Chapter 9 is all about our time in Funchal, Madeira. In the book I explain how we had to transition from the westerly airflow of the North Atlantic to the easterly airflow in the south. See the diagram below. The winds vary north and south and strengthwise with the season, and to have the benefit of both required waiting for many weeks in Madeira.
Yacht cruising sailors visiting Funchal today will find a welcoming marina, see below. This didn’t exist in 1973.
In 1973, visiting yachts anchored in this same location, but off a rough stony beach, with only the shelter of the short stone quay (along the base of the photo above), along which strollers took the cool early evening air. The breakwater to the left and top of today’s marina didn’t exist (nor the pontoons).
The Aegre, being small and drawing little, could be anchored relatively close to the shelter of the stone quay.
In the photo above, the boat nearer the camera is Sven Lundin’s (Now Sven Yrvind) 20 ft Bris, (The Aegre was actually slightly longer than Bris despite the perspective in the above photo). Yrvind built Bris using the cold-moulded method, in a cellar in Sweden and sailed nonstop from Gothenberg to Madeira via the northern route (north of Scotland, west of Ireland taking 45 days) and would sail on to Brazil and Cape Horn. Sven’s sailing life story is remarkable.
An early question to us from people around the Funchal harbour was did we know of Paul Johnson and his boat Venus? We didn’t but soon learned that The Aegre was not the first Shetland boat to sail into Funchal.
In 1964 Paul Earling Johnson bought the 18ft Venus, a traditional Shetland Fourareen built in Foula (Shetland) more than 70 years ago, and in 1965 sailed her across the Atlantic to Martinique via Madeira and the Canary Islands.
The Caribbean became Johnson’s home, where he spent much of his life designing, building and sailing boats, becoming an icon of the ocean cruising world. He died in 2021 at 83, and is widely remembered.
In 1982 Venus was returned to Shetland from Savannah, Georgia, aboard the Troll Viking. Today Venus is in the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, southwest of Glasgow, Scotland.
There’s quite a bit on the web about Johnson, such as:
A Chat with Sailing Legend Paul Erling Johnson | Cruising World
In memory of Paul Erling Johnson – Classic Sailor
PAUL ERLING JOHNSON, LEGENDARY SAILOR (youtube.com) 1:18
Memories from the Sea by friends of Paul Erling Johnson | Blurb Books
A tribute website set up by Mark Boden http://mark_boden.tripod.com/id27.html
The Sailor – Official Trailer | IMDb After sailing the world, loving, drinking and living foolishly, Paul Johnson contemplates his life and death as he turns 80.
We never met Paul Johnson, but Madeira has long been a gathering place for cruising sailors heading out west.
Anchored in deeper water than Yrvind’s Bris and ourselves was singlehander Tom Blackwell and his magnificent 55 ft timber ketch built in 1937, Islander.
Blackwell, by then in his sixties, was in the Navy when he inherited the Cross & Blackwell (pickles anyone?) fortune. “Well” he told Julie and I, “I was orffff!!). He bought himself out of the Navy, acquired Islander, and had been sailing singlehanded around the world ever since. Tom became a good friend, but as I tell in the book, this would be his last circumnavigation. For more on Tom and Islander see https://classicyachtinfo.com/yachts/islander/
In the book, I also write about our friendship with local fisherman. They fished at night for the fearsome-looking Espada. They’d pass by us heading for the market in the early morning and often slip us a fillet or two with a ‘Expressao de aplauso’ (Bravo!).
From another yachtsman in Funchal, Pat Chilton aboard Mary Kate of Arun, I learnt how to work out our position from sunsights at 500 mph. Chilton was an old sea-dog and flyer worthy of his own book, see https://boats-from.co.uk/not-specified/camper-nicholson-38-sailing-yacht-200530/200532
In the book I also mention Heino and Brigitte Sass, aboard their yacht Brisa from Germany, heading west, who had the first quartz clock I’d seen. Heino and Brigitte eventually settled in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands. They became our lifelong friends.
In Madeira I write in the book about hauling out The Aegre to lift her waterline. Here are a few more pictures of that:
Shortly before we sailed on from Madeira, I tell in the book about John Ridgway, the 1966 Atlantic rower, and his wife Marie Christine, and daughter Rebecca (5) flying down to the island from Scotland for a short holiday, the adventure school having closed for the winter. We took them out for a sail and when becalmed a few miles offshore, went swimming. Not many five-year-olds go swimming in water 2.5 miles deep. Rebecca went on (a few years later) to be the first woman to kayak around Cape Horn.
Then we were off to the Canary Islands.
Back to Listing of all Chapter Notes
