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THE VOYAGE

What can we say, it certainly wasn't very adventurous, after all we have returned to places we visited already with Shaula3, the only novelty being a few anchorages that we had not visited before.

A quiet anchorage in Meganisi
 

The period spent in Greece was pleasant, with fine weather and not yet too crowded.    The 500-miles transfer voyage from northern Adriatic to Corfu and even more the return leg were once again the problem, especially due to the unexpected sequence of depressions, one right after the other, that required frequent and lengthy stops to wait for a fine-weather window.    So this reconfirmed that a quiet cruise from northern Adriatic towards Greece would require at least two months if limited to the Ionian islands, and possibly three or four to sail around the Aegean sea, but then the seasons must be taken into consideration:
By late April/beginning May the weather in Greece is already pleasant and there is no crowd, but it's still cold and often stormy in northern Adriatic; on the other end, in July the Meltemi begins and lasts until end September, when the weather in the Adriatic is unsettled once again.   Mid-July to mid-September is also the period when the crowd is at its maximum.

There are several strategies, besides leaving the boat there during winter: leaving early and going quickly to the farthest destinations, and then returning slowly with the wind at the back and waiting  september for the passage northwards is one of the more common.   Or, leave early and return early, like we wanted to do this year but failed because we were delayed by nearly one month and then were slowed by out-of-season depressions!
 

THE BOAT

This cruise has been the long-awaited opportunity for an in-depth test of the boat and all its systems: in general we are happy with the results, nothing was seriously wrong but only few minor refinements are needed.   The main problems came from the Raymarine instruments, especially due to a mysterious "missing GPS signal" error message that showed up from time to time. Dangerous problem, because it caused the autopilot to switch off and could be solved only after a general instrument-chain restart.  As far as we have been able to trace the source of the problem, it seemed to be related to a mis-handling of a message from the AIS receiver to the chartplotter, but so far we don't know how to solve it and Raymarine's technical support has not been much helpful.

Baby checks a position fix on the chartplotter
 

Another problem was with the autopilot's actuator (the electrically-powered piston that moves the tiller): perhaps a bit under-dimensioned, it literally unscrewed itself in two!    Probably, for an important passage it would be worthwhile to carry a spare piston or to install a more powerful model (which we did not install from the beginning due to space problems).

The performance of the new propeller has been a mixed-bag: on one side, the engine now is able to reach its rated maximum r.p.m. (3600), the fuel consumption is quite moderate at less than 2 litres/hour at a cruising regime of 2400 r.p.m. and manoeuvring under engine is good, but we lost speed: about 4.5 knots in flat calm, to reach 5 knots we need to run the engine at 2800 r.p.m. which seems a bit too much.   On the other hand, with the old propeller the engine was stressed and unable to reach the nominal maximum r.p.m.

And what about performance under sail?   Unfortunately we had few chances to experiment, when the wind was not too strong and forcing us to seek shelter!     The general impression is favourable, the boat seems to be s bit more responsive with light winds compared to Shaula3, while behaving similarly with stronger wind.   No surprises when sailing close-hauled, a notorious weakness of lifting-keel boats, with a bit of wave the bow angle with the wind is around 45 degrees, achieving a course-to-wind angle around 60 degrees, pretty much in line with what we achieved with Shaula3.

And finally, the accommodation which is quite good for a boat of little more than 10 meters with 2/3 people on board: the main difference with Shaula3, which was over 1 metre longer, is with the forward cabin which in Shaula4 is reduced to a "V" berth, the so-called "breton bunk".     Excellent the charting area, and reasonably good galley area, with the help of an additional folding work-surface.
 

THE CREW

This cruise was intended to be a test bench also for the aging crew, to understand what kind of challenge we could afford in the next years.

Unfortunately, 4 years have passed since when we purchased Shaula4, without having been able to use it for anything serious, and in fact we have almost reached our planned age limit.

Baby on watch while the boat motors in flat calm under autopilot

On the positive side, we fell into our on-board daily routine very easily, sailing for several consecutive days without any problem and easily handling crew work during moorings and anchorages.

Still, seven years have passed since our return from the circumnavigation, and during these years little health problems have left us less nimble and strong, and in the end less confident of our capabilities and more exposed to small accidents that only few years ago would not have bothered us.     Still able to sail then, but less willing to take risks and tackle challenging adventures.
 

NUMBERS

    - Duration:                   51 days total

                                  23 days effectively sailed

    - Total mileage:            1235 miles

      - average mileage:          24 miles per day

                                  54 miles per actually sailed day

                                 750 miles/month

    - Engine hours:              309

    - Fuel Consumption:          1.7 litres/hour

                                 2.6 miles/litre

The data talk of a rather slow cruise, due to the frequent, long stopovers to wait for the weather to improve.    The fuel consumption figure is interesting, definitely low but obtained at a very low speed, generally between 4 and 4.5 knots.
 

Continue reading at the "expenses" page
 

 

Webmaster: Gianfranco Balducci - email: gfbalduc@tin.it

Last Update: 07/09/2017

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