Faule Haut

After having spent exactly three month at the Canary Islands, SY Faule Haut is leaving Tenerife. Skipper Ingo spent two month there with his wife and one week with his niece and two lovely kids.

Faule Haut has new crew on Board: Lucien, a French guy and three German „Wandergesellen“, Ben, Till & Paul. Lucien is sailing to Madeira, the other three sail until Gibraltar.

They startet from at the port of San Miguel and sailed and motored to Santa Cruz, where they are relaxing right now at the port being in limbo because there is no wind. The forecast is bad – too little wind, and blowing in the wrong direction. The crew can only hope the forecast is wrong, because if if comes as predicted, it would take them forever to reach Madeira.

Anyway, the crew is in good spirits and ready to take whatever comes.

Already the new crew showed their skills. They are not just good handymen but also know how to cook. Under the guidance of Paul, they prepared a traditionell meal from the town of Hamburg.

And now: waiting for the right wind.

And… there is room available for the cruise from Gibraltar to Vinaros (Valencia). And one place available from Madeira already. ETA Madeira is Saturday, 17th of April.

leaving Madeira on Monday 19th. ETA  Gibraltar is 27th of April. Leaving Gibraltar the next day.

If you want to join, send a WhatsApp message or email. Be aware that that Skipper Ingo can only receive it when he is close to the shore and has network connection.

After her circumnavigation which she completed in July 2020, Faule Haut made two cruises from her homeport Vinaròs to Mallorca, Menorca and one cruise to Ibiza. After that, on Dec. 22, 2020 she left Vinaros again and sailed to Tenerife, Canary Islands. On bord was Skipper Ingo with a guest. The guest (who was supposed to sail all the way to Tenerife) turned out to be a dumb, useless and wicked guy and Skipper Ingo had to kick him off the boat at Cartagena (mainland Spain). That guy felt pissed and took revenge and even sabotaged Faule Haut by stealing/dismounting a part of the main winch on board so the winch could no be used manually any more, only electrically. This caused a lot of trouble during the 15 day cruise from Cartagena to Tenerife, because the Skipper experienced four days of rain and heavy storms

in a row, leaving his batteries uncharged by the photo voltaic panels. Batteries were drained by using the electric winch for days.

The Skipper was gonna start the motor to charge the batteries but the starter failed. It was broken.

Being unable to start the motor, Skipper Ingo set up his generator in the cockpit on three consecutive nights in the rain to charge his batteries. Batterie power was/is essential for the autopilot to work and for the electronic navigation systems.

So Skipper Ingo continued sailing singlehand to the Canary Islands reaching Tenerife on January 11, 2021, exhausted but safe and sound. Well – not really safe yet – because he could not start the motor. Getting close to the coast with a sailing yacht without having motor power can be pretty dangerous, so the skipper decided to set up a “Pan Pan Call” – a call for help. That Pan Pan Call was picked up by the “Salvavida Maritimo”, the Spanish maritime rescue organization.

An hour later they came with their tug boat and pulled Faule Haut into the port of Santa Cruz.

Luckily – already the next day – a new  starter was delivered from Las Palmas and was installed successfully by the skipper on the Volvo motor.

Two men crew flew in from Germany – Thorsten and Joel. These guys were so easy going, smart and a blessing for having them on the boat. We did some skipper training and had a wonderful time together.

The genoa got a tear again. Joel and Thorsten did a great job to stich it with a patch.

Unfortunately – the fock furler broke. So right now Faule Haut is waiting for spare parts again to get that fixed.

A few days later the crew flew back to Germany and Skipper Ingo’s wife arrived on the same plane.

Since then, they lived happily ever after.

They sailed south, looking for a good anchorage, which they found at Las Galletas and later at Los Cristianos at the southern coast of Tenerife.

At this very moment, June 25, 2020, 01:00 p.m. SY Faule Haut is leaving Cala Portinax, Ibiza Island to sail the last leg (95 nm) of her circumnavigation to her home port in Vinaròs, Spain. On board are Skipper Ingo and his best sailing buddy Skipper Benno. Benno joined FH on June 13, 2020 at Portimao, Portugal to accompany Skipper Ingo on his final leg.

ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) Friday, June 26, 2020 01:00 p.m., depending on weather conditions. 

 

May 15, 2020

While Suzana and Skipper Ingo were sitting on the foredeck to patch the mainsail, Benno was in the cockpit at the steering, when all of a sudden he shouted: “Something is smelling here. Smells as if something is burning. There must be something burning inside.”

Being 10 nm off the coast, it was sure that that burning smell must have come from Faule Haut.

Fire on board is really the worst case scenario on a boat. Terrified, we all hurried down the companionway. And in fact, it smelled as if some plastic was burning. Skipper Ingo turned off the power supply from the batteries. This of course killed the autopilot, so he ordered Benno to take over the steering while he and Suzana kept on looking for the source of the smell, putting their noses in every nook and cranny. They expected to find a short in some wire someplace. Skipper Ingo checked the house bank (batteries) under his bed. All ok.

It took them several long minutes to find the cause. It was the electric water boiler which in fact, got SWITCHED ON BY ITSELF, (nobody was using it) without having water in it, and then the thermostat didn’t switch it off. It started to melt the plastic what made that nasty smell.

The crew was relieved, that there was nothing wrong with the boat.

By the way, that water cooker comes from China (like the corona). It was bought at one of these China stores at Vinaròs. No more Chines crap on Faule Haut.

Losing the  Genoa

Right now Faule Haut received cellphone network from the southern coast of Portugal and is able to post this latest news about what had happened on her leg between the Azores and Portugal.

Another setback for Faule Haut on her last leg so close to her home port. Her foresail/genoa has been ripped to pieces in a storm.

Skipper Ingo had not intended to stop in Portugal but he will have to. He can’t sail anymore because he hasn’t repaired his mainsail yet, and unfortunately he lost the genoa in a storm yesterday. It had blown apart – unrepairable  – a total loss of a 3,000.- € foresail. Like the breaking of the last whiskerpole it happened while he was sleeping. After cruising for more than two years and seven months he got so much used to live and sleep on a rocking and rolling boat, that he hardly wakes up in a storm not even if the rocking gets violently. He woke up too late by the noise of the flapping remnant pieces of genoa. The genoa tore into two parts and they were flapping violently at the furling system. There was so much force on the sail and the sheets, that it took him four hours to secure the cloth and get it wrapped around the furler. He was scared that the furling system with the forestay would come down, so hard was the wind power working on that forestay in 40 knots of wind.

He was sailing with the genoa and the storm sail together and from then on only had the storm sail. With that alone he only made one or one and a half knots of speed when the wind calmed down to 25 knots.

He will have to take the genoa down as soon as possible and install the spare one. But he can’t do that on the open ocean, especially since he is sailing singlehand. So he decided to make an unplanned emergency stop at the port of Ponta Delgada, Portugal. He hopes to find some help there to pull up his second genoa. Also he will have some time to keep sewing on his mainsail, which could not have been used for over two weeks now. He hopes to finish his stitching and be able to leave the port with two working sails.

In spite of these problems Skipper Ingo is of good cheer, for here he has experienced another protection because the loss of the genoa happened so close to the coast of Portugal, about 80 nm offshore. If this had happened on the middle of the Antlantic, it would have been much worse (having neither the main sail nor the genoa). Being so close to a port, he decided to use the motor to get to Ponta Delgada. Since he left Guadeloupe he has sailed 3,822 nm and wisely has only used the motor sparingly only for eight hours. Thus, he has enough fuel to make it to the next port under motor.

When he was securing and fastening the remains of his genoa, the jib sheet on the starboard side fell into the water and wrapped around the prop. This scared the the skipper because now he was partially  unmaneuverable. He could neither sail properly with just a six square meter storm sail, nor could he motor. He had to wait till daylight next morning to dive down and clear the prop. To his surprise, he found another rope blocking his prop. So somehow, it was good that his jib sheet fell into the water. He would not have noticed the other rope blocking the prop.

Next stop, most likely, will be Queensway Quay Marina at Gibraltar for refueling. Supposedly, the diesel there is tax free and cost only 48 Cents.

The southwestern tip of Portugal.  Crossing the TSS (Traffic Separation Scheme / German: Verkehrstrennungsgebiet).

Crossing boats have to yield to the ones inside the TSS. Faule Haut just sneaked in before three other boats got close.

May 29, 2020

Jellyfish and dolphins

Over the last 1,000 nm Skipper Ingo saw lots of jellyfish passing by Faule Haut. He got curious what they exactly look like and caught one with a bucket. It’s one of the most poisonous jellyfish that exists. It’s a Portuguese Man o‘ War (German: Portugisische Galeere)

(The Skipper swears, its not a blown up fancy Billy Boy Condom in the bucket.)

It had long tentacles of over 6 m which glued to the deck when he pulled it on board. Its tentacles are poisonous and can do really harm to your skin. He had a guest on board at the Mediterranean once who suffered severe burn on her legs. There are people who are so allergic that they even can die if they get in contact with these tentacles. But they look kinda pretty, don’t they?  It looks like it is filled with air because it’s totally transparent, but actually it’s full of jelly. When Skipper Ingo poked in it with a screwdriver, it didn’t collapse strait away (like an air ballon) but took some time for the jelly to run out. Well – they are called jellyfish -that says it all.

After that, some dolphins showed up and where playing at the bow. I shot a video but can’t show it here yet.