Mojomo - ETA early afternoon in Rodders

14:19N 60:28W dtf 30nm Another transat draws to a close.As forecast™ by BxWx, the wind was super-light overnight, increasing gently this morning.Actually there was a lot more wind around Mojomo all last night, due to Dee being Mum yesterday and making bacon and eggs with baked beans for lunch, and then chilli con carne with lots more beans for dinner. Phwer!A few of us sat up on deck during the night to avoid the nasty niffs in the cabins. In terms of sailing, this has been perhaps Mojomo’s most spectacular and exhilarating transat ofthe ten completed in the past five years.The ARC stats show that we hadnumerous days with 24-hour averages over 8knots, last Friday at 9.2knots and one day near the start (24th November) with an hardly-credible average of 16.1 knots for the first. read more...

Mojomo - MOB practise. Mo-style, again

15:03N 58:30W 151.7 to go Lovely sunny afternoon, calm enough sea with about 1-2m swell so time for MOB practice.Out with the fender, threw it in, Dee at the helm and she zipped round to pick it up no problem.Ace. Nick is excellent at all this RYA-type drill, David hops about on his good leg to help, Olly is a bit new to it but gets the swing of calling out and pointing at the target. In fact, it all went so well that once we’d got under way again… I jumped in myself, unannounced of course.One minute in the cockpit, next minute, sploosh, I’m floating about mid-Atlantic.Yes, really. Nick and Dee have vaguely heard that I had done this before but not quite believed it.  The first time I went in was with Stingo in 2007, second time with just me + Nick Martinez off. read more...

Mojomo - Tuesday 6th December - last full day

15:17N Yet more nightmares amongst the crew. Last night both Dee and I had the very same dream, where we were sailing across the Atlantic in Mojomo in the middle of the night, loads of squalls all over the place, and every so often Nick would arrive on deck, prattle on nicely with lots of chatty yet interesting banaltities, offer good and advice about sailing, interspersed with some quite bad advice about sailing, and then disappear back to his cabin.Turns out it wasn’t a nightmare at all.Seriously though, I sort of knew we’d have a good laugh with Nick on board. Some readers will know him as "webcraft"Dee says he’s very sweet.But is there any praise fainter for a bloke than to be called “sweet”?We’ve spent the morning beetling around the Atlantic and. read more...

Mojomo - BxWx signs off ARC2011

15:19N 57:27WFull sail, and an amazing 8ish knots in 5 knots of headwind as we rip past an arc boat on the horizon every hour or so.Our new metallic spinnakers really are the business.Still on target for daylight  arrival in rodders tomorrow pm. DTF 215 at 1300GMT = 0900 local/carib. The other ARC transat boats have to make do with forecasters of the type that foolishly try to make the noun "ridge" into a verb, or more specifically, a gerund.So for arcies, instead of there being a "broad ridge" of pressure, the ghastly ARC text forecasts describe "broad ridging"! Ugh!Presumably arc staff also have "appleing" in the grocery section of Waitrose, and a good deal of "petrolling" in their local petrol station?  Jeez! Oh, of course, I know what it means, really.But then I can just. read more...

Mojomo - Mojomo and the Far Side of the Wet Blob

15:49N 55:18W at 19:15GMT BxWx forecast a Wet Blob several days ago, and this morning we set the ornery main and genoa ready for some soggy Weather ™.Nick and David loved it – proper UK-style sailing.Then we put up the gennaker as well and whizzed along at up to 10knots on a nice beam reach, and when the giant rainstorm turned up we put on Ride Of The Valkyries several times, loud. This time we got a proper hit, loads of rain and wind, solid speeds of 16 and 17knots for several minutes at a time, the whole thing lasting well over half an hour, 10nm nearer the waypoint in an hour. Now late in the afternoon we have main and genoa, about 7.5knot average, clearing sunnier skies and seas down exactly as Forecast ™. So, we’ll likely be in Rodney Bay when Sam tells us. read more...