Did we miss the on-ramp?

Some of you have expressed a sense of bewilderment while following our course in the past 36 hours. From why do we seem to be heading north to Nova Scotia? To, wait, now we must be going south to Venezuela to visit Chavez. The answer thankfully is neither. We continue to Spain via the Azores, it is just that in sailing the fastest way to get from point A to point B is most often not a straight line.

This fundamental truth in sailing compounded by winds that were blowing opposite to what would be considered "normal" in the North Atlantic, would give anybody looking at our route the impression that we had just missed the on-ramp. Specially when considering that for the past 12 hours we have been sailing East. As if we were first lost and now have found our way. I think it was that 2,184,596th wave left of the dolphin to be exact where we should have turned...

Some background, in the Atlantic for the most part winds tend to blow in a certain way. Clockwise around typical high pressure systems in the middle of the ocean. That is why people going east typically take the northern route and people going west take the southern route. The exceptions are the Europe to Newport regattas which takes the northern route because it is the toughest and you end up having tack back and forth A LOT thanks to the winds coming straight at you.

So we are heading north-east in a nice curvy arc to the Azores when over a period of time we notice that wind was now blowing straight at us which is highly unusual, we opted to go straight north for a while hoping for a change back, nothing. So we headed back south to not get too close to Sable Island and just as strangely as the wind had shifted earlier it shifted back so we headed back east and are cruising once again.

The only take away is that nothing is "normal" in the Atlantic and we will do our best to not again miss the on-ramp or accidentally get off the highway by turning on the wrong wave.

12:33:37 PM    comment []

COB Alarm

Some of you may be familiar with the term MOB (men over board) Many of today's equipment has a button with the acronym MOB just for the purpose of recording the location of a person should he/she were to fall overboard. On Wednesday we had a need for COB button or alarm. COB (and my father wants full rights to this term) stands for clothes over board. Yup, you heard me right, CLOTHES, as in a bag full of them that were in the process of being washed.

Taking advantage of the very light seas on Wednesday, my father tied one of those mesh bags used for separating clothes in the washer to put a bunch of clothes in them, soap them up and then rinse them in salt water. Except somewhere in the process the little rope used to tie the bag together broke from the stronger rope we had on the sailboat as my father watch somewhat incredulously as to what was happening to him. Those were some of his clothes that had kept him warm during the rough seas and cold of the storm, except now they were floating, kind of, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Since we didn't have a COB button we used the closest thing we had the MOB button which recorded the location of when the button was pressed. That is a little piece of reality here. MOB doesn't track the location of anything on the water. They only way to do that is to have a transmitter on whatever felt overboard. It tracks the location the sailboat was when the button was pressed and that is normally a sufficient enough approximation for someone with a bright red live jacket or live saver doing their darnest to make sure you see them. Clothes somehow don't do that and as we later found out impossible to find once they are "sort of" floating and not quite visible on the surface.

But my father's face of astonishment was only second to José Manuel's surprise face when he accidentally pulled the self inflating lever on his life-jacket-harness. Just like that he had been transformed into one of those birds you see in National Geographic or Animal Planet with their necks all filled up during their mating routine. Somehow, to my bewilderment, I don't have a photo of this event. I guess in between the laughing my head off and peeing my pants I forgot to capture the moment for prosperity. He shall not be so lucky next time ;-)

5:52:13 AM    comment []

Sobre el nombre O'Comillas
por Er Ñero José M. Aguilera

El O’Comillas, así visto, se porta muy bien. Hace honor a su legado histórico. Nuestro amigo Emilio Martínez nos envía desde Madrid la información de los homónimos. “El Buque "Marques de Comillas" fué botado en Ferrol, Galicia, en Marzo de 1927. En 1961 tuvo un incendio en los astilleros de Astano de Ferrol y debido a los grandes daños y su edad se optó por no repararle y fué desguazado en 1962. Eran 2 buques gemelos, Marques de Comillas" y el "Magallanes" los cuales entraron en servicio en 1928. A pesar de ser gemelos su acomodación para pasaje variaba en cada barco, y era aproximadamente de 145 pasajeros en Primera, 50 en Segunda y 40 en Tercera, con grandes variaciones en Emigrante que variaba entre 530 y 830 dependiendo del barco. Los emigrantes eran alojados en literas situadas en los entrepuentes. En posteriores reformas se les reconvirtió en tres clases: Primera, Segunda y Turista”. (Andrés dice que viajó en primera….. pero en realidad lo que quiere decir es que fue la primera vez que viajó..... y fue en clase emigrante.

En lo que respecta al personaje, el mismo se trata de Antonio López y López, nacido en el pueblo de Comillas, Cantabria, en 1870, de familia humilde, quien amasó una gran fortuna en Cuba, (la “masa” de Andrés fue en Venezuela, a pesar de que inicialmente emigró a Cuba), compró el Palacio Moja de Barcelona, a tono con su nueva riqueza y en 1875 pasó a ser su residencia, emprendiendo obras importantes de reformas y decoración. El palacio que anteriormente fuera mansión de nobles, pasó a ser centro mercantilista del nuevo rico. En 1878 se le nombra Marqués de Comillas, pasando a ser noble y por ende senador.

La entrada de la familia Comillas-Güell en el Palacio de Las Ramblas, se tradujo en una ornamentación barroca influida por las nuevas tendencias francesas que proponían el regreso al clasicismo y a la sobriedad de líneas, especialmente en la llamada "planta noble", con los consiguientes salones rosa, azul y verde.

El marqués de Comillas estaba muy vinculado a la monarquía, (obviamente de esa forma consiguió el marquesado, por lo cual después de este viaje, estamos pensando pedir un título nobiliario para cada uno de los tripulantes del O’Comillas: Duque de Ares, Conde de Denver, Marqués de Porlamar … etc.), y especialmente a Alfonso XII, el cual al entrar a España después de la Restauración, durmió en el salón azul de esta mansión. En 1886 también fue huésped de honor San Juan Bosco de cuya habitación aún quedan recuerdos.

En 1891, el marqués de Comillas instaló en el segundo piso del Palacio las oficinas de la Compañía Trasatlántica de la que era fundador y presidente, teniendo la exclusiva de la ruta entre España y Las Antillas. El marqués, por aquello de que la cultura "ennoblece", fue el mecenas y protector de Mosen Cinto Verdaguer, el cual le dedicó su obra La Atlántida. Mosen Cinto pasó a vivir en el Palacio Comillas (1876 a 1891), en la segunda planta, en una habitación extremadamente austera a la que difícilmente llegaba el ruido de las ajetreadas Ramblas. Celebraba misa para la familia en la capilla anexa al salón principal.

¿Cómo les quedó el ojo?

5:52:11 AM    comment []