Hada - 19 days of Pitch, Yaw, Pivot... with 300 miles to go!

HADA Day 1919 days of Pitch, Yaw, Pivot... with 300 miles to go!Friday December 13th, 2013 10h58m UTC-4Post #10(5 pics attached)Greetings once again from from Anton, Ed, Stu, TJ & André aboard HADA, reporting from Mid Atlantic, 14 degrees 09 minutes North, 56 degrees, 00 minutes West.HADA is sailing steadily and confidently westward, with a bit more gybing (zig-zagging) required than we hoped for - the promised wind from the NE never materialized, blowing instead mostly from 90-110 degrees.We have about 300 miles to go, with landfall now expected to occur on Sunday.Crew is healthy and in good spirits, with everyone processing the slight disappointment from the slower than expected progress.Spirits got lifted however as we enjoyed another amazing meal yesterday evening, with fresh. read more...

Hada - HADA Day 16 — Swimmin' & Rockin' (Westwards!)

HADA Day 16 — Tuesday December 10th, 2013 19h29 UTC-3Post #10Greetings to all from everyone aboard HADA, reporting from Mid Atlantic, 13 degrees 40 minutes North, 47 degrees, 41 minutes West.We are finally rocking westward with good and steady winds propelling us toward our next destination, with only 772 miles to go to St. Lucia.On the basis of miles, this means we are about 75% of the way there given that we will have travelled close to 3000 miles since departing Las Palmas.The crew is healthy and starting to look forward to set foot on land in the (hopefully) not too distant future.Today we’ve had our highest “mile” day yet, running close to 9 knots on average and ticking off 200+ miles over the past 24 hours alone.This feels great to everyone aboard after the slow days.Our pace this. read more...

Hada - HADA Day 14 — Sunday December 8, 2013 15h39 UTC-2

Greetings to all.  Ed here, sitting’ in as guest editor of the Hada TransAtlantic Blog. Thanks Andre for the invitation to scribble some notes.Not a lot to report:  Day is beautiful, but very hot and made more so by light winds.  Expecting some NE breezes to fill in soon, which we count on to be the traditional strong E-NE trades needed to bring us home to St Lucia.Had a couple of nibbles on the fishing lines yesterday, but nothing to bring onboard for dinner.  So for lunch had a salad with canned tuna.Big excitement yesterday was a broken turning block at the top of the mast, which held the spinnaker halyard.  Needed to be replaced, so sticking with tradition we loaded the lightest guy onboard, who in this case was Anton, into the bosun’s chair and hoisted him. read more...

Hada - HADA Day 14 - Up The Mast....

Greetings to all.Ed here, sitting’ in as guest editor of the Hada TransAtlantic Blog. Thanks Andre for the invitation to scribble some notes.Not a lot to report:Day is beautiful, but very hot and made more so by light winds.Expecting some NE breezes to fill in soon, which we count on to be the traditional strong E-NE trades needed to bring us home to St Lucia.Had a couple of nibbles on the fishing lines yesterday, but nothing to bring onboard for dinner.So for lunch had a salad with canned tuna.Big excitement yesterday was a broken turning block at the top of the mast, which held the spinnaker halyard.Needed to be replaced, so sticking with tradition we loaded the lightest guy onboard, who in this case was Anton, into the bosun’s chair and hoisted him up some 74 feet to the top of the. read more...

Hada - Day 12 -- The Mahi That Got Away

HADA Post #8 -  Friday, December 6th,  2013The Mahi That Got Away… Came back!Or his cousin, at least, :-).Dinner will be good tonight.   HADA is sailing almost herself, with very little tweaking needed.We have about 1450 miles to go, and it looks like we will get to landfall later than we originally hoped.  Nevertheless rankings in the race improved to 11th!The weather is nice and the duties aboard are light given the gentle conditions.Endless blue in all directions continues.AndreHADA MAHIMAHI1 HADA MAHIMAHI2. read more...