point, although I was getting pretty wet. Although we could cope with things as they were, we were concerned that the wind and sea may build further before we could make the sheltered port of Lakka on the north Coast of Paxos. It had certainly got up before it had been forecast, but forecasts are notoriously unreliable in the Ionian! We had just about come to terms with this when the engine overheated. At this point we were approximately 4 miles from the south coast of Corfu which gave us plenty of sea room to work out a solution. We shut the engine down and brother got a beer out while I made a radio call to the lead boat to speak to Shannon the engineer. His advice was to run the engine at a maximum of 2000 RPM and then it shouldn’t overheat. Sure enough he was right. At this point to my surprise brother Mark suggested putting some sail, he is not normally too keen on sailing in heavy weather but I agreed it would steady the boat and so we put about half the Genoa out. With the motor and the Genoa together we made good speed to Lakka, arriving wet and bruised at about 5 pm. I must say, this was about the worst weather I have experienced in four trips to the North and South Ionian, despite a storm on my first visit, and it was quite unusual. The sea between Corfu and the mainland often has a fair bit of swell, but this was way beyond the norm. The southern Ionian experiences little swell and has shorter times between ports, but it’s less fun in my opinion! The boat coped very well though, despite the engine she never gave us cause for real concern, always giving the impression that she could cope better than we could. The boat was called Kerkiera which is the Greek name for the island of Corfu. Most of Barrie’s boats are named after something Greek; he has over 150 yachts now though, so he ran out of gods and goddesses fairly early on.
Lakka is a delightful and pretty small town with a harbour well sheltered especially from the southern winds as it opens to the north. It is full of tavernas, jewellery and souvenir shops, populated by friendly people who pretty much all speak reasonable English. A walk from the harbour takes one up the hill to a taverna with a view over the bay and provides a great photo opportunity. We were the first to arrive, the benefits of Genoa and motor together with the gps meant that we found the entrance more easily than some of the others who had been blown a bit off course. Our lead boat had yet to arrive having been delayed sorting out another engine failure. We were assisted into our berth by another Sailing Holidays flotilla skipper who had sensibly moored up earlier. It had not been a great day. Our hostess had been sick, and so had the wife of the skipper who got the smaller boat that we should have had originally. In addition she had been thrown off her feet by a violent wave, striking her nose on a guard rail causing it to bleed. Eventually everyone arrived safely, mooring in the traditional Med style of dropping a bow anchor some three boat lengths away from the quay, reversing in and putting two shorelines out from the stern. A plank completes the arrangement, allowing a gap between the boat and shore in case of ferry wash, and access to and from the boat.
I managed to find a bottle of Robola, a Cephallonian wine, which I had been itching to try for ages. I’m not a big wine drinker and don’t much care for white wine but this one is supposed to be exceptional. It didn’t disappoint. I broke a bit more ice by sharing it with the crews either side of us on the mooring and suitably refreshed, we all met up for dinner, consoled each other over vast quantities of beer and retired relatively early for some well needed rest.
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