Summerwinds of Cuan - A real devil's kitchen

If Monday evening and night squalls and electrical storms were to be judged against what we had last night, It would be like comparing a pub band practicing upstairs to a virtuoso stadium filling rock concert.Another mixed morning with not great winds. This followed by a major squall early afternoon. As evening fell, the show began. We were all in the cockpit enjoying a celebratory 'half way there' drink when the light show began. Neither Sydney, London or Funchal could have put on a display like this. There was sheet lightning in whites and pinks, big claps of thunder and then forked lightning running across the sky with small bolts in the distance striking the sea. We tried to follow a path away from the activity and thought that we had succeeded. Early on Ann's night watch the fun and. read more...

Summerwinds of Cuan - First few of days at sea.

From a cracking milage on day one to a very slow yesterday, we are continuing to make progress towards Bermuda. Yesterday was a day of very little wind, certainly a lot less than was forecast. Last night we threaded our way through banks of sheet lightning to our front, port and starboard sides. The flashes were continuous and with a big moon early in the night was very light. The flashes continued after the moon had set until sunrise. There was no thunder and we don't know how far away they were, but it's a bit nerve wracking, as there is always the worry of being struck by lightning.Onboard we are settling into a routine. Ann is finding her sea legs and a sprightly Jack is always up on time for his night watches. The forecast is for more wind and from a direction that we can better. read more...

Summerwinds of Cuan - St Lucia

Emily, Ann & I crossed the finish line last night at around 8.15 local time  in a crossing time of 21 days which brings to a close this blog and this part of our adventure. The last 5 weeks have been amazing. The preparations & parties in Las Palmas, the crossing itself and now some more parties with the climax being the final prize giving and party on Saturday night. The reason for the whole affair: 'to cross the Atlantic on our own boat' has been accomplished again. We could have done it without the organisation of World Cruising Club but I think it wouldn't have been half the fun. Full credit must go to them as organisers for making such a great event happen.After this we head to Martinique for Christmas where we will leave Summerwinds in a marina and head back home to. read more...

Summerwinds of Cuan - Penultimate Blog

Less than 100 miles to go. Its 03.45 local time. ( We will have sailed through 4 time zones by the time we reach St Lucia in the coming hours.). Emily came off watch at 03.00. So its me holding the fort until around 8.00 when things start to come to life again. This should be our last night at sea. Hopefully we should be in late this evening or early in the morning tomorrow. We are all looking forward to getting in, as three weeks is a long time to be at sea on an non stop roller coaster ride. However from me anyway there will also be a tinge of sadness. There is nothing that I have ever experienced that comes close to the isolation of being on a little boat in the middle of the ocean and also the 'can do' feeling that you need to be able to do this type of thing.We all agreed that it. read more...

Summerwinds of Cuan - Problem & Solution

So here we are eating breakfast in the cockpit, calculator to hand. We had just had two of our best daily milage totals for this trip. Now calculating when we would get to St Lucia. We were seeing the total 'miles to go' peel off in recent days, so a few days left to go.  Did we want a night arrival, or perhaps slow down and get a nice daytime sail past the finish line.The wind then turned itself off. Well not off completely, not so that there was a flat calm requiring the use of the engine to get us back to a healthy six knots. But down to like one notch on the car's heater fan. Enough to keep moving , but doing nothing for our milage or our morale.Solution.Fishing hasn't been great on this trip. We are down to our last lure with up to now nothing to show for our efforts. "Well, we. read more...