Today the expected calm turned out to be a very short one and before we knew we were making good progress again.

Meanwhile captain Hans grabbed the opportunity offered by the flat seas to have the spanker gaff boom mounted. Having been sanded and varnished at the wharf and on the way out the enormous shiny stretch of pine wood still lay next to the “broodkar”, our dutch name for the housing of the steering gear. I watched in awe how under the skillful coaching of our bosun Natalie a team of ten crew used some nine different lines to get the enormous thing in its proper place without ever losing control for even a millisecond.

After lunch we proceeded with a man-overboard-drill. It’s incredible how quickly the crew had all the sails down, the ship backed up next to the buoy we had thrown into the water as a “Man”, the two swimmers in full gear next to the ship and the “victim” hauled aboard. Within some ten minutes everything was over and I could start assessing the health of the victim. Needless to say it survived. Fortunately the procedure was performed in nice and sunny calm weather. Of course men – or women for that matter – rather tend to go overboard in stormy nights but there is nothing like a trained crew.

After a wonderful LOD or Lunch On Deck we were ready to once again set sail and set off into unknown futures……….