Through a narrow dredged channel and across another small estuary is neighboring Amora, where we finally found the deciding factor in our original selection of Portugal: Tagus Yacht Center, a haul-out boat yard with associated facilities. Next to its dock Kiwi Roa squelched in mud at all but high tide, and is surrounded by an assortment of depressing derelict vessels. But, Rafael and Sergio, sons of the original founders, have a 70 tonne travel lift, reputed good value for money, are DIY-friendly, accepting of liveaboards, and close to shops and other support.
Refits and the Algarve
Peter particularly liked this yard, the price was right and included power, water, some wifi if you have the range, and basic ablutions (the women’s was reasonable, but: the men’s is used by the yard staff). There are many boatbuilding and basic machine shop facilities available to those who are practical and know how to use them. Importantly for one of our jobs, they had a good certified welder on site. Recommended to us by a reliable friend, it was to be Kiwi Roa’s home for the next 10 months.
This was in the pursuit of a major refit for Kiwi Roa, including her rig. She had carried us safely for many thousands of ocean miles through some of the world’s hardest conditions, and had endured two major sailing accidents: one a knock-down in the Furious Fifties between New Zealand and Chile, and the other a half-roll between the Falklands and South Africa. The rig and all systems had survived intact to-date, but some damage was known – a broken boom gooseneck, broken strands in aft lower stays, and more no doubt unknown.
Peter disconnected the boom from the mast before un-stepping it while still in the water, an easier job while still against the dock. Kiwi Roa’s mast is 20 meters high and with all shrouds, attachment, and the furler weighs one tonne. With the boat cradled on the hard, it was time to get to work: a mast refit, spreaders re-painted, and preparations made for the hanked yankee to be replaced and a roller-furler added. The old hanked system had been starting to test the aging skipper’s limits.
Below was more major work: the routine anti-fouling recoat, of course, and also the re-polishing of Kiwi Roa’s unpainted aluminum hull which Peter likes to perform once every five years or thereabouts. More critical was a repair job on the keel, which we had badly damaged back in Greenland by slamming it into a rock shelf at five knots and violently halting the rest of the boat. This tested the hull (and rig) beyond reasonable limits and now the damage could be properly assessed. The keel on Kiwi Roa is a low aspect ratio fin, built with more of an eye on strength, draft, and practicality than sailing performance. It is filled with seven tonnes of lead, contained in a keel box of 10 mm alloy plate, which is welded directly to the equally thick hull plate chines. Above the keel’s ballast, the boat’s fuel tanks’ top and bottom plates provide second and third skins, not wetted this time as it turned out despite the keel’s side-plates having split away from the round leading edge. That solid bar of alloy had been dented back into the lead ballast, bulging the plate up to the fuel tank. The whole keel box had been shunted out of alignment with the hull, and the stress could be seen in circular cracks radiating through the underwater epoxy on the hull itself. An impact that would have ripped the keel or bottom out of most boats.
The next year, with the refit and repairs completed, Kiwi Roa was re-launched and Peter re-stepped the mast. We first stopped at the Seixal dock, a floating pontoon for local small boats, to clean the boat up after the winter’s work, and take delivery of a new Hydra Net genoa from Ullman Sails in Cape Town. The local sailmakers are not quite up to the task, and this was an expensive shipment. With a little nervousness, Peter hoisted it at the dock: a perfect fit.
Back to Doca de Alcântara to complete fitting the new rollers and tune the rig, and Kiwi Roa was ready to return to the winds and waves.
Kiwi Roa would depart Lisbon, and return again, several times over the course of several years.
One can venture back out of the Tagus to Cascais, where we had first made landfall, this time to the marina there, to wait for a weather window.
We also filled with diesel and had some work done at the on-site North Sails loft. The Atlantic swell surge can penetrate the marina at time, meaning much dock movement and surging vessels, and chafe problems with shore lines. We waited out an early winter storm – every now and then a big wave would spend itself against the marina breakwater, sending sheets of green water and spray tens of meters into the air.
Our first trip however was to get the boat out of the EU for the paperwork clock reset, and southward lay the answer. En route was the Portuguese Algarve, holiday and retirement destination of choice for many Europeans. It’s 165 NM from Cascais to the waters near Faro at the southern extremity of Portugal, well along the southern coast on the way toward the Spanish border and the Straits of Gibraltar. Here is a large protected inlet surrounded by a barrier of low-lying sandy islands with names like Ilha Deserta, running some ten miles along the coast, sheltering the beautiful Rio Formosa web of marshy wetlands and channels which form perfect anchorages. We dropped hook off the beaches of Ilha do Farol, a small fishing village clustered around the picturesque namesake lighthouse. The islands are pleasant but the right south-westerly conditions can make navigation dangerous. A significant breakwater guards the entrance between the islands, and the tide can run at seven knots through it.
Confusingly this island is also called Ilha da Culatra, and features a second village by that name on the northern side. Both house local fishermen, whom we found somewhat reticent – perhaps understandably annoyed with tourists and jaded by the hundreds of yachts that swamp the good-holding anchorages in summer. Many buildings are obviously abandoned, including houses and churches; the reality is seasonal tourist money keeps these places propped up. Culatra has three small shops, a bakery, and a few local bars and cafés catering to tourists. The locals use their fast small open boats to nip across to the mainland towns.
We didn’t visit the larger center of Faro city; it is a four hour run up-river and apparently the only anchorage suitable for Kiwi Roa would have been an hour’s dinghy ride away. There is a haul-out yard there that some friends were using. But instead, we managed to find anchorage off the smaller township of Olhão. This was our last mainland re-supply stop before leaving.
Resetting the EU clock
By that December we had finished the boat work, and come summer would head back toward Arctic adventures, but with time to kill and EU regulatory limits pressing on a non-EU yacht, the opportunity arose to visit somewhere a bit different: a new culture, in Arab North West Africa.