Skara Brae - another exciting night in the Atlantic

finally saw other boats - 4 to be exact, and we managed to catch and pass all of them:-)we managed to make up 120 miles in 12 hours last night, breaking all boat recordsincluding surfing at 16kts at 2am in the morning - althouigh this was celebrated with a loud bang from the spinnakar when she split in 2!she had to be cut and dropped into the water to retrieve! which was interesting as it not only floats in the water but fills with water, so it was not easy to get her back on the boat.and once again we had the full crew in battle dress scrambling about the deck of a boat trying not to get slapped by ropes, punched or elbowed by fellow crew, or drop into the Atlantic - while being hammered by 25kt winds and rather large waves. now you landlubbers (and more sensible members of the yachties. read more...

Skara Brae - Skara Brae blog day 20 friday 13th

We are in a wee squall at the moment and its very strange the sun keeps getting up later than us, bugger didn't get up until 10am must be the laid back Caribbean way of things.You think someone (hmm was that another job I forgot)would have told ma GPS and electronics that there is a one hour time zone shift every 600miles west we goSo when we arrive on sun morning at 5am - it will actually be 1 am, just what we need, im sure there will be a wee whisky joint (if you excuse the pun)open somewhere.Well the crew are getting fidgety to get there and Tosh has his flight home on Sunday afternoon, so he wants to be there late sat, to acclimatize hahahahSo they decided yesterday that since it was too windy fer the Spinny and too windy fer ure fecked main sail - we should fly both genoa and. read more...

Skara Brae - blog Skara Brae 12th dec

nothing much to report, still belting towards the Carribean at 8kts with 520 miles left, so a sunday arrival, but looks like tosh will miss his flight which is on sunday at an airport on the other side of the island from where we make landfall. still have the occasional squall and some very large seas - which have the habit sneaking in a monster wave that either picks us up and surfs us along at 16knts or catching us at the wrong angle and spinning us around by about 90 degrees which plays havoc if you are in the process of doing anything involving, eating, sleeping, cooking or visiting the heads, which just about covers all our activities! So there have been a few bruises and breakages.Andrew seems to be the most prone to being in the wrong place at the wrong time having. read more...

Skara Brae - Skara Brae Blog Day 18

Another intersting 24 hoursAfter repairing the Gennaker finally and putting her away - we were sailing along nicely at 9-10kts with the spinnaker out, this we kept this up for 1/2 the day.But of course nothing ever stays the same when you are sailing along nicely - the wind had been gusting to 25kts then going back down to 18kts all day, but then it went to 25kts and kept climbing, I rallied the crew (who were all sleeping at 4pm in the afternoon! (nightwatches wipe everybody out)).By the time they had got up and had put their safety gear on the boat was surfing at 16kts! with wind blowing at 30 - 32kts.So we put into action our "get the Feckin Spinnaker down fast" plan, which we had actually practiced lots of times over the last days - and it worked, we had it down in 10mins! Which was. read more...

Skara Brae - Skara Brae

Another productive 24 hours - we managed to cover 200nm but this morning 2 more main sail batton cars had come undone and stuck in the rigging. We have already repaired these like 3 times in the last week, after they were damaged in a squall 10 days ago we had to remove them completely this time - the winds are getting stronger and we cant afford to lose the whole sail - especially with over 800miles to go!So we have managed to get the main down, remove the damaged parts and put her back up with 2 reefs in - leaving 1/3rd of the sail up, and the part thats up has missing battens so its depowered.To add to this our Gennaker (big foresail) has snagged at the top of the mast and we cant pull it all the way in - so we are hoping we dont have to.Anyway today we have full trade winds of 20kts. read more...