06/10/2025
Day -1 of our journey home to the Caribbean from Italy. I say “-1” because yesterday, as we were preparing for departure, Travis woke up early to take the ferry to Naples to visit Immigration and check us out of the country. It had been windy all night, but as he started to get ready to leave, it started to rain. I was trying to catch just a few more minutes of sleep when I heard a very loud rumbling sound, and RumAway started to vibrate like she was being lifted from the water. A few seconds later, I heard a loud flapping sound, like a sail was unfurling. I went above deck to find that our large headsail, our “screacher”, had been pulled open at the top, and was trying to unfurl. This sail is rough to tackle in moderate wind with a crew of 4, but it was just me on board. So, in my pajamas, I headed to the front deck to check it out. I called Travis and asked his advice, and he told me I needed to try to lower it to the deck and get it under control if I could. So I started the process of lowering it to the deck, but the wind kept grabbing the sail. I was swept off my feet more than once, and every time I would get it a few feet down (and it’s probably about 50’ in the air, or at least that’s how it felt), the sheet would get knotted in the winch. So I’d have to let go and head back to unknot the line, and then head back up to the foredeck to try it again. The very frustrating part of this situation was that the 2 crew on the boat next to ours were literally sitting on their flybridge with coffee cup in hand, watching me get thrown around the foredeck. Luckily, our friend Tori Lockhart was on Procida as she was joining us to crew with us back to the Caribbean. So Travis called her and asked if she could hurry over and assist, which she did. After about an hour of wrestling with the sail in the rain and high winds, Tori arrived and as a team, we were able to get the sail wrestled down and secured. The guys on the boat next door gave me a thumbs up and just said, “you may want to put some ropes around it”. I am fine, a little sore for the wear after my wrestling match with the screacher, but I am honestly very disappointed in the state of the sailing community that in a marina full of people, no one offered to help. But - as my mother would say - what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! And stronger I am. So across the Med we go, headed home to the BVI. I’ll make sure to keep everyone informed the loop as we make our way back across.
It’ll be about 1,000 nm to Tangier, Morocco, where will will pick up our next crew member and some fuel before we head to the Canary Islands.
Here we go! Let’s hope the rest of the days are less adventurous!