Dolfijn - Dolfijn's ARC - Days 1-3

The crew comprise the owners Richard and Dawn, and Paul, Jim and Joe who we've raced with for many years. The ARC is part of a trrip to New Zealand as Dawn has decided it is time to go home, and as I love the place I'm not arguing! For this race we will be working on a watch system of 2 people on deck for 3 hours, 2 people off watch to sleep or recover however they wish and a different person each day has the day off. Numbers to bear in mind - normally we plan on doing 130 nautical miles (nm) per day at an average of 5.5 knots (kts - nautcal miles per hour) - a Nautical mile = 1.15 miles = 1.85 kilometres.Day 1We waved off Mum & Dad at pontoon at 10.45 and left for the start area in order to suss out the weather and for some of the crew to let the paracetomol get to work on last. read more...

Dolfijn - Dolfijn's ARC - Days 4-6

Day 4This was a fairly uneventful day, we saw another yacht which was comforting to know someone else had gone south so we weren't alone. Other than that, the sea state become more manageable for steering and so we started flying he spinnaker again.Daily miles = 176nmDay 5This day started out much the same but changed at 05.00 in the morning when the spinnaker got wrapped around the forestay (holds the mast up at the front) and whatever we tried we could not get it to unwrap. We decided to wait until daylight before anything was done further - the only alternative was for someone to go up the mast to try to do something, that someone being the skipper. Daylight came, the skipper had not had much sleep as the thought of going up the mast with the boat rolling in the waves would mean that. read more...

Dolfijn - Dolfijn's ARC - Days 7-9

Day 7Back up with big blue spin and easy sailing, the seas had smoothed out so keeping a course was easy and not so much swinging around on the waves which could cause a wrap in the spinnaker - something none of us wish to repeat anytime soon! On the change of watch we always ask what the course steered is, in case the wind has changed direction a little bit, and on his way down to his bunk Paul told Jim to just "follow the yellow brick road" and went off watch. It took some time to figure he meant that the course was directly into the light of the moon shining on the seas if it was yellow road.Daily Miles = 168nmDay 8The day from hell! It all started fairly well with the boat trucking along under blue spinnaker talking to the yacht Momo as we went past both of us taking pictures as we. read more...

Dolfijn - Dolfijn's ARC - Days 10-12

Looking back over the logs, there were a couple of incidents that got missed. There was the "splashdown" in the first couple of days - a splashdown being similar to a knockdown, where the boat gets knocked so far on it's side the sails touch the water, a splashdown is when the boat gets pushed over on it's side and creates a lot of splashed water. Why was this notable? Because one of the biggest splashes made a bee line directly for the open hatch in the middle of the boat and down onto the bunk where Dawn was sleeping. Fed up with this, she swapped bunks and a couple of days later another wave went in the hatch the other way and got her again!! There was also the sad case of greivous boatily harm committed by Joe when for no apparent reason he went mad and hit the boom with his head.. read more...

Dolfijn - ARC - Days 13-15

Day 13Another day another few sail changes and strange occurrences. Changed between the big yellow spinnaker and the slightly smaller blue spin as the wind and waves changed during the day - still keeping up good averages as shown by yet another climb up the leader board which keeps morale high. Somehow the rope that holds the spinnaker pole down came off the pole - there was no explanation obvious as to how this had happened, no breakage, nothing obviously worked loose everything looking OK. We took the spinnaker down at this point as the conditions were a bit marginal and we carried on under white sails only. Jim inexplicably took a chunk out of his hand after he came down hard into the cockpit as the boat came off a wave - after a very silent few minutes (Jim is not normally. read more...