Season 3 - Broken but not Beaten

Our excitement was palpable as we arrived in Kilada, Greece at the Basimakopoulos Boat Yard on June 25th where Waiata had been on the hard over winter. She’d been recently polished to perfection and had a new coat of anti-foul applied to her hulls. She was all sparkly and proud sitting there in her cradle, right next to the yard offices. I like to think they placed her there as she’s such a sexy Catamaran and a perfect boat to show off, but then I’m a bit biased. The Basimakopoulos family who run this yard take expert care of all the boats who haul out there and we’d given them and their recommended contractors loads of jobs over winter to have her ready for the season. These jobs included a new solar array attached to the dingy davits, modifications to furniture, new blinds and sun shelters, cleaning sails, tensioning of the mast rigging and more. Some of these jobs were underway when we arrived but most were not and they seemed to only get going in earnest once we got here. That was a bit deflating initially until we accepted that this is the way it rolls here and we just needed to use all our powers of persuasion to get them committed to finishing the work - cash helped! Thankfully we’d hired one of the waterfront apartments the Basimakopoulos family own as we used it to base ourselves from while cleaning her up and working to help the teams of people coming onboard to fix stuff.

The day finally came to put her in the water, June 29th, and to say we were ecstatic doesn’t cover it. It was heaven to take our first swims in that beautiful ocean, turtles hanging out close to the boat, the sea breeze blowing, gentle rocking to sleep now. Very soon that afternoon however, Gavin discovered the generator wasn’t working. While it was turning on, it wasn’t putting power into the system. The generator is a key bit of kit for any boat, but especially an electric one. It’s kicks in when our power supply drops below 50% and ensures our motors and everything else (fridges, watermaker etc) works. This was a major equipment failure and everything Gavin (aka, McGyver) tried to do to fix it failed. When we tried to get a Fisher Panda fix it man on board, (this is the type of generator we have) it proved futile and the advice was to sail to Porto Heli (closer to Athens) where we’d have a better chance of finding someone to help. I was a tad freaked to sail to Porto Heli in the light sea breezes forecast without a generator, but this proved to be a great day, bigger breezes eventuated and we had a fun sail. We discovered our new solar array was kicking in a steady 900 watts per hour and the Oceanvolt motors, with recent software upgrades, were also contributing very much more significantly to our power supply. Once we reached over 8 knots sailing speed, (which we did quite quickly) we began putting in 1.2 kilowatts per hour. We were stoked with these new perks to our electric boat, (after having many moments regretting our decision to go electric, surely everything would be easier with diesel motors?) and fell back in love with her.

We booked into Porto Heli Marina, which is very much my favourite marina in Greece so far. The team there go out of their way to be of assistance, including getting you into your berth, and we were super grateful to be back. Now our work began in earnest, trying to find repairs for the generator. I must add here that during this period we discovered our new solar array stopped working and we also found our navigation system was broken. AND, our first guests were arriving onboard on the 3rd, (good friends, Pete and Mel from Christchurch) thinking they were going sailing with us, only to find out they were stuck in the marina with the Whites on a broken Waiata. Thankfully they were cheerful about it and we used the dinghy to head out to swimming spots in the afternoon, while drooling over the most amazing houses dotted along the coastline - holiday homes for the well-to-do Athenians. Because we were in the marina, we had air-conditioning for afternoon snoozes and during our nightly sleeps, yay! Porto Heli has great restaurants and shops and we were able to get out amongst it in the mornings or evenings, but the middle of the day was impossible with the heat.

It soon became apparent that we would get no joy at Porto Heli insofar as fixing these problems. So a decision was made we would sail to Athens where the Fisher Panda fix it people have an office. Meanwhile, Gavin had been on the phone to Germany, head office for Fisher Panda, and Athens, Fisher Panda and anyone who would listen, he kept harping on, help us! The story goes that many people, in multiple countries affiliated with Fisher Panda, knew our plight and of the pushy Gavin White on Waiata - they were trying their best to solve our problem. It didn’t feel like that sometimes, the frustration was huge. At our lowest point we discussed the option of hauling Waiata out at Alimos Marina and calling an end to Season 3.

Pete, Mel, Gavin and I set sail (without a generator) to what we thought would be Athens on the 6th of July. Initially it was great, we had a 25 knot northerly and had two reefs in. A few hours later it all but died and we had to re-route to Poros, which turned out to be a very pleasant spot. We were going to anchor off but spotted the town quay and decided to go stern to and charge up our very depleted power supply. Getting into the town quay on Poros was a bit of a nightmare, everything that could go wrong did, initially because I was dropping the anchor and didn’t realise ‘it’ (our anchor) hadn’t come out of its cage. The chain was going out and coiling upon itself in the locker and I was calling out the amount of chain on the remote, 20 metres, 25, 30 etc. Gavin then asks, ‘how does the chain look, is it tight?’ as he’s backing onto the quay and I realise I can’t see it. Doh, Pete ran up and showed me that the chain was just loading up in the anchor box, but our blessed Ultra anchor, never left home! Turns out it needed a push. Another faux pas from me and something we laughed about later of course! Eventually we re-anchored (still a bit of drama jostling with an aggressive Israeli charter boat) and had power and water hooked up in a perfect ‘people watching’ position on the main drag.

We dropped Pete and Mel off on the 8th of July in Poros, and were meant to be picking up our London friends Michael and Caroline to sail to Sicily on the same day. This was definitely not going to happen with the shape our boat was in. These friends also arrived to a broken Waiata in Alimos Marina, Athens in perhaps the hottest phase of the heatwave and witnessed the utter frustration and almost comedic crazy of trying to get the parts to arrive and the contractors to show up when they said they would. Gav was working it hard on the phones, I was coming in now and then with my American twang offering cash and big tips, and eventually we got there. When the generator was at last fixed I about hugged the guy who did it, we were on our way!

We finally left the Alimos Marina on the 13th of July, a fully fixed boat and we were so pleased we were able to have at least some time on the water with Michael and Caroline, versus in the very hot marina, where our only relief, apart from the aircon, was under the canopy we put up on the bow. We had a robust and fun sail back to Poros with them. Michael, with Caroline’s help, cooked an amazing sea bass dinner one night and we had some delicious nights out at tavernas too.

Our good friends and next guests Piera and Jamie from Christchurch, were supposed to be meeting us in Sicily on the 15th of July or thereabouts. From there we would cruise around the coast and islands of Sicily. They’d bought their tickets to and from Sicily long ago and thus they too became victims of Waiata’s malaise. We had a quick discussion on the phone before they were about to fly out to Catania in Sicily explaining that there was no way we could possibly be in Sicily until at least 10 days, could they change their plans and buy tickets to Athens? Thank heavens they were willing to change their plans and we picked them up in Porto Heli the same day we left Michael and Caroline on Poros.

From here the story gets better. The boat is fixed, the breezes are perfect for the most part and there’s great swimming. We sailed from Spetses to Monemvasia in strong winds, and thus arrived quicker than we expected. We enjoyed a nice explore of the old town and had an excellent dinner that night.

Knowing the distances we had to travel, we set sail at 6:30am the next morning from Monemvassia aiming for Elafonisos, and Simos Beach. To get there you go around Cape Maleas, also knows as the Cape Horn of Greece. As we got closer to the Cape, the northerly wind built and we quickly put in two reefs. I suddenly realised that I hadn’t got out the life jackets before we left so we all put those on. It was hairy and scary and I was so pleased to have Jamie on board as Piera and I hung on for dear life. The winds were in the 25-30 range with huge squalls that saw Waiata reach her longest sustained speed record so far of 18.3 knots. She felt like an airplane taking off in the gusts, seriously intense! Then the winds slowly eased and we made our way over to beautiful Simos Beach.

On Simos Beach, Piera and I walked the beach in the morning and the boys practiced their foiling behind the dinghy. While it was a bit windy here, all of us couldn’t get over the clear blue water, Jamie likened to Bombay Sapphire gin! We BBQ’d on board and toasted over and over our 18.3 knot speed record in getting here.

The next day we set sail for Porto Kagio, a mere 24 nautical mile journey. The last time Gavin and I had been here in season 2, it was windy and uncomfortable, not so this time. We had a gorgeous anchor and went ashore to dine at Porto where the lovely young man from Athens, Gabriele was our waiter and recommended the delicious fresh bream fish.

From there we had some no-wind days requiring motoring, to Finikounta and finally Pylos where I write this from. Piera and Jamie left today on a bus to Athens, their plans altered from the original ones they made, (like all our guests this year) but we did all have a fabulous time.

Gavin and I will depart in the coming days to Sicily. It’s a three day passage and I’m a bit scared to be honest, I thought I’d have another bloke on board, but with all the delays and changes of plans it’s not going to happen. In any case, we’re waiting for the winds to be just right, bearing in mind, we need wind to get there, motoring on an electric boat isn’t really an effective option. I’ll let you know how we go next post!

I’d like to thank a few people, Oceanvolt (and Marko) have been superb support to us when things got tough and in fact, played a part in fixing our generator. We are so impressed with the new software on the electric motors, the impact they make and their generous service as a company. Thanks also to Sonia at ITA Catamarans who had our back and worked the Fisher Panda people from Italy to get us help in Greece. Also, photo and video credits in many of the pics and videos here and on Insta/FB go to dear Jamie, thank you!

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Greece, Sicily, Tunisia

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Cruising in Turkiye and Season Finale