Slim Sailors: Tilos to Kos to Astipalea

Sailors tend to be thin. I used to wonder, is this because of some drug abuse sailors are prone to? But now I know: sailors are thin because they get exercise hanging on to heeled-over boats and not eating during passages (it’s too hard to get food).

Right now my arms are aching. I hadn’t eaten all day but the first thing I did when we stopped was sleep, I was so tired.

A few days ago we left Tilos intending to head to Astipalea. Astipalea was in a NW direction from Tilos and the weather forecast was 20 knots of wind from the north and 1.5m of waves. We wanted to go to Asitpalea as a hop off point to head south down to Crete. That would be a long sail but doable.

As soon as we got into the open water we had 30+ knots of wind and easily 3m+ waves coming to us from the north. I tried going NW for a while but it was clear this was not going to be a very fun passage. Victoria suggested we head north to Kos.

Going north to Kos was better in that we were not being smashed by waves from the side, but we were still getting very large waves coming straight towards us. I was running the engine at a speed that would normally have given us 7.5 knots of boat speed….we were going 4.5 to 5 . The force of the wind and the waves hitting us from the front was slowing us down a lot. The bow of the boat would sometimes point 30 degrees down, and then 30 degrees up after a few seconds. I watched, but I never saw the point of the bow go under water….but it was a near thing. A few times we had big waves wash over the bow. I watched rivers of water go by me on each side of the boat as the seawater drained off (as designed).

It was a lot like being on a carnival ride. We have a bimini (enclosure) for the cockpit that can be fully closed. We had most of it done up so we don’t really get the wind in the cockpit. I usually open the top corner at least by the helm position so I can get a clear lookout. It is not cold or windy where we are just lots of boat movement.

After 7 or so hours of being tipped back and forth in Posideon’s bathtub (I have an image of baby Posideon splashing around making these big waves) we got to Kos and anchored at Kardamena beach. I had heard of Kos and always wanted to visit. Kardamena apparently is the party place to go for Greek beaches and drinking. There were bars lined up along the beach. When we went ashore they were mostly empty except for handfuls of older travellers taking advantage of the off-season rates (the day temperature was still 23+ although it was windy).

The next few days were too windy to sail comfortably….so we hung out at anchor. It was very windy….fairly steady 30+ knots of wind from the north (the famous Meltemi winds) and even being on the south side of Kos we were not protected. We were maybe 300m offshore and the winds still whipped up sizeable waves. We were comfortable though because the waves were head-on to the boat (we point into the wind at anchor) so we don’t get the side to side motion that makes sleeping a bit miserable. We had a nice day trip to Kos one day while we were there…..it’s too bad we couldn’t have stayed longer or visited the main port.

The forecast was for the winds to have reduced by Wednesday and to continue to reduce through the day so today we left for Astipalea.

The winds seemed more than forecast, and as soon as we were outside of the wind-shadow of Kos we had 35-40 knot winds and big waves. The winds are not really an issue because we can reduce sail (which I did) and the waves were coming at a 45 degree angle to our direction so even though the waves were 3m+ it was not so bad. Plus we were sailing! We were doing 7 knots with less than half a jib, no main and only mizzen out.

It was just over 40 nm to Astipalea, so we were expecting 7 hours or so of sailing. After the first few hours the winds reduced slightly, high 20s gusting 35 occasionally but the seas kept getting bigger. It is hard to describe, but I think a list of experiences of the next 4 hours or so will help:

• The boat would go from heeling -20 degrees to -45 degrees to +10 degrees then back to -20 degrees in a few seconds….repeated about once every 20 seconds
• waves would wash over the front deck of the boat, and sometimes the back deck
• a few times we got the equivalent of a bucket of seawater through the opening of our bimini, which is at my head height
• looking out from the helm position, I would look over to see a wall of water higher than my head moving towards the boat
• the boat would be lifted maybe 3m, then lowered 3m, then moved sideways 3m in the space of about 5 seconds
• the boat would be lifted and then would move sideways to our direction with an entire wave

At no time did I ever feel I was in danger, or the boat was in danger…..but Victoria did go from being scared to screaming a few times to finally trying to sleep. At one point she insisted that when looking over the side of the boat she could look down the equivalent of 3 stories. This would have been a fun thing to do with your buddies as a big adventure to see who was going to be the most scared…..not a great thing to do with your Victoria who can still get sea-sick!

The fascinating thing is that we were travelling on a machine that was performing perfectly in an environment it was built for. The boat was totally fine. I had the right amount of sails up, and a good direction to the wind, and the autopilot was steering. All I had to do was hang on and I was going to get to where I was heading!

Spruzzo weights 16,000 kg. A 2020 BMW Model 3 weights less than 2100 kg….so we are sitting in the water with the weight of over 7 BMW Model 3s. 5000 kg of Spruzzo’s weight is in her lead keel, so whenever a wave or the wind pushes us sideways that big heavy keel gets moved higher and starts pulling us back down. If you look at the shape of Spruzzo’s waterline and below, you can see that the shape is narrow at the front and gently curves out, and also gently curves up at the back. What this means is that when Spruzzo is pushed by the water, the water can start moving up and gently moving the boat: if Spruzzo was wider and had a flatter shape the movement would be much harsher. When I’m describing how the boat was moving, the movement we were experiencing was just about as gentle as possible for a boat of this size. Sailors call this a ‘sea-kindly motion’.

Spruzzo is totally happy in this weather, and if she could talk she probably would have said that this was a nice outing for her……meanwhile I am hanging on trying to keep my body vertical with respect to normal gravity while the boat is moving in all kinds of directions. This is a lot of work for your legs and your arms. Hence skinny sailors. When we finally arrived I was exhausted. People always say that your boat is way tougher than you are and now I know what they mean.

Eventually we got close to Astipalea which was a relief….except the waves got worse! Instead of just coming from a 60 degree angle to the boat they were now sometimes coming directly sideways (not good) and sometimes even from slightly behind the boat. They also seemed to have gotten bigger. I think this is because the waves wrap around the island and are forced to change direction and start adding together in different ways.

In any case I wanted to have more control over the direction of the boat so I started the engine and pulled in the jib, and headed at best speed toward the beginning of the island where I expected the waves to be much reduced.

After 5 hours or so of being rocked and rolled we now had 45 minutes that were even worse as we got closer to the island. Finally we got behind the island….and the crazy waves were done. We still had 30 knots of wind but the roller coaster was finished. Another 45 minutes motoring and we anchored.

What a day! If you want adventure get a sailboat and sail in the Mediterranean in October! We saw 2 boats smaller than us going in the opposite direction. I can’t imagine being on a smaller boat in that weather.