The sun was shining and a gentle breeze from behind was taking us slowly north to Borgholm on Oland island. We even had lunch in the cockpit with a table set! What luxury. I couldn’t stop grinning. On Drama Queen we passed round squashed sarnies from a plastic box. This is the life.
After lunch we tried the spinnaker for the first time. It came out of its bag where it had been rolled up flat like a bale of cloth for months, and crinkled in that lovely way only a new spinnaker can sound as it launched and filled. A beautiful kite. The carbon spinnaker pole is amazing; it weighs practically nothing and is so easy to manoeuvre onto the mast. More grinning.
Finally, we approached harbour and took it down, bundling it into the bag. Suddenly the bag which had seemed five times too big for the spinnaker seemed five times too small! There is no way that spinnaker will ever be so compact again. And now where will we store this enormous sail!
