Aqualuna - arrived

A few typos in the last blog, due to tiredness.It was the Spinnaker Sheet caught in the prop which has either caused bent cutters or bent shaft.We ARE being lifted out at 14.00 hours tomorrow so we can assess the damage, don’t quite know what happened to the typing there.Also we did beat our time from 2007 by one day I believe 15+ days as apposed to 16+ days on the 55’ and this time all under sail with no engine use.The only times we turned on the engine was to go aft twice to get rid of the tons of seaweed around our prop and rudder.All well on board and beginning to relax and have fun, although today was a mad clean up day below and above decks. Hope I don’t awake in the early hours thinking it is my watch.. read more...

Aqualuna - 14:04.653N 60:56.992W

TUSDAY 8/12/15WE HAVE ARRIVED!!We crossed the line last night early morning at approx 03.33 hours.As we could not use the engine we came into the bay under sail and dropped the anchor for the night.Sadly beaten to the post, just, by ‘Blue Water Mooney’ who was flying a wapping great spinnaker all the way, switched off their AIS so we could not always see where they were and gave us radio silence when we called them up for a friendly chat when they were in view, not really cricket from our point of view.We don’t quite understand why she was rated so that we had to give her time when she had so many different types of racing sails and all we had was the Asymmetric.Never mind we were not in it for the race but would have been nice to have let Discovery have a cup for Hull no1 of the. read more...

Aqualuna - 14:46.313N 56:22.098W

DAY 15 ARC SUNDAY 6/12/2015Sadly it looks as though we won’t beat our own time of 16 days in 2007 ARC in the 55’ Discovery. A few mishaps have occurred.Jonathan did an involuntary gybe (fortunately it was none of us!) sadly breaking the main traveller which he has done a temporary fix to, the sheet must have caught in a hatch latch above the aft cabin as that has disappeared.The forward pump out for the shower is not working, at least it is but there appears to be a blockage from the pump to the outlet so that has to be sorted.We can see the Halberg Rassy ‘Bluewater Mooney’ down two miles on our port side and she is flying a spinnaker we really need to beat her by 40 miles over the finish line to win it just does not look as though that is going to happen in the next 30 hours.We are. read more...

Aqualuna - 15:28.807N 52:43.986W

DAY 13 ARC SATURDAY 5/12/15I wrote a blog last night and for some reason it was rejected by mailasail.This one will be even more up to date. We have had acres of golden seaweed floating and no way of avoiding running through it or in to it.The night before last we cleared our prop and rudder of it by going into reverse engine this worked well.We no longer had the feeling of drag or the sound of drums on the bottom of the hull aft.During the night last night we again ended up with tons of weed which slowed us down and made a shuddering effect and vibration on the prop.Int day light Jonathan came up furled the genoa and went to put the yacht into reverse unfortunately at the time we were in a huge big rolling sea and we broached to port, the spinnaker sheet was washed off the deck and slid. read more...

Aqualuna - 15:49.667N 51:15.094W

DAY 13 ARCSATURDAY 5/12/15Weed everywhere, acres of it, gold in colour.Had to put the engine on for the first time to clear the prop and rudder by going into reverse, as it was making the yacht vibrate and slowing us. Now on night watch and we have more around the prop and rudder, not much we can do about it as soon as we get rid of one lot more comes.On top of this the wind is being fickle with wind shifts happening all the time, we just need to gain a bit more time on a particular yacht so don’t really need this to slow us.Sue saw a meteorite whilst on watch this evening, her first watch on her own! A flame of star with a tail shooting through the sky.We had another pod of Dolphins around the yacht this afternoon they looked as though they were hunting flying fish as those were. read more...