Aino had not been sailing since the last season and wanted to sail at least a little bit before the longer journey, just to stretch her sea legs. I was, however, busy and stressed with a photo album I would give to my brother as a birthday present. It should be submitted as soon as possible to make sure it would be ready when we would return. As a matter of fact, the time frame was already very short, and actually risky. We decided, however, to go sailing on Tuesday.
We decided to sail around Emäsalo, a large, the Porvoo archipelago dividing island inside the track in the chart above. The total lenght of the track is about 32 NM, the route around the island is about 20 NM. The open sea starts from the south point of the island, where there is a pilot station. There is an oil refinery on the other side of the bay of the NW corner of Emäsalo, thus the pilots. The pilot station has also a weather station, and Emäsalo is one of the windiest places in the Northern Baltic sea, together with Utö and Hangö (Hanko). See for instance Windy.
Everything went just fine. We had a nice sidewind southwards, a few tacks in the south in order to get to the western side of Emäsalo, and then again a cosy sidewind until the refinery area.
Close to the NW corner of Emäsalo there was a squall approaching, a clear thunderstorm. I said to Aino that we should take the sails down before it, as we would do it anyway soon. The wind increased quickly; when rolling in the large genua, it got stuck in a spreader and was ripped for about 1.5 m (5 ft). (Nasty words here… Please figure them out yourself). These things happen, but how do we get the genoa fixed by Thursday?
The last possible solution was, of course, to sew it by hand, but the time needed for it would not fit well into our schedule, nor the quality of my work, perhaps. The next morning, Wednesday, I called a few times our sailmaker, Hartik sails, but he was himself sailing somewhere, I heard later. I called the second sailmaker, Doyle sails, at Hamina. Luckily, somebody answered, and I drove right away to Hamina, some 100 km east of Porvoo.
The sail was soon fixed by a pro, me watching extremely carefully how it was done, and I paid the decent bill without complaints. I also asked for some sail repair band and got that, too, just in case. Other accessories I had already.
What a relief! Ofelia was fit again, but I lost a day. I patched it with a night and finished my photo album work around four o’clock in the morning. Everything done, a hundread-page photo book submitted (hopefully) just in time. A nice three-hour sleep, and it was Thursday morning. Time for sailing…
Ofelia II ja muita juttuja 