After a dozen of wonderful sailing days, Europa finally docks in Vava’u in Tonga. After the gangway has touched solid ground, the voyage crew is free to roam around and discover the island while the deck crew gets busy; the sails are furled quickly, the tent is rigged above the main deck and the maintenance jobs start. The deckhands are sent in every direction, may it be aloft for some rigging repairs or down below to assist the galley team or the engineering department. On deck, our tasks may involve working with leather, paint, grease, wood or any material that involves some manual care to last longer despite the intense exposition to the ocean’s salty sprays. Our sails are no exception to this.

These few days in Tonga, although filled with fun activities like snorkeling and feasting with friends, are a good opportunity to lower some sails on deck. While sailing, small sail repairs are easily possible but it takes very calm and stable conditions to get our heavy duty sewing machine, Freja, out.

Freja lives tightly packed in the captain’s cabin, behind wood panels that you could mistake for simple furniture. It takes 4 people to lift her and another person to align the foot of the machine with its upper part when lowering it. It also takes a good amount of knowledge and patience to operate Freja as she does not hesitate to let us know when we went a bit too far with the thickness of our project. She’d also like to remind the crew that she loves oil, thank you very much.

Today, the main reason to drag Freja out of slumber is to give some love and attention to Desmond. Most of our sails have very standard (and boring) names like a “main topmast staysail”. But Desmond is far too unique to be satisfied by a name so common you could find it on another ship... Abi did mention she has a great-uncle named Desmond... but whatever.

Desmond lives behind the lower part of the main mast when it is furled but slides higher and closer to the mizzen mast when it is called to duty. This perilous journey towards the wind implies chafing along other lines, so Desmond was indeed very happy today to receive some attention from Freja.

Stay tuned for the next adventures of Freja and Desmond (and all the other sails...)