Leaving St. Tropez
Life was crazy during the 50 hour delivery of the fast carbon cruiser from St. Tropez to Valencia. The katabatic winds driven down from the Pyrenees and Alps gave us very strong Force 7-8 winds at night, which made our one man watches pretty tough. We did wait three days for a weather window to leave the Bay of St. Tropez, and here are the conditions when we left. We were really taking it easy, as we knew of the tough journey ahead with 12 foot choppy seas, 45+ knot winds and near freezing temperatures. Being from Florida, I obviously took no chances of being cold. I was dubbed the “Sailing Ninja.”
I was impressed with the SIG. We had three reefs in and a storm jib, doing 19 knots on a beam reach! The boat is quite stiff (still) and the autopilot worked really well, allowing us to trim the sails to the helm during our one-man watches. The sail changes weren’t difficult single-handed either. It is difficult to stay with an underpowered setup when one has a jib, staysail, code zero, gennaker and storm jib to choose from. Besides, the best way to stay warm was by working. Safety was the key though, as if one of us were swept off the boat on our watch, it could be a couple hours before another one of us pops our head out and notices nobody’s driving!
