Koala - Dec 17th: The last night.. hopefully!

The countdown is on... ETAs are bit confusing as we are operating on UTC and I am not completely sure what local time is, but hey, we'll be in some time early tomorrow with a bit of luck. Last night on night shift, it seems that Julia had a nice relaxing time, and then handed over to me for the hourly soakings and squalls. Nicely done. By the time daybreak came around, trench foot was my biggest concern. Fortunately the sun came up and dried everything out, and all was fine again!As thoughts turn to our first rum punch, we had a reminder that it is not over until the fat lady sings this morning. We had two large whales going in the opposite direction pass us about a boat-length away. Nice to see them, but I prefer to see them frolicking playfully at a distance and not flashing by in the. read more...

Koala - Dec 16th: Are we nearly there yet?

Well, yes, thank you very much for asking... All being well, we are expecting to get to Rodney Bay early on Wednesday morning. Which is great news. This last few days have been pretty tough. Mainly because of squalls. It is very difficult in squally conditions to set the right amount of sail. Particularly with the main sail, as to take in a reef involves rounding up into the wind. This is not pleasant in 13ft swells and 8 ft waves that we have at the moment and usually involves a soaking. If you do not reef and get caught out by a squall, that is also not good. I had an interesting 20 minutes a couple of nights ago where I was standing behind the wheel heading straight down wind with a 3 reefed main up in 40+ knots of breeze and in front of the boat, I could see nothing apart from. read more...

Koala - Dec 14th: Friday the 13th part 2

Yeah, I know, I didn't mention Friday the 13th yesterday. I thought it better not to. We're a superstitious bunch us sailors, and it did prove to be a tough day elsewhere in the fleet. One boat caught fire, one was dismasted and another was taking on water.So our late evening was tame by comparison, but at dusk it started looking a bit squally and cloudy, so we dropped the main in about 30 knots of breeze and carried on overnight under poled out genoa. Partly because the genoa is more stable like that, but mainly because I really didn't fancy dancing on the foredeck with a 16ft aluminium pole with 12 ft swells in the dark!Also, after saying that we had not seen a boat for a week, we had two last night. One turned out to be Second Wind, one of the boats from our net who we knew was. read more...

Koala - Dec 13th: The final run in...

We now seem to be in a period of sustained trade winds which means that we are making good progress in the right direction. After our initial exuberance, we have adopted a slightly more conservative approach. We did have one afternoon of surfing off waves at 10.5 knots thinking "This is great", but after the self steering let go a few times, we decided to reign it in a bit. We are now making a steady, but hopefully non boat breaking 6-7 knots. When the self steering did let go, with a poled out genoa and main with preventer, we ended up parked neatly hove-to and all was fairly calm, but as it was pushing 30 knots, we decided to go the extra reef.The high speeds caused a bit of havoc with the duogen water generator. There was a dull thud from behind the control panel and a smell of. read more...

Koala - Dec 11th: Bit green

The 40 degree celebrations had to be put on hold as the act of writing this log made me feel so rank, the idea of any food or drink was unappealing! The motion last night and this morning was pretty stomach churning with 10 ft cross swells mixing with 6 ft wind generated waves. It has calmed down a lot today and the boat has assumed an easier rolling and yawing motion. I am pleased to report that I have regained my mojo.We are running down wind in about 20 knots of breeze with poled out genoa and main making 6.5 to 7 knots. Long may it continue! Forecast looks good for the next few days.Anyway, going to keep it short today. Hopefully celebration will go ahead today!. read more...