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05/12/2011
Cheeki Rafiki - Day 16 Continued
10 Reasons why we like Force 1 (1-3 knot) winds mid Atlantic (every cloud has a silver lining but do any have any wind) 1/. We finally get a chance to fish without trawling at 9 knots. 2/. Taking sextant sun sights is really easy as the boat and horizon are not jumping up an down in opposite directions 3/. Plotting sun sights does not involve the error of the run between sights as you have not gone anywhere! 4/. The crew can rest/catch up on sleep 5/. If you are in your bunk you don't get flung from one side to the other every 12 seconds 6/. Cooking no longer takes place at 45 degrees 7/. The kite trimmer does not require a grinder 8/. There is no weather helm 9/. The leg of ham hangs stationary in the middle of the saloon and instead of assaulting anyone who.
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05/12/2011
Butterfly - Monday Day 15
Mark: Sunday was one of those days where the wind blew old boots, the rain was truly tropical and horizontal and any sunshine was missing from the sky, could have been in the Solent! Somehow Rob managed to cook roast lamb with Roast spuds, amazing!! but then it was Sunday. Crib with Mike was suspended due to the risk of getting the cards wet. Kenny, Simon and Lee have been taking lessons in how to start a Yanmar engine and all passed the test at last! Hope to be in St. Lucia soon. Love to all Mark Mike: 200 miles to go, the wind has dropped and the sun is back out, this is more like what we expected from the Caribbean. The whole trip has been made with little assistance from the engine, now with hardly any wind we have been using the engine, only problem, that is was not working,.
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05/12/2011
Bandido - Log day 16
Hi everyone, We reached the half-way point last night, all is well aboard Bandido, we have had some great sailing with the cruising chute over the last few days, yesterday we went through the tail end of a cold front so we dropped the cruising chute and used normal sails, it was very overcast and humid, the wind had picked up a little and the cross seas were a bit uncomfortable for a while, but the seas soon settled out so it was time for the cruising chute again, we are certainly getting well drilled in using the chute. We tried our hand at fishing again yesterday, we had two takes both mahi-mahi but only small and they both dropped back into the sea as they were about to be landed. We are getting a little low of fish in the freezer so need to stock up soon to keep Gus going on the BBQ.
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05/12/2011
Whippersnapper - Day 14
Well Phillip's Mahi Mahi BBQ last night tasted beautiful and we also enjoyed a beer to celebrate the 2000 NM mark :) We even had enough fish for lunch today as well. This morning was a beautiful clear sky and we were all starting to feeling good about being in Saint Lucia soon, the water is now 18.2 degrees and the air 30 degrees. Funnily we again spotted Fry Flyt as they passed within a mile of our stern. This afternoon though was very humid and sticky and the windy slowly dying… shame the forecast is now for light winds tomorrow, there goes our Wednesday arrival. We needed to average over 7kts and as I write this (it's 7am Monday - end of my watch) we're down to 5.5kts :( One of our lifetags has died (electronic bracelet we wear that alarms if we go over a certain distance from.
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05/12/2011
Whippersnapper - Day 15
The wind is back, almost… currently we're reaching (sailing across the wind) in 15kts and doing about 7.5kts which may just get us in on Wed 7th before sunset. We certainly lost time overnight with some averages around 5kts so we're all looking forward to downloading a new weather forecast today to see whether we'll make it or not. The idea of arriving in the dark doesn't impress us but there's not much we can do about that! Hopefully too as we approach Saint Lucia we'll start seeing more yachts we as all converge on one place again. We can see one yacht this morning but nothing else since Fry Flyt yesterday. Just as I type this the nearby yacht called us on the radio, it was La Chunga II. Nice how everyone calls to say hi :).
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05/12/2011
Paraty - Tag 15 / noch 415 nm bis zur Suesswasserdusche...
Ein geradezu aktiver Tag liegt hinter uns. Unser Ehrgeiz ist erwacht am 7.12. anzukommen. Und so mussten wir auf nachlassende Winde reagieren, die Kaffeetasse aus der Hand stellen und den Spinnaker setzen. Eine sehr gute Entscheidung, denn mit durchschnittlich ca. 7 Knoten konnten wir in der Nacht einige Seemeilen gutmachen. Gegen Abend tauchten auf dem Radar wieder mehrere Squalls auf und fuer einige Zeit sah es so aus, als ob diese sich unmittelbar hinter unserem Schiff zu etwas groesserem vereinigen wuerden. Andre hat sich jedoch nicht aus der Ruhe bringen lassen, denn er war gerade damit beschaeftigt eine Playlist fuer den Abend zu erstellen. Den beiden Squalls backbord und steuerbord achteraus sind wir durch abfallen und anschliessendem anlufen ausgewichen und so streifen sie uns.
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05/12/2011
Aniara II - Dec. 5
5 December 14.00 (local Aniara time) Another giant (15 kg) mackerel was caught yesterday. The fishing rod is now locked in and safely stored in our safe since we have almost a whole pig to eat. A few single oranges and apples left, from tomorrow we have to test our canned fruit. Last night spent in low speed since the wind disappeared but the gennaker is still proudly up due to strong Tesa-tape and smart foredeck-work. Fantastic weather today, sunny, more than 30 degrees in the sun and 28 degrees in the water. Lucky us!.
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05/12/2011
Cheeki Rafiki - Day 16
Last night Ivan and I came on watch at 0200 to experience the best rain shower yet, in seconds we were dripping in fresh water and the torrential downpour lasted for about 20 minutes, as always however we did not know how long it would last and dared not lather up with shower gel for fear that the rain might stop any second, leaving us covered in soap but with no way to rinse off. Winds throughout the night were shifty resulting in spinnaker up, spinnaker down, spinnaker up, gybe, gybe, gybe, spinnaker down, pole out headsail, gybe, and so on. On that point the blue ocean spinnaker that was resurrected by the sweat shop a few days ago came back out to play yesterday. We hoisted it carefully and all watched with bated breath as it first filled with wind. Everyone thought's were.
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05/12/2011
EH01 - LOG DAY 15 - Happy Birthday Wing Commander
'.....There we were, sailing accross the Atlantic.....' Today is Wing Commander Birds 63rd birthday, so Happy Birthday Birdie! What a glorious day you have for it too; the skies have cleared up, sun's well and truly out, its stonkingly hot and we are sailing towards St Lucia.It has to be said quite slowly as the wind is very light so VMG is about 3.9kts but at least we are going in the right direction. (VMG is velocity made good and roughly translated indicates how fast you go in the right direction bearing in mind this aint always possible given the nature of wind direction, points of sail etc) Apart from that nothing to report as of yet today, it being only 0845 ships time, thats1245 GMT for you lot back in good old Blighty.GMT is of course Greanwich Mean Time and the home of world.
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05/12/2011
Lancelot II - Day 15
Lancelot 2' at sea,14'15.0N 57'09.4W 5th December 2011 1300 UTC Speed ? 1-3 knotsWind ? Variable 2-5 knots A very frustrating 24 hours has past, we are sat 220 miles from St Lucia and those lovely cold Rum Punches and beers and we are sat in very little or no wind. We have managed to make around 30 miles in the last 12 hours and the current ETA is showing us arriving at some time around Christmas! This of course will change, (we hope!! :- ) A weather download will be done as this e-mail is sent out and hopefully some wind will be forecast.Because of no wind we have had a very relaxing time last night, there was no wind at all at times so the wheel was lashed of with Lancelot II pointing in the right direction, and a lot of sleep was had by all the crew. The.
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05/12/2011
Endo 2 - 15. Seetag
In der Nacht hat es ordentlich geregnet und auch seit heute wissen wir, was tropischer Regen ist. Der grosse vorteil, das Schiff ist wieder sauber und die scheiben vom Salz befreit. Nun, die Sonne hat sich auch noch recht gnädig gezeigt und alles getrocknet. Unsere tägliche deutschsprachige Funkrunde hat bei unserem Skipper den Ergeiz geweckt. In der Runde wurde nämlich über die Längen der gefangenen Fische debattiert. Nun wir habenbisher von den Einkäufen in Las Palmas gelebt und noch keine Angelversuche gestartet - so aber heute... und siehe da, eine 82 cm lange Goldmakrele konnte dem Köder nicht widerstehen und wandert nun in unseren Magen. Leider haben wir auch einen Verlust zu melden; unsere Solardusche hat ohne ein Wort des Abschieds.
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05/12/2011
Lancelot - Day 15 - Sunshine and steady Breeze???????????
Morning AllThis morning finds us moving again after a very wet and changeable night. During the course of the night we have had a number of squalls pass through delivering numerous unwelcome showers. We now have a new rule onboard that we don't mind the rain if it brings wind but rain without wind is just unsociable!! We also found ourselves sailing almost every point of the compass from due south to due north at times just to keep the boat moving in the squalls! The wind has swung round to the south and we are now reaching towards St Lucia, the boat is now heeled over at about 40 degrees but at least it is fairly stable after the rolly conditions of poled out downwind sailing. Our ETA is still undecided as we are expecting the wind to go light on.
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05/12/2011
Glass Slipper - 5 Dec 2011
Monday, 5 December 2011 Yesterday we celebrated our midway point to St Lucia. Ben our first mate from Gibraltar took over the galley. It was wonderful – he’s a wonderful cook, but he far prefers being a sailor. At our noon meal we were treated to Cottage Pie – it reminded me of being back in a pub in England. Later in the afternoon – at tea time – we were treated to a special pudding made by Tarryn. The recipe is her mother’s and it was wonderful. It really hit the spot. Shortly afterward we had our evening snack. Ben made a delicious Spanish Omelet, along with Spanish ham, and various cheeses. We ate a lot more than normal yesterday – it was blended with good stories and lots of good laughter. We think we are now about 10 to 11 days out.
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05/12/2011
Saltwhistle III - Day 15 - better
In the words of the song "what a difference a day makes"... after yesterday's blog the wind piped up and came round to the south east which let us broad reach at 7 kts towards St Lucia. This is a much better course for us and lets Saltwhistle really romp along - another 150 miler done. Rach got the surfing record at 10 kts. We held the wind and direction overnight and made good progress - currently have 760 miles to go which means Saturday jazz in Rodney Bay becomes viable again. Alas for Matilda we seem to have retaken the lead by 7 miles despite them flying their parasailor all night yesterday. We had another close encounter with a whale yesterday; a 4-5m brown whale swam alongside the boat for a while just checking us out. Only 1 flying fish so far. Rach's turtle sighting was.
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04/12/2011
Engelen - Day 14
We're getting closer.Each day we check how many miles are left and the number is dwindling quickly - 1000, 840, 720.We look at how many miles we think we can make each day, do a simple division, and, voila, imagine ourselves arriving in St. Lucia Friday at noon, maybe in the morning, maybe even early enough for a beer on Thursday before a long long sleep. We're excited.Excited about the cold rum punch that is supposed to be waiting for us on the docks when we tie off our lines; excited about a freshwater shower; excited about eating anything besides the cabbage, pasta and canned tuna that is left on the boat.Fantasies about what we'll eat and drink first occupy lots of our thoughts during the hours at the wheel. But, we're a little trepidatious about our trip ending soon too.After.
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05/12/2011
Eleanda - Day 15
Sunday 4th December 2011 The Skipper – Eleanda overtakes Geronimo, the Swan 651, to go 6th The ARC office server went off the air yesterday afternoon and no requests for updated position reports were answered. We were on tenterhooks. Where were we? Were we the overtaker or being overtaken? At last the ARC information woke up at 11h00 GMT today and we were emailed the 08h00 report. I worked my way down the list. 1st to 5th were unchanged but then, 6th? It was Eleanda up from 7th, but otherwise down 3 to 35th overall, having overtaken and now one ahead of Geronimo, the Swan 651 we have been chasing for days. I have tried to calculate our handicap advantage. For the 2,800 mile ARC distance, Geronimo, a faster longer.
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05/12/2011
Northern Child - Daily Log #15 - 5th December 2011
Daily Run towards St Lucia - 139nmDaily Logged Miles - 140nmDistance to Go - 171nmLunch -Canary Island Potato SaladDinner - Chicken stuffed with Boursin wrapped in Palma Ham served on a bed of mushroom noodles.Dessert - Italian Pantone CakeThe past 24 hours with less than 200nm to go have been sent by the wind Gods to test us and challenge our sailing skills. We are all very excited about arriving in St. Lucia imagining the steak we are going to have, the rum punch, a hot shower, the air conditioned hotel rooms. However, the more you wish for something, the more elusive it becomes. We have done a little bit of everything in the last 24 hours. Yesterday afternoon we had the blue and white asymmetric spinnaker up on the pole.The wind shifted around to 130 degrees so we moved the pole.
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05/12/2011
Eleanda - Day 14
Saturday 3rd December 2011 The Skipper – St Lucia on Tuesday, under 450 miles to go Squalls – now we’ve felt rather than seen one! Last night at about midnight, with Conor on watch and Bill turning in to be replaced by Antonia, they heard the rain on the water as the wind speed rose to the mid twenties. As the blinding rain struck, the wind increased further to more than 30 knots, but still from astern. Conor furled the genoa. The noise of torrential rain on the cabin roof and on the decks woke the rest of us, rushing to close the hatches. Within seconds, Conor and Bill were totally soaked. Twenty minutes later everything was back to normal with the genoa once more unfurled and flying. Risks? Tearing a sail.
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05/12/2011
Eleanda - Day 13
Friday 2nd December 2011 The Skipper – St Lucia in our sights, just over 600 miles to go 200 miles in a day yesterday and a momentary speed record for Eleanda of 14.6 knots last night. Cap that! Well yes we can just about, as I can report the distance run from 12h00 1st December GMT -2 to 11h00 2nd December GMT-3 was 203.2, an average speed of 8.47 knots. So I have not claimed for the hidden hour! Eleanda only gets into her stride on a run with the wind well over 20 knots and we have had just that for the last two or three days. What’s more, it looks like continuing to Sunday, although the wind speeds will start to decline slowly. The no wind hole is moving around. I have adjusted and shortened our course by turning.
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05/12/2011
One Hull - Ned's Blog - 3/12/11
Hey there, Today we broke the 100 mile mark. Right now there's only 85.4 miles to go! We will hopefully arrive in St. Lucia at about midday tomorrow. There are 3 boats behind us> We made 0.6 miles on them in five minutes. Today I made bread for lunch. To go with it, I cooked some Chorizo!! It was delicious (if I do say so myself!)! I saw a satellite this evening. It only took 2 minutes to go from horizon to horizon. In fact, it orbits the earth in 1 hour and 40 minutes (wish we were that fast!). Despite the skies being "overcrowded", this is the first we have seen. One star was twinkling very brightly, due to the cooling down of the atmosphere. Nearly there! Ned.
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05/12/2011
Thosyma - 16. Tag auf See - 05.12.2011
Fisch gefangen: Nicht den Groessten, aber vielleicht den Lustigsten: Einer der fliegenden Atlantik-Kerlchen rauscht doch heute Nacht glatt mitten durch unser Cockpit, durchquert komplett unseren Salon und landet unter dem Navigationstisch. Da hat er aber grosse Augen gemacht, wir auch. Schwupp`s schon gehts mit Skippers Hilfe den ganzen Weg zurueck hinein in deinen Meeres-Salon. Glueck gehabt du kleiner Atlantik-Ausreisser. Muss ganz schoen was Grosses hinter dir her gewesen sein. Unsere momentane Destinationszeit: 06.12.2011, 16.28 Uhr. Unsere Stimmung :-) :-) :-) Die THOSYMA: hat sich super im Atlanitk-Rausch geschlagen Proviant: reicht noch bis zum Pazifik Auf was wir uns freuen: leckere karibische Cocktails mit den anderen netten Crews verdruecken, Seemannsgarn erzaehlen und dann.
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05/12/2011
La Palapa - White Squall! 4 Dec, 1014 nm to St Lucia
well today was another great day at sea at least it started that way.aimee made me this amazing egg dish, kind of like a glorified egg mc muffin with the works sans bun but complete with a toothpick to hold it all together.very good.some how the rest of the day went by in a flash i had a couple of naps only waking up for chli for lunch as it was overcast all day.aimee really went to town on the sail basically completing all stitching so we are ready to go unless we want to add something to the 17 foot gash we closed with gorilla tape! just as we finished up the evening net i looked outside and things where looking quite ominous.i flipped all the electronics back on and low and behold we had a massive return all around us.just as i was getting the boat switched over to simrad the.
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05/12/2011
Meltemi - 5.12.
Es ist 3Uhr45 und die Hundewache naht ihrem Ende. Draussen ist es schwuel warm - gefuehlte 28 Grad bei 90 Prozent Luftfeuchte. Im Schiff ist es genauso feucht, aber dafuer etwas waermer ... Man merkt wohl, dass wir uns der Karibik naehern :-). Gestern war der 2. Advent und wir haben ihn gebuehrend begangen: Zum Fruehstueck gab es gekochte Eier und ein paar Takte Weihnachtsoratorium. Nachmittags dann nochmal etwas Kuchen von Karin, abends wunderbares Rinderfilet mit Salat. Das war dann jewils auch unser letztes Fleisch und Salat an Bord - es hat immerhin bis kurz vorm Ziel gereicht. Von der Angelfront ist weiterhin nichts zu berichten, ausser dass wir jetzt gelegentlich Tang anlanden. Selbst in den fruehesten Morgenstunden (denn: Der fruehe Vogel badet den Wurm) war nichts zu holen..
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05/12/2011
Lone Star - 5 Dec - Day 16 - Revealing the Secret Weapon
Many of you are familiar with the infamous "Stick" who visited Lone Star in Croatia and has been leading the central Texas support team.In a private email to him I revealed the secret weapon I intended to deploy at the right time in order to zip past the competitors of our racing class at the last minute.I have now deployed the secret weapon and we are cruising along comfortably at 8.5 to 9 knots and are on target for an arrival in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia around 0800 on the 6th of December. Lone Star will be in full fishing mode tomorrow.We hope to land a medium size tuna so we can finish off the crossing with another fantastic fresh fish dinner.Everybody on board is doing well and looking forward to completing a successful crossing. Craig PSIt wouldn't be a secret anymore if I told.
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05/12/2011
Watergaw - DAY 15 – SUNDAY 4/12/11 – 1000 MILES, PANCAKES AND A SLICE OF HAM…
First Mate First Galley Ali here - getting in first for a change. We now have less than 1000 miles to go to Saint Lucia and for our celebration we intended to make pancakes with afternoon tea. We passed the 1000 mile marker at lunchtime and it would seem that the skipper has invented a new ceremony. It seems to involve dropping most of your cheese and ham sandwich on the cockpit sole, attempting to throw it over the downwind side of the boat across the cockpit, hitting the spray hood and having it land on the first mate’s head. Such was the exertion involved in this manoeuvre that the skipper had to go for a lie down and missed his pancakes. Fortunately we have the wherewithal to make more and not all the jam was eaten! Martin took up the cudgels.
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05/12/2011
Angerona - Blogg day 14 & 15 by Gjermund (Ingo aus Norwegen)
Hi folks ! It's my turn again to tell you about our sailing over The Atlantic with S/Y Angerona the last few days. The Capt. Fred "McGyver" fixed the watermaker, working on it for over 2 days. Now we produce water again. Today Haakon, the youngest crew member had to go 15 meters up in the mast loosening a rope. A tough job for a tough guy. We have gone far south and are heading west to St. Lucia, about 770 nautic miles. We have lost some wind and are sailing slower now. We are using all our 3 sails, and hope to arrive St. Lucia on friday, but with this wind it could be saturday. Today we had some rain and that felt good and gave us some speed for a couple of houers. The days go by and are wery much the same. It's getting warmer and we are sunbathing on the deck in 30+,.
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05/12/2011
Cheeki Rafiki - Day 15
Hi again everyone,we're getting close now ...so a bit of a different blog. Some of the usual stuff for 24h but then the thoughts of each of us at this time.Yesterday, during the day it was fairly uneventful with lightening winds from the same (E) direction so here's the menu for the day; breakfast: hot dogs in brioche with fried onions lunch: sardines and cucumber on toast, lamb stew (boil in a bag) dinner: pasta with melted cheese, canned mango During the night it was fairly frantic at times. We had a series of squalls chasing us East.Ilya and Doug got the worst of it with winds strengthening and shifting 90 deg in minutes. lots were up on deck to help and got wet in the process. Morning came with quieter seas and winds. We listened to other yachts on VHF saying they were 100.
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05/12/2011
Voahangy - Day 15 - Un dernier poisson!
La journee a commence par la disparition soudaine des alizes: une minute nous avions 18-20 noeuds de vent, puis une chute brutale a 10-12 noeuds qui a continue dans l'apres midi. Bien sur nous ne sommes pas les seuls dans ce cas la, et le sujet de conversation sur le net radio aujourd'hui etait de savoir quel bateau serait le premier a demarrer les moteurs a l'approche de St Lucie. Nous sommes une vingtaine actuellement a environ 190nm de l'arrivee, et il n'y a rien de plus frustrant, apres des jours entiers a bonne allure, que d'etre stoppe si pres du but! L'usage du moteur est permis, dans les regles de l'ARC, mais une penalite est infligee. Nous avons bien essaye faire la traversee le plus possible a la voile, mais nous avons enfin.
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05/12/2011
Sookie - Day 15 (Thirteen)
Day 15 (Thirteen) Greetings from KBS Sookie from the mid-Atlantic Today we have mostly been sun bathing and ipoding in between general boaty type things. Yes, much like any other day of the last 14 Had another flying fish surrender last night and land itself on the deck. This brings the running fishing stats to:-Fish caught - 2Fish surrendered - 5fishing lines broken and lures/weights lost - 8 - 10*Number of skippers getting peed off at losing all his fishing gear - 1(* this included JBs 'magic' lure that he engineered by himself, albeit based on a design by Jerry Gee, to the general mocking and poo pooing from the crew only to then go and hook the biggest mother in the ocean. Ok, so it got away in the end but you try winding in a 5 meter marlin when your moving down a wave.
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05/12/2011
Cattitude - Vroom vroom
Day 13 Having looked at the next two days forecast and rocking like a rocky thing for a while, the decision was made to put the engines on. Had we not, we would have bobbed about out here for the next three days, and since most of us have previously completed the ARC with no engine hours, we thought what the hey, let?s get in there! Most of the day was spent going through big showers and wiping down the boat afterwards. The crew are busy tidying and cleaning to maximise ?party time? on arrival. Woo hoo! No fish biting, no dolphins in sight, no other vessels on the horizon.... ho hum. But we are dressing again for Sunday lunch (roast beef) so all is not lost. Our Voyage Left Las Palmas on a high Looking for?d, endless sky Caught the wind and flew those sails Watery hills and watery.
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05/12/2011
Mojomo - Another prize-losing blog
16:35N 52:39W dtf 501.8nm at 2235 GMT Sunday (=19:35local time st lucia) and we think we’re on target to reach rodders daytime Wednesday. SOG 7.5 ish. As foretold by BxWx, we are appraoching some wet blog of weather, and Lo! here we are in a soggy bit.Our mate Sim in rodders predicted about the same thing, but he's from t'North so sent me a shorter email about the weather with the more blunt subject line of "Cra p". All a bit wiped out today, lots of sleeping and snoozing followed by sail change for broad reach overnight, giving Mr Pink a rest after almost 10days days on duty.And we still haven’t had to declare any engine hours!Apart from that 1 minute to bend the instantaneous SOG for the website a while back.Not bad eh? We put the clocks back two hours, I filled in.
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04/12/2011
Casamara - Day 15
Civilization as we know it and the skipper is chilled; so this blog, my first, is from Charlie - the new boy on the block. Until I arrived in Las Palmas I had not met any of the crew - it was a leap of faith and one that I have no regrets. Day 15, week 2 and my god what an experience it has all been. We have just eaten the most fabulous Sunday Lunch thanks to skipper Simon, with more than a little help from our talented Julian. Roast lamb (laced with knobs of garlic), roast potatoes, cauliflower, leeks in a white sauce and gravy; and this was all consumed with hardly a movement from Casamara. She was bowling along at 7.5 knots on the most delicious broad reach, stable, powerful and purposeful. For we are up against it. .
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04/12/2011
Destiny - Log Day 15.......counting down to the finish line
12:36 GMT, Sunday Dec 4, 2011 15 08 N, 53 54 W Distance sailed from Gran Canaria: 2543nm Rhumb line distance to go:420nm Dear Family and Friends, We are coming down to the final leg of the ARC and I am happy to report that we continue to have good winds out of the East slowing down to 10 - 20 knots. Still sailing WITHOUT the engine! (We have sailed the entire trip ,so far, without engine assistance!) Every once in a while, we get hit by a squall that will push us along another few knots, but our average speed has slowed to 7.5 knots for the last 24 hours. Last night was one of those memorable ones. We had a beautiful moon lit sky with the reflection of the ocean lighting a way for us thru the water. The seas had calmed and were very deliberate in pushing Destiny and crew in the direction.
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04/12/2011
Island Wanderer - Day 14 17:10N 51;56W
Warm sunny and flat seas – that's the summary of the day’s sailing. The moon is now out for much of the night and is incredibly bright. In a few days time it will be a full moon and we will see if the rumours are true that you can read a book by the moonlight! We were treated to a huge pod of dolphins yesterday evening, that stayed with us for about half an hour, and another moonlight encounter shortly after midnight. Last Friday night saw round two of the pub quiz on the SSB radio, with team Island Wanderer narrowly missing out on victory once again by a single point. No fishing for the last few days since we still have Dorado in the freezer and we have been flying the gennaker during the day. The aroma of the boat is set to improve since the.
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04/12/2011
Emilija - Sunday 4th Dec.
Well Hi All, Still out here in the deep blue sea, and the sun shinning and we are all melting. The day was light winds, however making some progress, this morning we had 669 miles to go. No fish today as Martin (the gog) must have thought it was a day of rest. Twinsailsstill going great, you hardly ever touch them. Got the washing done today and some showers, so productive. Clare had roast chicken for dinner and veg and potatoes, Jennie had Icecream and pears, so we are hard off. Its very hot apx 30deg and night 26/27 . Big swells in the sea, so sometimes hard to sleep and some shifts feel long. Everybody well and we will have 6 of the best livers and flushed out kidneys when we get to St Lucia. The Betty Ford Clinic is looking after that..
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04/12/2011
Diamonds Are Forever - blog - Day 14 - 4/12/11 - Filthy Girls
Subject: Diamonds blog - Day 14 - 4/12/11 - Filthy Girls!!Hi all! This morning was a lovely sunny morning but by lunchtime our first tropical squall shower was seen, and owing to its size we got very excited and cracked open the washbags, dug out the shampoo, donned bikinis and headed to the cockpit for a mammoth hair washing-in-the rain session!It's official, judging by the rainwater runnoff in the cockpit drains, us girls were filthy!! Wow - do we all feel better now!Who needs fancy marina shower facilities when you can use the power-shower of mother nature!! We are all now gathered down below, like a wet family camping holiday whilst Harriet takes her turn on the helm in the next rain shower.The girls are lounging on the sofas reading our treat.
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04/12/2011
Ensemble - Day 15: Sunday 4 December - Squalls and Pizza
Yacht 'Ensemble' is making steady progress towards St Lucia as we celebrate two weeks at sea. The winds and waves are starting to ease up - with winds forecast to drop to 10 knots tomorrow for the rest of the run in.This is punctuated by lines of squalls that pass through and bring much appreciated higher winds - but with unwanted rapid changes in wind direction and rain.So - a bit of a mixed blessing.With the lower winds our arrival to St Lucia will probably be put back a day or so. The good news is slower speed and (theoretically) more fish on the rods. Unfortunately - for the third straight day - no fish! (Must be all the bananas on board). The temperature has risen noticeably - and the humidity is rising - with sea temperatures of over.
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04/12/2011
Grateful Red - 4/12/2011
spectacular sailing day.gybed, turned more south and west and flew the spinnaker all day.Still flying now as the moon takes over and the sun sets. With a fine crew of four we switch to wing on wing at night - easier, stable and able to de powered without going on deck - definitely slower than the spinnaker but we sleep well at night. Plus we will have a round of aperitifs in the glow of the moon as we speed toward st. lucia. Ken ps badgers big 10 champs with a 42 to 39 win over the spartans.Rose Bowl!.
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04/12/2011
Brizo - WCC Log Day 15 – Sunday 4th Nov: The Weather Blues (Stuart)
Had a great night (Saturday) – 200nm run in 24 hours, as we have the past 3 days this followed another another Main Sail batten rebuild in the evening. Craig and I had a meeting at 11:00 UTC to discuss latest Grib (weather) files and the ‘no wind hole’ which is spreading out from the Islands we are approaching with just over 400nm to go. Winds are a little better North of 16 degrees so we have kept above that latitude, running before the wind, essentially West. The problem is that although our Speed Over Ground (SOG) is good, the VMG (Velocity Made Good) = speed when taking into account you are not heading directly to St Lucia but to Cuba instead and at some point will have to make this distance up, is starting to decline fast. So we calculate a few scenarios of.
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04/12/2011
Minaxi - back at Sea
So after 7 days in Sao Vincente, Cape Verdes, Minaxihas newa forestay and a reasonably straight furling tube. Genoa stitched back up and something we noticed at the last minute, a broken alternator bracket which we had welded. Minaxi has also lost 2 of it's crew, Valerio and Frank but we picked up Heidi who ran away from the French Alps to go to sea! 8 am we depart in 35 to 40 kts of wind and big following seas. 10 am Auto pilot broken!!! While Sietse helmed direct down wind to keep the boat as flat as possible, I stripped down the pilot motor and found the 4 internal gears worn out. Fortunately we still have the old one in a cupboard and took that apart to find the same gears in perfect condition. Some 3 hours later we are back up and running but with a stern warning from a worried.
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04/12/2011
Arabella - Sunday 4 Dec
Hi All from Arabella They have just celebrated having under 1000nm to go to St Lucia lunch time today, the Gin and Tonics have been flowing and all are in good spirits. The weather is good but they have had a few squalls with some heavy rain but they only last approximately 15 minutes. They are much further south now so its warm but often humid. They hope to arrive by the 11 December ( in time for Deiniols birthday!) if the trade winds remain favourable, but otherwise by the 12 when they will be back on line and be able to email us themselves Best wishesJudith.
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04/12/2011
Coyote 2 - day 15
Only 385 nautical miles to go! Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? I was going to say that Coyote was sailing along nicely at 9 knots under spinnaker but nothing stands still for long on this boat and I have just had the black monster(spinnaker) dropped on my head as a rain squall blows through. Up until then we were pushing hard to catch up with the opposition; particularly the other two 40.7s. The day started well will a star and moon filled night surfing the waves- it helps when you can see where you are going. Morning broke, reef shaked out then a few technical glitches the pole up and downhaul parted with the pole with a bang- it’s not just the crew and skipper getting tired. A rapid repair from skipper Matt, a slight feeder (dogs balls) problem, a gybe.
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04/12/2011
Matilda - In Out In Out Shake It All About
Well, we did decide to leave the parasailor up last night but the jury is still out on whether this was a good move.The plus side was it was a breathtaking evening and the memory of the parasail against the moonlight on a silver sea will be one that will stay with me for a very long time.However the night lost its magic in the wee hours (if anything is going to happen it is always around 3am) when an approaching squall was spotted and so had to take it down while being pelted by copious amounts of rain - what jinks.We then had to get by for a few hours very slowly on our headsail with the added insult that when the wind did come back to normal, it was well within manageable levels. However, come first light we launched the parasailor again and did some very respectable speeds (max.
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04/12/2011
Nyda - Day 15: Speeding up again
Last night was a speedy one (well, by our standards anyway) as we kept up a steady 6-7 knots for most of the night. I handed over to Dad at 3am when there was a mild increase in the wind speed, this pushed us up to 10.3 knots at which point Dad had to change both the sail and his trousers. The morning was grey AGAIN but the steady wind gave us the opportunity to get the spinnaker up again, we've flown it most of the day, only taking it down now as more squalls are on the horizon. Our days run for the last 24 hours is 148 miles and we have sailed 1930 miles since leaving Gran Canaria. The lovely thing about approaching land (if still quite distantly) is that we are seeing dolphins again. We saw several pods for a few days at the start but none since, our only wild life spotting has been.
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04/12/2011
Porto Santo - 04/12
Já começa a parecer que navegamos nos 16ºlat N,já veio o sol,ainda parcialmente encoberto por nuvens altas,já sentimos algum calor,mas agora que o sol se pôs começou a arrefecer e fechei a capota.E o mar melhorou muito,está de acordo com o vento,que ainda está um pouco fraco.Vamos em borboleta,a pouco mais de 5n,com o Lemos a trabalhar e a manter o rumo sem dificuldadeE é esta a previsão para as proximas 48h.
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04/12/2011
Kantara - Shower time: 16.17.82N 51.28.31W
Hi All, Have had some interesting reaction to yesterday's blog posting and there have been a few questioning our sanity after 2 weeks a sea, but I can assure you we are all as sound in the head as when we left, if that comforts you. Had a good night run making good speed straight down our rhum line and crew were up at crack of dawn to launch spinnaker which, other than a brief drop during a squall, has now been flying for nearly 12 hours. The first half of the night is now fully lit by the moon so we plan to hold the kite until around 10pm when the first proper night shift starts. It has been getting very hot over the last few days and as a consequence squall watch has become shower watch as the crew hang around with shower gel in hand in anticipation of a fresh.
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04/12/2011
Kealoha 8 - Hobbling home, but with our heads held high
Seeing as we now don’t have a mainsail, we sailed through the night on light winds, mostly lolloping around at 5-6 knots and watching other boats overtake us. When the wind still dropped further we had to switch on the motor. When we get into St Lucia, each boat has to declare the number of hours motored & ARC then decide on a penalty of up to 2 extra hours added onto your finish time for each hour motored. The silver lining to having such low winds at the moment, is that it is likely many of our competitors are motoring too & while we cannot sail as fast as them anymore, we can certainly motor as fast! However, we are not moping around – we have set up a number of classes/activities for today... We have cleaned and polished the boat, so that when we arrive in we are.
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04/12/2011
EH01 - BLOG DAY 15 - Soggy, and not in a good way.
Squall line after squall line since last night and all through today. After the second wetting down and cool off they lose their appeal. Kite up, kite down, change kite to masthead, pole out No. 2 blah blah blah 263 NM to go and where are the so**ing trades?! ETA now is Tuesday AM so whilst not a fast crossing (14 days in 2009, 17 in 2010) its not too bad. Moral is still good, wveryone is loking forwrd to landfall and meetig their loved ones, the grey overcast and rain showers combined with lack of wind isnot the most exciting of finishes but the beer will still taste good! Fishing tackle is deployed, moral high ground and all that. I'll hopefully be sending a report soon on how good the next blighter tastes. Not much else to report today, my face itches andI really need a shave... Andy.
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