Team Brunel - Blog 7 - Team Brunel in the ARC

Blog 7 ARC Rally 29th November 2015 Breaking news: Team Brunel out the race, replaced by Team Bnel Last night at 10.07 UTC a well controlled gybe was set up in pitch dark  moonless conditions. We’ve done this numerous times so routinely every  step was executed. Without warning the Mainsail completely ripped in two  horizontally from masttrack till leech line when moving form port to  starboard. Pretty disastrous we might say. Immediately Johnny took the  lead the rescue operations. Jens in charge over the technical job of  getting the mainsail down, Rokas up the mast, all hands on deck, wind  blowing force 6. We got the mainsail down to the 3rd reef position and  were able to secure the bottom half of the sail. Despite the obvious  shock and. read more...

Team Brunel - blog 5

Blog 5 ARC Rally November 27th 2015 ’15 shades of grey….’ Ever sailed an ocean? No? you should try it, it’s magical, overwhelming,  peaceful, violent, cruel but above all fantastic!!!! We’re sailing  through rainbow territory, honestly, we’ve seen 1 full grown moon  rainbow and a handful of partial rainbows, fairytale! And this immense  empty world causes a very subtle feeling of intimacy, comradery..  friends for life. We met 3 boats in 5 days.. busy times. There is literally no one around  here, which is great. Stresses the need though to be very careful  indeed, it’s us, the boat and the ocean. Oh right, and a whole lot of  flying fish. About an hour before sunset they start flying around to  escape predators (like our yellow. read more...

Team Brunel - Blog 4

Blog 4 ARC Rally Team Brunel Nov. 26, 2015How did we get on till nowExactly 4 full days have gone by in a fantastic race and we are exactly halfway in mileage to St. Lucia. The averages per helmsman go up, the topspeed remains the same. The bravest of the gang (or the daredevils?) push her ladyship VO65 to 26+ knots, being it day or night, a shift is a shift and we want to push on. The predicted weather versus the end is still the major variable. If the breeze stays on (like around 22kn all the way now) we still might have a chance to equal or beat the mighty 100 Ft Leopard of London record of 8 days- 14 hours- 39 minutes and 59 seconds. This is our challenge in the challenge to arrive before December 1st, 3:24:59 AM on the finish line. And of course sailing as fast as we safely can to. read more...

Team Brunel - blog 2 Team Brunel in the ARC

Blog 2 ARC RallyThe first 24 hours of the race proved successful, 1st on rating andabout 120 NM ahead of nr 2, a significant 100 ft Southern Wind yacht. Wehad some showers (that is rain- none on board..) but mostly clear skiesand a brave ¾ moon peeping through the occasional cloud cover. Forecaststill looking good for a quick crossing but hard to tell with another2000 Nm to go.Life onboard gets into a 4 hr rhythm and once we figured out how thefirst watch change almost turned into mild chaos- none would read thescheme without reading glasses and assumed his watch fellow could…!-things run like clockwork.Watchleaders Johnny (Gerd-Jan) Poortman, Rocky (Rokas Milevicius), Jens(The farmer) Dolmer and Tomas (Ivanauskas) manage their teams within theboundaries set by Johnny for course, sail. read more...