Penny Oyster - Noon sights and another fish!

Over the last couple of days, we have been using our sextant to establish our position. It has given us real admiration for those who partake in the Golden Globe Race and manage to circumnavigate using only this method. After some practice, we've managed to do an accurate noon sight, which was only 2 miles from our GPS position. We plan to continue practising using our sextant and begin to master celestial navigation. We've also been very successful with our fishing, and Tuna Tom managed to catch us another perfectly sized dorado! We ate this one for lunch and used up the last of our fresh lettuce in a delcious wrap! We all rated it 10/10, nothing quite beat freshly caught fish!. read more...

Penny Oyster - Adrift in the Atlantic

Day four was a slow one. The wind had dropped to less than 5knts, which we had expected. We had tried to fly our spinnaker, but being an 18ton boat and not enough wind to hold the kite, we made slow progress south. At around lunchtime, the wind had died completely, and our boat speed was 0.5 of a knot! We decided it was a day for an important job, a shower!! As the boat was adrift, we used the world's biggest bath to wash. With a safety line over the side, we jumped in to crystal clear blue water at a temperature of 24.8°. It was the most beautiful and liberating feeling, although it was a little eerie when looking down into the big blue abyss!Fortunately, soon after our shower, the wind filled back in, and we were able to start sailing again. We are still headed south to hopefully pick. read more...

Penny Oyster - Tasty fish, sail repairs, and awesome stars!

Day two, our fishing master, "Tuna Tom,"had set out two fishing lines with the hope of catching us some dinner. The day started well with more breeze, so we were able to fly our beautiful blue spinnaker. At around lunchtime, we dropped the spinnaker as the wind had increased to 20knts, and we maintained good speed with our poled out jib. Tuna Tom and Dave had gone down for an after noon nap, leaving Millie and Phoebe in charge of the watch (and also the fishing) when, much to our surprise, we heard the fishing line begin run. We quickly woke up the boys who began to reel it in as we tried to slow the boat down. After a bit of a fight (due to our reel breaking), we managed to land a perfectly sized dorado. This resulted in a delcious dinner, which was a definite upgrade from our original. read more...

Day 1 onboard Penny Oyster

Life on the mighty Penny Oyster has been busy but full of fun and laughter. We began the ARC with an amazing send off from our families and the very supportive ARC team. Although it was emotional waving goodbye to everyone, we were in high spirits and ready to set sail on our atlantic adventure!The start was a slow one with winds under 10knts, we chose the pin end of the start line, similar to lots of the other boats which caused it to be a very busy end of the line. The wind was light, but we were determined to sail the first part of the rally, so we slowly made progress, tacking up the east side of Gran Canaria. As we went into our first night, we had our first dinner together as a team, homemade soup which had prepared the day before. This made cooking very easy and, with all our. read more...