Espumeru - First 24 hr of crossing

Hello,We departured Las Palmas yesterday at 1300 hours after a two week preparatory stay in the marina. During this time we have prepared the boat, made provisioning, attended seminars and partying:=), there was a pary almoast every night! How ever yesterday morning we left accopanied by live music and cannon fiering!The start went really well and we were amongst the first to go, but we were pretty soon owertaken by the larger yahts but kept at least a 100 behind us. We seem to have been chosen a bit more westerly toute than the other ones because now 24hrs later we can only see 1 yacht!The wind is ok approx 15knots and the waves ca 3 meters so it is a smooth ride.Everybody is in good moods and kids are enjoying it!Last statement may be a bit overestimated because Lucas and Sofie are. read more...

Espumeru - Equipment failiure day

Hello: Pos: 18.3023 03N 25 55W Sailing wise not too much has happened since yesterday. We have been surrounded by Scandinavian boats (at least 3 others) where one of them was Tindra from Sweden a Swan 59 so we have not done too badly aftr all. The kids and crew are all in good mood and working fine, which is not the story when it coms to our equipment. The fresh water pump sized to work late last night, so i spend 3hrs in the front hatch trying to replace it, luckily i bought a spare one in Las Palmas! Later we realised that our generator (which has been leaking a bit of the fresh water into the saltwater) now has leaked water into the main engine so the oil is now a grey masch and the generator is tutti finito! (so our power consumption must be drastically reduced because now we rely. read more...

Espumeru - Good winds

Hello to all again:Pos: 20 57N 31 48 W at 2200 UTCNow it starts to feel like we really are under way, 1/3 is already done and we are still very much alive! Now we are also starting to be comfortable with the situation and we have not had any further mis-haps, vice versa!Yesterday Neptune send us a 3 kg Mahi Mahi that we had for lunch with a cold Albarino from Rias Baixas so that was great. During the process of trying to get Mr Fish onboard we lowerd all sails and that moment we then used for a swim as well (it was a bit tricky because the boat went 3 knots even whitout sails)! We let a 20mtr line out from the aft of the boat and then we threw ourself in the sea from the front, and then just focused on catch the line..... fortunantely we did!!!For the last 48hrs we have had VHF contact. read more...

Espumeru - Getting warmer

Hello to all.The last days have been nice down wind sailng without any major incidents. We are though very sad to learn that Pelican (150 monohull) had issued a MayDay and has later abondoned their boat due to some major rigging failiure. Fortunately all crew were rescued by a comercial vessel and they are now heading towards Gibraltar. It is already the second abandoned boat from this years ARC rally, and we have also heard one non-ARC mayday and an other abandoned fishing boat so things canhappen, but it is still much safer than crossing the road in front of Stockmann in Helsinki!We have been in contact daily with two Norwegian yachts, Ronja and Blue Voyager, that have taken the same route and are doing the same speeds as us so we have a little Scandinavian transatlantic escader. The. read more...

Espumeru - 748 nm left

Hello, Pos 17 46N 48.33W748NM to Rodney BayETA 125hrs from now! For some reason our main mails have not gone trough during the last 24 hrs, it might be because I added some photos of the really nice Mahi Mahi that we got yesterday!I hve now rsend some of the mails without pictures so maybe they will arrive!Today we have had moderate winds and a few squalls wit winds upp to 30knots and really heavy rain. I must admit that it is quite nice...and one knows that the sunshine will be there in no less than 20 minutes!!! At least it beats Scandinavia where you also know its gonna be there BUT...........in April!!!!I Right now everybody is a sleep and we are doing some 6 knots and the wind is between 10 - 13 knots. We have a boat on our portside approx 8NM from us but they dont answer any VHF. read more...