Manuela

 

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Being picked up from a pontoon to serve as ballast was my first experience of sailing. The boat was a racing boat training for the Tour de France a la Voile and the pontoon was in Sete, south of France. I can’t tell you how exciting this was. It did not take long before my talent was discovered….Apparently, I had the right temperament for the foredeck (you may read what you wish in this statement… I like to think that it was my sheer fearlessness that got me there…). I then spent 2 summers in the Mediterranean learning the ropes, mainly racing around the cans, until I moved to the UK.

I rediscovered my passion for sailing and competing a few years later, when I met Ian. Ian had a Contessa 32, Moonshadow II, and was looking for crew for his Fastnet campaign 2005.  That was a steep learning curve, out on the water every weekend either training or racing. At this stage, I had never done any offshore racing and the weather in the English Channel was challenging to say the least. I had never been so wet and cold in my life. I resumed my favourite position on the foredeck ensuring that I would get real cold and real wet.  My too rare reward was playing with the silky spinnaker. Plenty of that in the Fastnet 2005, hardly any wind until we approached the finishing line, surfing on a following sea we managed a nice round 10 knots.

Our racing campaign of 2007 was the last one on Moonshadow II. We had to retire from the Fastnet, although the boat would have made it, the crew was a bit worse for wear, it was a tough race. We did hold on until the other Contessa 32 competing in the race gave up…. The subsequent years were spent cruising to all the places we had raced to and never had the time to explore, on both side of the channel… we were still racing in our minds, it’s just that the other boats did not know it!

Taking off on a boat for an adventure has always been the ambition and the dream… and it is finally happening! I gather I will have plenty of opportunities to get the silk out on the ARC….

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