life afloat

A day sail to celebrate the Revolution.

To start the journey off on the right foot, a leisurely scooter drive along the coastal road in the cool morning air, followed by a surprise encounter in the marina with Tioga, a 1988 recreation of L. Francis Herreshoff’s design no. 50, of 1931, itself the inspiration for what would become his most famous boat of all, the legendary 72 ft Ticonderoga (originally also named Tioga, but that’s a story for another day).

The first hint of something unusual was a pair of sharply raked wooden masts amid the usual upright forest of aluminium and carbon fibre. Extremely raked masts being a trademark of many boats by this, my favourite yacht designer of all time, I was immediately on the alert. And, as I looked over the edge of the pier, a set of incomparably graceful lines (in the words of her designer at the time, “not at all tiresome to look at”), the clipper bow and some building details – gilded dolphins on the taffrail, an elegant scroll on the rudderhead – quickly confirmed my suspicions. As my first ever live sighting of a Herreshoff boat, this could only be a good omen. And so it proved to be.

Then, on to our steed for the day, the noble Arquimedes (so named “because she floats”, we say), also a wooden boat – no surprise if you know her owner/designer, the Comrade Skipper. Offshore, it looked like one of those rare gentle days when it’s possible to sail in comfort out to Guincho and Cabo da Roca, so we duly set our course westwards. Soon, however, an increasing chop and vicious whitecaps dispelled any illusions about that.

It was then that, perhaps by way of compensation, the good omen kicked in. A commotion in the distance proved to be a pod of dolphins on the move, and we went out to meet and travel along with them for as long as they deemed it worth their while to slow their progress and gambol with these excited landlubbers and their ponderous vessel – how silly we must look to them, a bunch of ungainly two-legged creatures whistling, and babbling, and jumping around to get a better view.

After they left us behind, we turned back to find shelter for lunch, finally putting the hook down in the lee of a protective lighthouse (Guia) and a cliff of beautiful stratified rock. Here, the Skipper surprised the crew with a light, delicate salad of shrimps, cashew nuts, apples, sultanas, and cherry tomatoes, on a bed of shredded lettuce, which a few in the party deemed “somewhat gay”, but of which all ate seconds and thirds, so he must have done something right. Or we all are hiding something in the closet.

After coffee and dessert, a lazy sail (under jibtop alone) in the freshening breeze, along the shore, to extend the hand of comradeship – waving it from a safe distance – to those less fortunate, taking their swims and their lunches among the crowds, perched on spiky rocks. Our revolutionary consciences thus appeased (we being possessed of easily appeased revolutionary consciences), it was off on a brisk fetch across the bay to the shore on the other side.

To people of a certain age, who knew this coast from the past but may not have sailed off it for a while, the sheer amount of construction is hard to comprehend. Some buildings – a house here and there, a fort or two, a famous sanatorium – are a reminder of more stylish times, but the rest is sad confirmation of what greed and deregulation have been doing to so many shorelines around the world.

And on that revolutionary note, celebrations were brought to a close.