The Levante Test

The forecast said 18 knots building to 25. The sky said otherwise. By noon the barometer had dropped 6 millibars in four hours, the leeward shrouds had started singing, and the levante — the local name for the southeasterly that owns this whole channel — was doing its level best to rename us.

We had planned the leg as a 42-nm hop to Port de Sóller with a morning start. It became a 42-nm hop with a 19-knot average, three squalls, and one moment where the wind jumped from 24 to 39 knots in about four seconds and the whole boat rang like a struck bell.

What we did

• Shortened the spinnaker pole, not the mood. The pole came in at 22 knots, early, before the boat was asking for it.
• Reefed twice before the waves asked us to. A half-reef on the main at noon, a two-reef configuration by 15:00. The boat was never overpowered.
• The radio stayed on the live channel. Two fishing boats and a lighthouse tender passed in opposite directions; nobody was surprised to see a catamaran working hard in the channel.

What the boat told me

A catamaran in a blow is an argument you are winning. She pins, she rails, she complains — but she never lies. The telltales on the shrouds said reef twenty minutes before the wind really did, and the accelerometers in the throttle box said slow down before my knees did.

The score

Sóller’s cove is one of the best-protected natural harbours in the Mediterranean — over there the levante is a rumour. We refuelled, ate horchata, and let the boat (and the crew) nap.

The crossing to Sardinia is on the table for Sunday. The table has plans; the sky has a veto.