Su An - 29/11/09 First Advent on the Atlantic

Today is the first Advent. It is a beautiful sunny day with no clouds, temperatures of 25 C, a nice breeze of wind and waves of 1 - 2.5 m. This is not exactly the surrounding and weather, what we Germans are used to have at Christmas time. We are decorating our boat with some red Christmas bells, eat the typical German Christmas cake, called Stollen, and drink coffee in the afternoon, to have a bit of the Christmas feeling. In the evening we are listening to Christmas songs and have a hot red wine, which is common in Germany at cold winter days. At the horizon we see the sailing yacht HEIMKEHR. We talk to their crew every day via radio. It is amazing, that we even can see their boat at the huge Atlantic Ocean.Gabi1 Advent_200. read more...

Su An - 04/12/09 Delicious bread

Today, Gabi surprised Lutz with a delicious loaf of bread. When Lutz appeared on deck, after his off duty time, the wonderful smelling bread was already on the breakfast table.Thanks to the ingredients from our sponsor Puratos was the process of bread making very easy. Just mix 2 third wheat flower and 1 third Puratos-ingredients. The result is a perfect bread. It is quite a sensation when you have, right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, fresh bread and smoked ham for breakfast. This is very difficult to top.Every day we participate in the radio communications with other ARC-yachts. We learned that we have already taken over quite a number of other yachts in the race. The mood aboard the SuAn is very good. We enjoy the sailing across the ocean. Wind and weather are perfect and could. read more...

Su An - 05/12/09 1000 miles left until destination

It is another quiet day at sea. Our speed is about 6 knots, only with the Genoa up. As the weather forecast prognoses more wind, we do not want to set the main sail. Our GPS tells us, that we have 1000 miles left to our destination St. Lucia.At our 5000 km or 2700 nm long trip over the Atlantic Ocean we have to pass 4 time zones. Every 15 grad longitude we change the board time to one hour behind. This is also the time we use for our watches. On the other hand we are updating the logbook according UTC. United Time Coordinated is also used for all radio communications. During the last days we haven't been very lucky with fishing. The good news is, that there are many hungry fish out in the ocean, which like our plastic squids very much. We know this, because when we are getting our. read more...

Su An - 06/12/09 Main sail torn

Last night we were sailing with Genoa only. The wind became less and less and in the morning we wanted to set the main sail. We found a 50 cm long cut, which needed to be repaired. Therefore we have self adhesive tape especially for sails. This main sail is the original 10 years old sail, which we are using for the Atlantic crossing. The sun and the moving in the waves are damaging sails quiet quickly. Our new Lee sails are still packed and stored in the aft cabin. Those new ones will be set up in the Caribbean.Today is the 2nd. Advent. We have the German Christmas cake, some hazel nuts and coffee together with Christmas songs from the CD. But listening to music about white Christmas and sitting in the 28C warm sunshine in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean feels a little bit funny.. read more...

Su An - 08/12/09 Diesel Filter Station

To generate power on board we have to recharge our batteries with our engine. Without gear the engine is running daily between 3 and 5 hours, which is much to long for our taste. But our batteries are more then 4 years old and do not reach their capacity anymore. According our radio communication with other yachts we know, that we are not alone with this problem.After we figured out, that we have contaminated diesel on board which immediately blocks all fuel filters, we have to filter it manually first. The process is that we first use a manual oil change pump and suck the fuel from the main tank in to a separate 20 l tank. Second we use a funnel and some fabric and filter the diesel in to another 20 l tank. Finally we pump the manually filtered fuel in to our day tank and use it for the. read more...