Transition week as the AirBnB was rented on Friday so I am currently living onboard Zen’it. Had a peek at another Figaro 2 but spent most of the sailing week getting familiar with taking sun sights with the sextant and sorting out the sail program for Pierre and I as we both have sails that need some repair work and I had to pick up my UV genoa. I also cruised UP the coast for the first time and for some reason historically I always sail south. I docked at Sausset-les-Pins and spent the night on Pierre’s boat in Martigues. Unexpected cool town!

Figaro 2 – Hull 13

If you are not familiar with these boats they are purpose-built for a solo series here in France where the winners are well-known to the locals and awarded with laurels that might see them progress to Class 40 and races like Route du Rhum and Vendee Globe. The Figaro is now in it’s third evolution equipped with side foils and a canting keep. Version 1 has the same hull as Zen’it and Version 2, now a few years out of date is relatively affordable. It is designed for shorthanded offshore racing – it’s a tank with water ballasts and not much in the way of comfort. Outside of a few shipped over from the UK to a US sailing school, I think there is 1 in all of North America.

Celestial Navigation – Sun Sights

Finally! In an environment with both the sun and a horizon, we finally got a chance to get out the sextant and practice taking or ‘shooting’ some sun sights. This is essentially the process of using the sextant to measure the angle of the sun, up from the horizon. If you subtract that value from 90d, you get the distance in degrees between where you are and where the sun directly pierces the earth if it were to be attached with a string to the earth’s core. If you capture two or more of these ‘sights’ you can plot, to a fairly reasonable degree of accuracy where you are on the globe. I am currently in the process of learning more about this celestial navigation stuff as it adds to the overall experience of sailing and understanding how folks managed to get where they wanted to go before GPS.

We took several sun sights from the boat just out past Friole Island so we could some open horizon and later in the week I practices down at the shoreline by Le Petite Nice in Endoume.

Sail Changes and Repairs

The winds were pretty light this week so we took the opportunity to practice sail changes and to make a visual inventory of Zen’it’s sail program. We also noticed some wear and tear which resulted in a visit to the local sail loft for some repair work.

Sailing Routes

Heading North Up the Blue Coast

After many adventures exploring the south east coast, it was time to head north up to Martigues to visit Pierre’s boat. My friend Mimi join for the trip up and after some light winds at the onset, we found a constant 7-10 knots and made it to Sausset-les-Pins where we grabbed a beer and set up mooring for the night. Mimi caught the bus back to Marseille and I found one heading to Martigues to join Pierre. The whole scene there was unexpectedly cool albeit a bit tricky to get your boat to sea with a rather long channel and draw bridges to navigate – but I think that’s part of the unique scene in, “Little Venice”.

After a night crashing on Pierre’s boat (I don’t know how to spell her name so I’ll get back here on that.), we packed up some sails for transport and repair back in Marseille and hit the high seas after hitching a ride to the bus stop.

Sailing Routes