Ostrea - Statistics from Ostrea ARC 135

report of the ostrea of friday 14-12-2012,from the intented finishing day.So our goal was to finish,in day time and under full sail.After , with a decreasing tradewind,we changed the halfwinder for the genua,we just bent backwards and filled the daily milagereport from 11.00 utc.Every thing under control.the skipper is sleeping,children are playing,the inlandnearly visible and the crew total comfortable.All of a sudden a cry of the awakend skipper and we found our halfwinderwrapped around our cutterstay some 50 times and it had the shape of 5 bikinis and 6 monokinins.After 1 hour of trying to inwrap the sail,lines and a the skipper,theonly solution was to try to detatch the upper extension of the cutterstay from the mast in 4 BF with 3 mtrs waves.So our lokal hero :Zed(nickname of. read more...

Ostrea - Matrozen in de mast!

We zijn er bijna... maar nog niet helemaal!Gisteren was een dag waar we al zo lang op gewacht hadden, 15 tot 20 knopenwind, 7,5 knoop bootsnelheid. Maar eerlijk gezegd, als we dat de heleoversteek hadden gehad, was het misschien ook wel een beetje gaan vervelen.De nachtwacht was erg rustig, haast geen buien meer en de buien die erwaren,zat haast geen wind in.Overdag zijn we met name bezig met uit te rekenen hoelaat we aankomen,hebben we een echte douche op het achterdek, eten we hotdogs (wij wistenniet dat die dingen zo lekker waren) en hebben we het over de dingen diewe gemist hebben en die we zeker niet gaan missen (dat alles van tafel valtals je wat drinkt, of erger, wat eet).Met een gemiddelde van 6,7 knopen, zouden we om 18:00 uur lokale tijdRodney bay binnen kunnen varen. Helaas,. read more...

Ostrea - Tradewind course

Dayreport of the Ostrea,boat arc 135,from wednesday 12-12We have sailing conditions from the arc folder,25 -30 knts tradewind,untill 11.2 knts boatspeed while surfing from 4 m high waves and a crew,who thinks this is the normal way of living. Although St Lucia is more than 200 milesaway we look with the binoculars for mountains,we try to smell our first rhumpunch and we try to hear the local drums. Our ETA is calculated on a minute excact time,namely tomorrow 18.01 local time(utc-4)and at that timein our local pub Stobbe Rotterdam, the champaincorks will hit the sky. Boat and crew are in a perfect condition except opa who has a contused lower rib and a wife who wants to play golf with him next week.Baby Pien learned walking during the crossing and we are very interested how she will. read more...

Ostrea - Shark week

Hi all,Day 16 today and tradewind conditions with 25 to 30 knots of East north easterly. Yesterday we experimented with our big fish lures and steel wire combo and suddenly we saw a big shark following our lure. We started toplay with the lure to let the shark bite and 2 minutes later BAM!!!! The shark went with all our fishing gear and we were glad we could keep the rod. Back to normal lures now again.......... The sun is shining and we are in the tropics so life on board is good. We all took a shower yesterday and are preparing our arrival. Do we wait until saturday morning if we arrive on friday night late?? That is currently the big dilemma on Ostrea. Yesterday we logged 178 miles and if we continue like that friday evening looks like a possibility and that would mean a crossing of. read more...

Ostrea - big squall

hi,We are currently sailing in real brochure like tradewind conditions, goosewinging towards st lucia. We have a reefed main as we ripped her partially by breaking one of the vertical sailbattens and that came right throught the sail because of that. This is the 5th time this happens during our trip so we really need to think of another system for the future. Yesterda ynight was a bit of a rough one with one big squall that took 3 hours with lots of rain, wind and lightning. As soon as we see lightning close to the boat we put all are spare electronic instruments in the oven (cage of faraday) and then we need to remember before we start baking breadin the morning.......We are going to have a beer tonight to celebrate we have less then 500 miles to go to st Lucia! We keep you posted.Pieter. read more...