Murphy - If* (a picture paints a thousand words...) – Supplementary log Days 17 and 18

A few images from our last day at sea andour first day onland Footnote: * If, originally by Bread and famously reprisedby Telly Savalas Andrew,Lucinda, Jake and Jeff Friday ,14th December 2012 in StLucia. read more...

Murphy - How sweet it is*..........to be here – Log Day 18

St Lucia – finallyWell here we are in St Lucia – we arrived at 21:04 (GMT-4) on Thursday 13th December – it took us a total of 16 days and 14 hours to cover the approximately 2,700 nautical miles from Las Palmas. Boy are we glad to be here. We're also amazed that we have succeeded in hand-steering Murphy for the last 2,500 miles and 15 days (an average of 3.8 days or 625 miles each). A few drinks were had after we arrived and then we all fell into a deep slumber, rising at around 7am to find a beautiful marina, blue skies, light breeze and, weirdest of all, ground that doesn't move. We are all finding it quite difficult to walk around without appearing drunk.Now is the time to thank a few people:My WifeI could not have done this without Pauline's practical help and moral, financial and. read more...

Murphy - Homeward Bound* – Log Day 17

NumerologyWe are becoming obsessed by numbers: DTW – the distance remaining to our St Lucia waypoint; BTW – the bearing on which it lies; the reduction in the DTW achieved by each watch (a matter of some competition); COG – the course we can actually achieve, which depends upon the shifting wind direction and should ideally be the same as the BTW to avoid having to gybe before we get there. We refer to them endlessly and at the moment the numbers and their trend are looking good.AT noon today the DTW was 81.8 nautical miles, the BTW was 278 degrees, the last three watches (overnight) achieved a reduction of 90 miles between them (i.e. an average speed of 7.5 knots) and the COG is a little high at 295 degrees (north of our preferred course, but not a major problem). We have a sweep on. read more...

Murphy - Close Encounters – Log Day 16

Passage notesOn the chart-plotter Murphy is now permanently connected to St Lucia by a red line and the wind is kind enough to allow us to sail directly along that line towards our destination. Such is their force that we are knocking out the hundreds (of miles) like Alastair Cook on a particularly good day at Lords. Earlier in the passage it had seemed more like a Geoff Boycott innings. This morning at 08:00 we joined the 300 Club, with that number of miles to go, and we have immediately lodged an application to join the 200 Club. At our current speed we anticipate a positive response by no later than 21:00 this evening.Something went badly awry with the weather this morning – a major squall hit the dawn watch (Andrew and Lucinda), giving them a light but thorough soaking – it surely. read more...

Murphy - Tuesday Afternoon* – Log Day 15

Subtle ChangesAs the miles to go figure diminishes and we can say with some confidence that after today we have only two more full days to go before we reach St Lucia there is a discernible shift in the crew's focus. Thoughts are straying ever more frequently to the arrival itself (which is going to be unbelievably exciting), flights home and reuniting with family. We seem now to be in some settled weather that is allowing us to head directly for the finish line under main and poled-out genoa and it looks as though it should continue, so we are fairly confident that we shall arrive early Friday morning. This will allow our younger crew members to catch the flights we booked for them originally and get home to their husbands, wives and children as early as possible and exactly on. read more...