Northern Child - Last ARC Log to file with ARC

ARC FINAL DAY 11/12: Saint LuciaThis is it. We made it and we are now in Saint Lucia.While the last 24 hours have been eventful (including me doing an accidental Gybe at 2am, Christian up and down the mast and out to the end of the pole, a hale storm shower first thing in the morning, torrid sun and tropical rain...) What can I say that is more relevant than WE MADE IT ! ?After 14 days and 12 hours since we left Gran Canaria we are now in the Caribbean. Non-stop. Only using wind and our own hands and physical strength to get here ! We must be mad !I believe this has been Northern Child's fastest ever Atlantic Passage and we are glad to have contributed and experienced it. We know we have had some unusual big seas and strong winds which made the cruising much harder and challenging. read more...

Northern Child - Daily Log 14 - 11/12/12 - Shake, rattle and role!

Daily Run    201mDTT             205nm Lunch          Ham, Chorizo, Mushroom and Onion Tartiflette Dinner         Roasted Chicken Herb Provence with Mushroom and waterchesnut Noodles Well it was as if my daily log yesterday was a premonition!   Shake - So we furled away the genoas and put up the Spinnaker.  As the spinnaker filled at the top of a wave Northern Child accelerated like a dinghy - quite an amazing feeling in this 20 tonne yacht.  I helmed for an hour and NC was on fire, surfing down waves and hitting speeds up to 17 knots again quite regularly.  It's when she. read more...

Northern Child - ARC DAY 14: 10/12 (14.5N 55.6W) written by Adolfo

What a difference a day makes ! After the "interesting" couple of days I wrote about yesterday things changed a lot. It is amazing how much things change so much for no apparent reason even in the middle of the Atlantic in a boat with 11 "until-two-weeks-ago-totally-strangers" Things are looking bright. Everyone is happy to see the TO GO counter going down quickly. We all realise that we have around 40 hours of sailing left to complete this challenge and everyone is eager to achieve it. After reaching rock bottom sleep depravation in the last couple of days I have now transform into "sleeping beauty (not)". Yesterday I managed to sleep on deck for a couple of hours during the day, four hours on the bunk and another on the deck in the middle of the night....Well over 7. read more...

Northern Child - Daily Log 13 - 10/12/12 -Lucky number 13?

Daily Run    229mDTT             223nm Lunch          Hot Bacon, Cheese and Tomato BaguettesDinner         Spaghetti Bologniese, followed by home made Brownie Well lucky for us anyway.  Yet again for the 2nd day in a row, we had the best VMG (Velocity Made Good) in our fleet, better than even the faster boats.  Our 9.2knot VMG is speed towards target which is the ultimate measure of speed when sailing around a course or between 2 points.  Afterall, sailing at 20 knots in the wrong direction may be fun, but won't get you to the Rum! Of course whilst we are catching boats up, it is still. read more...

Northern Child - ARC DAY 13

Matt has been asking me whether I had already written today's blog... I guess he is curious as to how I relay events since last night. In short, a royal cluster sh*t night. It all started with a failed attempt to have a small siesta after dinner and before watch. Bad idea. Really bad idea. The boat was rolling and pitching like in the first few days and I was brutally thrown about the bunk for 3 hours, hitting either the ropes keeping me in the bunk of the side of the hull next to my bunk.... Add humidity and closed hatches due to wave and there it goes: by the time I got up to do my watch (10pm - 2am) I was a real raging monster. I felt bruised, boilt, sick and all on the back of 2.5 hours sleep in the last 24 hours. Not a good start to the night. Fortunately Richard and. read more...