They never towed and moored a sailing ship before.

With a bit of ferm organization, we went up and down with the tide moored to the wall for 3 days.

The cargo is on board, about 8000 bottles. The truck drivers never had to deliver 7 pallets to a boat, they couldn’t believe it.
No samples. We are looking forward hearing more about this beer. The beers have interesting names like Ulster black, Stony grey, or the Red right hand or Whiskey aged.

The harbor of Cobh is colorful, each house seems to be painted in a different color. It has been a while since the locals did see a sailing ship loading some cargo and the kids keep being amazed to see a real pirate boat. They were hectic.

Only some time for little maintenance and here we go to sea again. Yesterday evening a wet strong breeze was blowing. When we woke up, the sky had enough to make choppy water in the channel, squeezing our new fenders from the garage between the hull and the wall. At 7:00 it was flat and clear.
It was the best morning to go along the ebb stream.

One tug to get away, turn around, set some sails, jumping on the big swell at the entrance, set more sails, try to be on the windward side of the channel, feed more tow line, do not break it, get rid of the pilot before the swell passes over the 2m, ask the tug to beer away to draw our sails properly and make sure to make the corner of the entrance, and go quietly without noisy engines around anymore.
The tow line is off and we have to haul on like hell to bring it back on deck. All the gears are spread all over the place, it’s not chaos only useful precious lines attached to wing propellers.
Sorry Royal, you won’t fly high this time. I prefer to keep you furled and the crew, down here.

It is epic, it is windy, it is the best moment to go if we don’t want to be stuck in southern Ireland for the winter. Only 270 miles.
Tonight we jibed to replace the ship into the west when it was still possible. Tomorrow morning we’ll jibe again when the wind shifts. We adopt the jibe when the sea is too heavy because the foredeck gets super wet in a tack when we are facing the swell and bracing gets hard to haul on. Hopefully we can make it to Douarnenez in one tack after that, even if the wind will be stronger.

We are all happy to do it as we will be happy to arrive and find ice cream! Don’t ask me why there is always someone onboard looking for ice cream everywhere in the world at any season!!!

Anne-Flore