TALL SHIP IN TENERIFE

Shipping aboard a square-rigger for some sailing in the Canaries was a chance to learn some new sail names and escape the northern hemisphere winter

- NIGEL SHARP

Bong, bong, bong... In different circumstances, this gently ascending three-note alarm might have led to a serious announcement such as “the train now arriving…”. Instead, however, we heard a jovial French accent: “Mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen,” said François. “Coffee, tea and the four o’clock snack are now being served on the aft deck.” Along with 13 other guests and seven crew members, I was on a sailing vessel in the Canary Islands.

We had all met on board for the first time in Santa Cruz de la Tenerife on a Saturday afternoon in January when captain Jakob Fremgen and his crew immediately made us feel at home. Jakob, a Dutch-domiciled German, came on as a deckhand in 2013 and has been captain for the past four years, sharing the role with Harry but now doing the lion’s share. The rest of the crew is a mix of professionals and volunteers, the latter including Maaike, who normally works as a coastguard in the Netherlands’ oldest lighthouse, on the island of Terschelling, and François, whose time onboard is an internship and part of an electrical engineering course. All the crew apart from Jakob and Françoise are Dutch, but “we have a big pool of volunteers from all over the world”, according to Jakob. Guests included five from the USA, two from Germany and the rest of us from the UK.

CLIMBING UP THE RATLINES