Portuguese Trade Winds

Ever since we've been sailing we've been told: hope for the best, prepare for the worst. When you're a Sailor, you know that things can go from a sunny, nice breeze to a sunny not nice breeze. Like when you sail along the Portuguese and Spanish Coasts on the Atlantic Ocean side. You have a pretty steady wind of 10 to 15 knots blowing from the North-North-East that pushes you gently down toward the South. Bon, that's theory. So we set sail from Camarinas to Muros on a Sunny and nicely windy afternoon to pass the Cabo Finisterre (the western most cape of Europe). And as any good sailor would do on a nice sunny afternoon with a gentle breeze due to the Portuguese Trade Winds, we prepared for nothing and were pretty confident that things would stay that way. Two minor factors were slightly neglected: increase of wind from the temperature gradient between land and sea (a.k.a. the sea-breeze effect) and the wind acceleration from the cape affect. So we're happy baby Sailors enjoying the quiet afternoon when suddenly the wind starts to build up. 18, 20, 25, 28, 30, 42 kts. And 42 kts of wind is not like 15 kts. Things get a little bumpy, the waves get a little crazy, and everything gets more complicated. Not really dangerous because NoLa was designed to sustain much more substantial winds but let's say things were a little out of control. We had all the sails on, and were going a hefty 9 kts down wind surfing on the waves like a pair of good dudes on a California Beach. Except our surf board was our house and it approximates 8.5 tons (the French ones, not the US ones). Things ended up perfectly fine and our trust in NoLa increased since we didn't even break an egg in the pantry. But even if in retrospect it was fun to sail Volvo Ocean Race style (take a look at YouTube, you'll get a pretty good idea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cojzm1Gf_fg&feature=relmfu because for obvious reasons, we did not record any image on our own ) we should have been ready ! That's why we know we're still baby Sailors.