Disco Inferno 3 - Farewell Party - Team Disco Inferno

Morning from a sunny Gran Canaria!   Thought you'd like to see a photo of Team Discotaken last night at the Yacht Club of Gran Canaria. From left to right it'sPeter D, Martyn, Andrew, Tony, Lizzie, Matt, Peter M & Mark.   Matt checked us out of Customs this morning and hasheaded off to meet up with Martyn to go to the Skipper'sbriefing, the guys are moving their kit onto Disco this afternoon and then weare ready to go.   Lots of activity on the dock this morning, lots oflast minute provisioning arriving and plenty of chat about the weather and whichroute to take.   I normally write a log each day but sending photosvia the Sat phone is a pretty painful experience so we won't be sendingmany.  The ARC recommend you "Include a sign off line -. read more...

Disco Inferno 3 - Day 2 - More Sunshine

Boat Position: 22 49.4N 19 14.5WBoat Time: 1207Heading: 220Wind Speed: 14.5knotsWind Direction: 068Sail Configuration: Full Mainsail & Heavy SpinnakerMiles to go: 2425 It's been a beautiful 24 hours on Disco.  The wind has been pretty consistant, peaking around 17knots in the night.  Martyn now holds the new top speed of 11.9knots.  Peter D is the first person to try and gybe, I don't think he'll be on his own on that list. There is not a cloud in the sky today so it is pretty hot out there.  We caught up and overtook a catamaran yesterday, it didn't have an ARC flag or number.  Today we have a big boat with a big blue asymmetric spinnaker on our port side, its been slowly gaining on us all morning, its definitely bigger than us, 80 - 90. read more...

Disco Inferno 3 - Day One - The first 24 hours

Boat Position: 25 29.1N 17 01.7W Boat Time: 1216 Heading: 225 Wind Speed: 12.2knots Wind Direction: 099  Sail Configuration: Full Mainsail & HeavySpinnaker Miles to go: 2568   All is well on Disco, we're just 24 hours into thetrip and everyone seems very happy and relaxed.  The wind has been prettysteady since the start so we've been making good progress south.  We areexpecting the wind to drop off later this afternoon but hopefully we'll still beable to keep moving.   We had an ARC boat with us until about 2300 lastnight, we've been gaining on another boat this morning but are not sure if he isan ARC boat and we have just spotted a Catamaran with a blue spinaker off of theport side.   We had the pleaseure of a few dolphins in the darklast night, they. read more...

Disco Inferno 3 - Day 3 - Slow morning

Boat Position: 20 27.6N 19 43.5WBoat Time: 1138Heading: 196Wind Speed: 2.5knotsWind Direction: 083Boat Speed: 1.1knotsSail Configuration: Full Mainsail & Masthead SpinnakerMiles to StLucia: 2389 The helmsmen are doing a great job.  The wind was down to about 10 knots at 6pm yesterday so we changed to the masthead spinnaker giving us an extra 60m2 of sail, around 6am this morning it had dropped off to 7knots and since 9am it's been between 2 - 6 knots.  Surprisingly the speed has only once reached 0knots, now Martyn has both the slowest and fastest speed!  The guys are all very keen to keep moving and are all out there tweaking the pole, sheet and helping the helmsman which is really good to see.  With no wind it's incredibly hot in the sun. I made sausage sandwiches for breakfast. read more...

Disco Inferno 3 - Day 4 - Finally moving again

Boat Position: 18 38.1N 20 31.6W Boat Time: 1214Heading: 214Wind Speed: 10.3knotsWind Direction: 029Boat Speed: 5.3knotsSail Configuration: Full Mainsail & Masthead SpinnakerMiles to StLucia: 2346 Yesterday afternoon was the most painful experience, the boatspeed was 0knots for around 4 hours.  After lunch the spinnaker came down, the jib came out, the jib went away, the spinnaker went up, the spinnaker came down, then we sat with just the mainsail until 6pm when we hoisted the spinnaker again and we have now been gliding along ever since.  So it was a pretty busy afternoon in the heat.  Now everyone is very happy as we have around 10knots of breeze. When the positions came in yesterday we dropped around 40 places in the rankings as most boats would have. read more...