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Capt. Jaroslaw Kaczorowski:
 Portoroz, Slovenia - Thursday, 11 May 2006
Two people came to fix the autohelm today. They had a decent suitcase with tools. They were also late, but only an hour. The first could only ask me and Goły questions and then had to call somebody higher in the hierarchy of experts for advice. The other one did only manual work. Obviously, they started by saying that the autohelm wasn't working properly because there must have been some tools somewhere near it. When it turned out that they were wrong, they took the computer apart - the brain of the whole system - took a circuit board out, cut something out of it, soldered something onto it, and it seems that finally both of our autohelms are working.
After their visit we organized a RIB, which towed us into the bay, and we enjoyed having a working autohelm for four hours. What an ingenious device! It can even tack through a chosen angle. And because of this Goły could mess about. He was leaning against the guardrail of the boat like a tourist, holding a tiller in one hand just in case the autohelm started going mad, and in the other, a camera made by a reputable foreign company whose trademark can be found on www.transat650.pl. From this position he gave me instructions like: "don't tie it up now, set this rope under that one, don't forget about this, do that". He was driving me nuts! Every single moment I imagined how good it would be to be the skipper of the boat with a crew, giving instructions from "the office". (This is what those at the bow call those at the stern. Those who sweat at the bow of the boat are "miners at work"). Today it was me who had to sweat. However after three hours of training Goły's relaxing day was over. I tried to collapse the spinnaker over the bow rail (pushpit) using Kuba Jaworski's modified method. Half of the sail went into the water and we had to struggle together to pull it up, and then set it once again to let it dry.
I'm bruised and battered (and me not! - ha, ha - but it was funny to see "El Capitano" writhe in pain on the bow - Goły's words) but every day I get to know the yacht better. After each sailing we've got a list of about 20 things which can be improved, but what's really consoling is the fact that these things become less and less important.
Together we are doing pretty well, but as for single-handed sailing... I have a lot learn.
 Translated by Anna Greczuk, consultant Joan Harris
Trainings in Slovenia (part 1)
Trainings in Slovenia (part 2)
Trainings in Slovenia (part 3)
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