Coyote - Coyote Log Day 2

Boat - Coyote - Beneteau - First 40.7 Crew: Ken, Bob, Jaime, Julien, Yacine, Carlo, Francis We started in Las Palmas with a perfect breeze of 15/20 knots and spinnaker up until late in the day. We then switched to a poled genoa for the night. We took the early option to go find the trade winds in the south with most of the fleet on our starboard side taking a more direct route. For our first dinner at sea, French cooks Yacine and Julien prepared a delicious ratatouille with rice. We cooked a bit too late to eat in daylight. Dish washing in 2 meters waves by night proved to be a challenge. After 24 hours at sea we logged 150 miles and a top speed of 11.5 knots. In the morning of day 2 we saw dolphins and a shark. Carlo tried feeding it with no luck... We spent most of the day very close. read more...

Coyote - Log Day 3

The sun remained up for the duration of day 3; however we would all have willingly sacrificed a little sun for some more wind - perhaps a sign that there are no girls on board!  After gybing onto port tack at around midday, there was little to report on the sailing front until - forced by a wind shift (and a welcome increase in strength) - we dropped the kite at 3am and gybed onto a starboard tack.  Whilst we have now all had a little experience hoisting, flying and lowering the kite, it was the first time that we had done this at night.  Scrambling around on the foredeck trying to bring the kite down on a rolling boat was certainly an interesting experience - in fact one of the crew reported a groin injury from one of the larger pitches.  However he gamely continued until the kite was. read more...

Coyote - Log Day 4

Day 4 continued with abundant sunshine and limited wind, to the frustration of the crew.  However by 8pm the combination of slowly strengthening winds and the onset of darkness led us to bring down the kite and pole out the genoa.  Whilst the night watches were relatively quiet, the wind held up and even built up very slightly.   To add insult to injury, no fish even nibbled on the line despite a number of lure changes.  We opted for a mathematical strategy to address our fishing woes, deploying a second line to the starboard quarter.  However throughout the whole of day 4 and the morning of day 5, there was not a nibble on the line  Day 5 has seen a further increase in wind speed with a loud exclamation just made over my shoulder as the speed record (excluding the skippers 11.5 on day. read more...

Coyote - Log Coyote day 5

Finally ! After a slow start we finally found the 20 knots of winds that we were looking for in the south. In the last 24 hours we sailed 180 miles at an average speed of 7.5, our best 24 hours so far. This puts St Lucia within 12 days if we can keep the pace and the trade wind gods stay with us. As for the fishing gods, no sign of them anywhere on Coyote. We manage to lose a bait yesterday (we did not even notice that a fish had bite) and this morning we lost our second real catch ! Yacine and Julien were on watch from 6 am to 8 am with everyone else sleeping inside. When he heard the line bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz at 7 am Yacine got all excited, woke up Ken, request the boat to be stopped to help the catch (no way !), but the fish (probably a 200kg tuna that could have fed us for a month). read more...

Coyote - Coyote Log Day 6

After the excitement of clocking our highest distance covered in a 24hr hour period yesterday, today's figure of 171 nm was rather disappointingly received by the crew.  As such our skipper has recalibrated our arrival time to 12 days from today (down from 12 days from yesterday).  The wind, whilst remaining relatively good has died slightly, although not enough to put up our rather fragile spinnaker which we are saving lest the wind dies further.  Spinnaker aside, the crew are all working hard to grind every ounce of speed out of the boat - perhaps driven by some rather optimistically booked flights that are starting to appear a little tight. On top of this the debate continues to rage over whether a fish on the line merits slowing the boat.  The skipper, 1st mate, and Julien (who. read more...