Grey on grey, barely a sail on the horizon. At six, when we left the harbour, it was still calm — now, mid-morning, a solid force five is pressing into the sails, and it keeps building. Seven to eight are forecast for this evening, gusts to nine by tomorrow morning: what, up here, you might fairly call a proper gale. We mean to use the window before the gale, before the wind gets to be too much.
We – that’s Richard and me. He came up from London to Kiel yesterday. We’ve done a fair amount of sailing together, and over the next few days we want to head north. And with the two of us, a well-drilled team, what’s possible is different from sailing alone.
This is a different kind of sailing from the year so far. Foulies on for the first time, Koraki pushed a little for the first time. We’re on a broad reach, which lets us surf the waves coming up on the quarter. You don’t need to look; you feel it through the tiller. The pressure eases for a moment, the stern lifts a little, luff up a touch and Koraki accelerates, roars down the wave, the pressure on the tiller falls away again, bear off a little and the next wave comes. 9.7 knots over the ground Koraki makes on the surf. That’s fast. Very fast. Single-handed, I’d already have put in the second reef. With two of us there’s so much more controlled room for error, for the unforeseen, that it’s simply a joy to sail in this wind with more pressure in the cloth. The rain no longer matters then – it’s just part of sailing up north in a blow.
At a quarter past one we tie up in the little harbour of Spodsbjerg on the island of Langeland. A harbour used mostly by a ferry, a few fishermen and the Danish pilots. A small, sleepy place that answers to my idea of a Wild West town. A handful of houses along a single street. A supermarket, a harbour, a café that could be the saloon. Nothing more. A good Danish hot dog for lunch, and back at the harbour I look at Koraki and fancy I can see her smiling. She enjoyed the day. At last, a day when she got a bit of a workout.
