Aleria's Adventures

There has been an explosion of sailing videos on YouTube in the last few years. It seems that all the young people who have gone sailing are documenting their voyaging with vlogs instead of blogs, which appear to be so passe nowadays. Some have hundreds of thousands of subscribers who watch these videos that can be half an hour long. The best ones for me are under 10 minutes long, any longer and I get bored. YouTube has even created a list of top 30 sailing video channels .

We departed from the Ria de Muros y Noia with the Figaro fleet in the afternoon. The wind died so we motored to Illa Salvora, our favourite island, feeling pity for the poor Solitaire fleet attempting to round Finisterre.

Crowded anchorage at Clare Island Saved by luck and a bit of ingenuity What do you do when you've just raised anchor, you engage the engine to head out, and the wheel just spins freely in your hands without turning the boat?  PANIC! No. Do not panic. Think, and fast. We've lost steering twice before, both times in the middle of an ocean where there is nothing to run into and where  Aleria steers herself very nicely with sail trim alone.  Out there, there is plenty of room to think things through and work on the problem to resolve it. Not this time. No, this time, the wind grabbed the bow and swung us around toward shore. Not just a sandy shore but a rocky promontory.  We reversed the engine but that caused us to head out to sea. What we needed to do was get back into the harbour where we could re-anchor. The dinghy was on deck and there was no time to launch it.  We had to find a way to steer.