Maandag, 21 october 2000

Lazy days in Cannes

Goodmorning everyone, it is a Sunday morning, 15 degrees Celsius, clouded and about to start raining, no wind and no sun: Cannes, beautifull Cote d’Azur.

The truth of the story is that we have not sailed one single mile in the last three weeks. Lazy as we have become, finding new excuses every day not to move and start our planned trip southward. We keep meeting people here, who either know or recognise Sylphe from previous years. Looks of admiration and plenty of people who want to know more about Sylphe. This is one of the joys of being in an area, where old classic yachts are known AND appreciated. We have had some promo-cards printed for Sylphe and are handing them out on a daily basis; marketing at its most basic level.

In the mean time we made some new friends here: Roch and Sandrine and their kids, Martine, Christoff (skipper of Emilia), Matt and Sue of the Blue Peter, Jacques of the Milena, and more. All of them involved and dedicated to yachts. The atmosphere is great, knowledge shared and resources split. Everyone doing some kind of work, maintenance, cleaning or varnishing; getting the boat ready for the winter. We are the only ones that do not belong here and who have little or no work to do on our boat, as Sylphe is in top-condition. The really fun part of the last two weeks was to discover that everyone envies us for the interior we created on Sylphe. On whatever other classic boat you set your foot, they all have one thing in common, they may look beautifull on the outside, once you go below deck, you will find an old, worn-out, not looked after, impractical interior and layout. Money is obviously only spend on the outside-looks of the boat. Secondly it is clear that all of these boats are only used for regattas or day-sailing, and none is being lived onboard extensively. And thus the interior has not changed or received any looking after in the last decades. What a difference if people step on Sylphe. Clearly Sylphe has an interior, not only to our liking, but also nicely laid-out and practical. One can live on this boat. That was our purpose and we easily achieved it. And a surprise to many, who pay a visit.

To give one an idea of what kind of people we meet: one day we return from a sunny sail with Roch, Sandrine an the kids and we find somebody waiting on the dock. He says he knows this boat from before, leaves and comes back the next day with a copy of a book, dating back to 1957 with a photo of Sylphe in it. Although Sylphe is listed in the book under her old name ‘Ariel’, the guy recognised her and dug in his apparantly large library to come up with this unique picture. (You will find it on the opening page of the website: www.sail-in-style.com)

We talked to the secretary of the Mauric-foundation. Monsieur Mauric is the designer of Sylphe and quite a legend in France. He build so many boats; sail, motor and even rescue boats, that it still remains a miracle that he was capable of designing a boat like Sylphe in his early days. Thank you for having done it, Monsieur Mauric We are now in the process of trying to lay our hands on the book that was published in his honour with an overview of all his works. And yes, we finally found the drwawing with the sailplan of Sylphe under her present rig. So our library and search for Sylphe’s history came one step closer to completion.

The next day we find ourselves at the dinner table of Roch, digging through hundred of maps. Old admirality charts which virtually cover the whole world. He gracefully lets me have some of them, parts of the Med, which I am missing. Old detailed maps of bays and ports, like they do not make them anymore. Rod Heikell is invaluable to me, with his pilots and charts, but these maps still outdo him by far. And so, my charttable is filled up with maps of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta and other area’s. We have no longer any excuses NOT to be making our trip south, but we are still in Cannes. And no concrete plans to leave, partly because of the lousy weather.

The storm that hit the Northern part of Europe and France caused some havoc. Not only was it repsonsible for a delay of the start of the Vendee Globe, but it hit the Cote d’Azur as well. With winds from the South-West (and thus onshore) it caused some panic here for a day. Waves were building up to three/four meters and came rushing towards the shore, beaches and marinas. For 36 hours we had these enormous waves breaking over the outermole of the Cannes Marina. The beach-road was closed off as it was under water. The restaurants on the beach were in the water and right now they are still digging out the sand from inside the restaurants. Three boats that were on their mooring ended up ON the beach, not a pretty sight, but as long as it is not Sylphe…. The construction-work on the outermole of the Cannes marina faced some setbacks: the floating pontoons that they used ended up on the beach, a bulldozer was washed off the pier completely, whole square meters of concrete were torn away. So much for the power of the sea and the water. Sylphe was safe and sound and experienced no trouble this time. The only incovenience we faced was having to walk through knee-deep flushed parts of the marina, before we could make it to drier parts and the town. A storm like this, they had not seen in the last decade. Spectacular, but it is all over now.

Plans have changed as well. We will not be heading for Greece, immediately. We will go south to ……Tunisia first. For several reasons. The most important one being that we have not been there before. The second being the climate, the third one being the well-organised marinas set up for yachts to spend the winter (TV and telephone connection on the pontoon), the fourth Tunisia being a very cheap country. So we only have 500 miles to cover, in principle we could make it in 3 days, but we will take it leisurely. The trip will take us to Corsica, Sardinia (west-coast) and then directly Tunisia. We will go down along the Tunisian coast and will probably end up somewhere around Monastir, where there are a number of modern marinas. We will spend a few months there. The plan is still to be in Greece by the beginning of May, in time for the Lobster Run (see website for details)

In the mean time the Beaujolais Primeur will be coming out this week. Just another reason to hang around Cannes for a few more days,

Ahoy

Roland

PS The webpage is being restyled, go and see., Reinier and Rob, thanks enormously.

Still need clients for the LOBSTER RUN.