Allegrini - ARC+ 2018 Day 7 Mindelo to St Lucia Leg

What's the saying "same sh*t different day" I can see that Atlantic crossings can easily become this, if you're not careful the endless blue sea, day after day can become a bit laborious.I don't think that's the case on this ship, we have a plethora of films TV shows, electronic books, bread to bake, food to prep and of course the mighty fishing experience, although recently we've avoided putting lines outs ( i think we peaked to early) as we've had enough fish for the moment!Our second cargo ship passed by today, only our second one in 7 days andthat was over 10 miles away, apart from that we been pretty much alone out here, that said were surrounded by the other 70 odd yachts, half are ahead of us and half behind, probably only 6-10 miles away, but just over the horizon out of sight,. read more...

Allegrini - ARC+ 2018 Day 14 Mindelo to St Lucia Leg

Well it looks like we may finish our penultimate day the way it started, strong winds and washing machine seas! I've tried to take photos but they never do the state of the sea justice!life below decks is a bit weird too, imagine standing in your kitchen trying to prepare dinner or lunch, when without warning someone shifts the floor 10-15 degs one way and then the other, everything you had laid out to prep or serve suddenly slides from one end of your worktop or another! Pouring drinks can be fun too, particularly coffee or tea, the safest way is to put the mugs in the sink, but even then its a bit of a fairground side stall game, with most of the water going anywhere else but in the cup.As it was fairly unpredictable weather two of us slept in the cockpit last night, we had set the egg. read more...

Allegrini - ARC+ 2018 Day 13 Mindelo to St Lucia Leg

"And the east wind doth blow", and boy did it blow, we measured 40 knots True and our fastest ever speed 13.3 knots SOG (speed over ground), maybe a tad too much sail out?The wind has stayed with us most of the day at between 20-30 knots so we've reefed in both the Genoaand the Main and still managing 7.5-8 knots SOG nice at this rate we'll make out Wednesday arrival as planned and be in time for last beers!I'd like to say we've used up all our supplies and are now eating the last few bits of food, but with the exception of the fresh fruit, we completely over provisioned and will be eating the crossing food for months to come, still at least there's room in the fridge now for the champagne and beers to celebrate when we get there!. read more...

Allegrini - ARC+ 2018 Day 12 Mindelo to St Lucia Leg

In the words of a young lady (in loose terms) Britney Spears "Oops I did it again", its not senility, honest, its just losing track of days out here, but here we are day 12, Our ETA is fairly established now, we will arrive on the 5th, we're just not sure when, we're definitely in the hands of the wind gods on that one, if not the Swedish god of Volvo Penta!Our time at sea has been a combination of amazement, wonder, bewilderment, fascination, awe and at times frustration, not being stuck on a boat miles from anywhere, but not being able to GTS anything, "why do flying fish fly"? or "How long would it take that spanner I dropped to reach the Ocean floor"? we all have a ton of stuff were going to Google once we get Internet!We saw our first ship in days today, a huge cargo ship from. read more...

Allegrini - ARC+ 2018 Day 10 Mindelo to St Lucia Leg

It would appear that I missed the blog yesterday, not sure how that happened, for those of you who check in each day on our progress and haven't checked on the twitter feed @allegriniyacht yet, my apologies.We had a great day as far as mileage goes, as we traveled our best distance yesterday, the wind was just right and our wonderful Parasailor worked its magic again. When i say again, the truth is the Parasailor hasn't really been down since leaving Mindelo, with exception of two days in when the wind really picked up to 25 knots ( a little too strong even for the Parasailor) when we flew a traditional goose-wing configuration. I've got some great footage of the Parasailor and will do a post with video when i get decent Broadband.The crew are all in fine spirits, food has been great,. read more...