We were up and awake very early for our sea trial and were queuing up for breakfast starting by 07:30. We had our continental breakfasts then kitted up for our sail in the bitingly cold wind and checked out the hotel.
We'd arranged to meet on pontoon 15, but when we arrived slightly early the boat hadn't yet made it through from the comissioning quay. However, Paul (MI Cats) soon turned up and explained that the boat was on it's way round and we were to meet at the Capitainerie pontoon, so we headed over just in time to see her pulling in with Ramon from FP at the helm. We loaded up quickly and headed out of the marina. One of the remaining jobs on the boat was the connection of the windex, so I'm not sure of the wind speed but would guess it was 10-12 knots, not ideal in terms of testing the water tightness of fittings etc, but ideal in terms of getting to see our spifurl which can only be used in light winds - it is designed for light downwind sailing, ideal fro the tropical tradewind route we are planning. Ramon put up full sail as soon as we were clear of the harbour and killed the engines. It was fantastic to be back under sail, though to be honest I was still struggling to take in the fact that soon they would be handing over the keys to this gorgeous boat! We were soon up to 7 knots and all was well, the seas were calm, so it was no trial for her and she was gliding along nicely.
Ramon then went to fetch the spifurl which being a lighter sail you do not leave out all the time to protect it from the elements. Kevin and I gathered at the bow to watch exactly how Ramon rigged it whilst Paul took the helm. It looked relatively simple, the furler clips to a D ring at the end of the bowsprit and the furled sail hoisted via our additional halyard. The furling line is then used to release the sail, it filled quickly and you could feel the immediate surge of speed. It looks tremendous when it is fully filled and it's hard to show in the photos the scale of these sails when they are flown but it is really impressive. Ramon had not used the Spifurl either before and there was a little faffing when we hoisted the sail, however this he did single handedly, so it wasn't so difficult though I think we will need some practice. The winds were a little variable so we didn't sail for too long with this sail, Ramon furled the spifurl in and had it back in it's bag in no time. We headed off around the bay before heading back in before lunch.
FP are obviously keen to get you to sign over ownership of the boat before you move about and start loading kit and discussion over damage marks etc get more complicated. Unfortunately there were still some jobs outstanding, which however they did plan on getting completed that day. I know there are a few people reading who will wish to know details, remaining tasks:
- Replace door frame to heads / bathroom - scratch found by MI Cats in pre inspection
- Replace heads door - poor fit found by MI Cats in pre inspection
- Connect up VHF, windex cables from mast - incomplete / found by MI Cats in pre inspection
- Replace transom deck shower hose - slight leak - found by Kevin
- Add additional blocks ordered for reefing lines found by MI Cats in pre inspection
- Resin drips in cockpit - to be removed found by MI Cats in pre inspection
- Remove scuff marks from bows - found by Kevin
Generally, not a bad list and as you can see Karen & Paul from MI Cats had really done all the hard work for us. Therefore, when we retruned from our trial sail to do our inspections we didn't really find much wrong. They also did an excellent job of keeping our list on the agenda with the 5 other bopats being commisioned that day from FP. Ramon was clearly very busy but made sure that what we needed got done.
This obviously put some pressure on us for our unpacking as I was due to be returning with the van on Friday to collect Alex. We started unpacking at 4pm via a fairly long walk down pontooms with no trolley (Ouch!), with the electricians finally coming at 7pm to complete the wiring so we could finally officially handover.
We finished unpacking the van, if not fully unpacking on the boat by 9.30pm, by which point we were shattered and hungry. We went in search of a supermarket whilst we had the van, but found that they don't keep such long hours in France. So we returned to Port de Minimes to find a restaurant instead. I insisted on going to the first one we came to, which just happened to be called Globe Trotter which seemed rather appropriate! Where we had a lovely meal but couldn't even managed the desert of our set meal before crawling back to the boat for our first night on board!
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