Lancelot - Day 18 - Character Building

Morning All So we are still floating around the Atlantic although we now have the pain of actually being able to see St Lucia but it would appear that someone somewhere doesn't want us to actually step foot on it, maybe they have heard about our drinking habits! It has been slow going again over the last 24 hours and we now find ourselves a mere 22 miles from St Lucia. To put that in perspective when we usually go out for a days racing in Cowes Week our course is usually in the vicinity of 25 miles and it is covered in around 4 hours and you can expect to be in the beer tent by late afternoon.  At our current speed and going on our latest weather forecast we can expect to be floating around looking at St Lucia for at least another 12 hours, which brings us to the title of today's. read more...

Lancelot - Day 17 - And there it goes!

Morning AllWell what a frustrating 24 hours we have had, since our last time of writing we have only covered a staggering 60 miles! And after sailing over 2700 miles to have these conditions when you are only 100 miles from the finish is mentally very challenging. The wind died as forecast yesterday and since then we have been struggling to get the boat moving at all and most of the miles we have covered have been due to the favourable current. When the wind is as light as it is at the moment any rolling of the boat knocks the wind from the sails and causes the sails to slap around. This is hard to handle for any sailor because not only are you not making any progress, the boat makes lots of noise to let you know about it!! We are always anxiously looking at the weather forecast however. read more...

Lancelot - Day 16 - Holding on to the breeze

Morning AllThis morning finds us ghosting along in 7-8 knots of breeze on a very hot and sunny Atlantic. We made slow but steady progress throughout the night and well done to all of the crew who kept the boat moving well in the light conditions. In these light winds it is important to do everything smoothly, from movements of the wheel, moving around the boat and trimming sails with the idea being not to disrupt the air flow through the sails and allow the boat to create some of  its own apparent wind to keep us moving. We are still expecting the wind to die completely on us sometime today so all we can do is keep the boat sailing as fast as possible in the right direction and see what happens. If the wind dies we will then have to wait for it to fill in again which looks like it. read more...

Lancelot - Day 15 - Sunshine and steady Breeze???????????

Morning AllThis morning finds us moving again after a very wet and changeable night.  During the course of the night we have had a number of squalls pass through delivering numerous unwelcome showers. We now have a new rule onboard that we don't mind the rain if it brings wind but rain without wind is just unsociable!! We also found ourselves sailing almost every point of the compass from due south to due north at times just to keep the boat moving in the squalls! The wind has swung round to the south and we are now reaching towards St Lucia, the boat is now heeled over at about 40 degrees but at least it is fairly stable after the rolly conditions of poled out downwind sailing. Our ETA is still undecided as we are expecting the wind to go light on. read more...

Lancelot - Day 14 - 2 Weeks at Sea

Morning All   Well 2 weeks at sea so far, in some ways it seems to have gone very quickly and in others it has been a while coming.I would imagine by now that my bank are becoming worried for my safety as not a penny of my money has been spent in a single pub for over 14 days! They need not worry as some time mid week they will soon become aware of our presence in the bars of St Lucia!! We have had a stable breeze of around 20 knots for the past 24 hrs so our praying to the wind gods seems to be going well so far and we are close approaching the 450nm left to go mark, fingers crossed! Today we are going to get back on the fishing mission as we have been a bit beaten down by the fish of the Atlantic so far, but we can't let a whole crossing go by without even landing one,. read more...