Wir packen das erste Mal unseren neuen Parasailor auf dem Steg der Marina da Gloria aus und bestaunen unser riesiges Logo

ISTEC – The Downwind Company

Most of you will probably agree that there is nothing that makes a sailing boat look more beautiful than running downwind with a huge spinnaker. We are more than just excited to get our lady out of this marina and give our brand spankin’ new Parasailor sail by ISTEC a try! A full 67 square meters of pure awesomeness are awaiting us, wrapped up neatly in its Easysnuffer. So, come on, mechanic, hurry up with fixing our motor already so we can head out and give it a go!

The Spinnaker disaster

We are excited to test this technological improvement of the traditional spinnaker, especially since now we have been instructed on how to best use it and things should go to plan. Unlike the first (and until now, last) time we used a spinnaker. You all know that we prefer trying things in practice rather than reading long manuals. Well, a while back, on our first long trip from the Salomon Islands to Papua New Guinea, we had already been rather curious what it would be like to sail with a spinnaker. And since we had one all wrapped up nice in the boat, we thought we would just give it a shot. No introduction necessary. We are sailors. We know things. This will be a walk in the park. That’s what we thought at least. And our first try was actually a success. Or so it seemed. We had managed to get our huge „red dragon“ up and it was filled with wind. But oops. We had attached it incorrectly and it was caught between mast and stay. So we took it back down. That’s when the red dragon decided to whip its tail and make the characteristic cracking noises of a sail gone wild. And after only a few seconds, the sail had wrapped itself around the stay, and said to us “Jack, I’ll never let go”. But unlike Jack and Rose, our spinnaker really did not let go. After 2 hours in the burning heat trying to untangle that mess, we had managed to get it off. “Should we try it again?”. Of course! Of course we should try again. We pulled it up, but to our dismay, it had caught onto something sharp and ripped completely from top to bottom. Damn.

We have never tried our luck again with a spinnaker ever since.

Us revealing a part of our new Parasailor at the Marina da Gloria. ISTEC sent us our sail with our logo on it! Sweet!
Us revealing a part of our new Parasailor at the Marina da Gloria. ISTEC sent us our sail with our logo on it! Sweet!

 

Of course, this time we double and triple checked every instruction in the user’s manual. Even though we were super excited, we refrained from opening the Easysnuffer all the way, so we just saw a small part of the sail. But that’s good enough for now. Looks sick! All we need now is for our mechanic to fix the motor asap, and then we will be flying up to our next destination!

Wir packen das erste Mal unseren neuen Parasailor auf dem Steg der Marina da Gloria aus und bestaunen unser riesiges Logo

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