Sulana - Log Day 1 - The Crew and the Start!

Hello and welcome to the Friends of "Sulana".After the cruise down and weeks of preparation, the loading of stores,including amazing amounts of food, various seminars and loads of parties,the 2010 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers finally started at 13.00hrs. on Sunday.233 yachts crossed the start line in three large groups and set off in aSoutherly course down the length of the Island of Gran Canaria.Our crew includes Alan and Sue, the owners, Fiona and James, two of theirchildren, and hands, Peter and Ben.We will send a couple of pictures to our gallery showing the crew and theFruit & Veg market scene of stores swinging in hammocks below decks, takenjust before we left our berth in the marina.The start made a colourful scene with spinnakers flying in the lightreaching conditions. "Sulana". read more...

Sulana - Day 3 - Life under spinnaker

Day 3 - ARC 2010As of 16.00hrs our position is 23:10.6 N 19:11.5 W as we keep sailing SSW towards the Cape Verde Islands.Last night was cloudless with an enormous full moon lighting the sea and our deck and today has been just as brilliant, romping along under our colourful spinnaker in 15 knots of breeze.There is now not a yacht in sight although there are 230 of them out there somewhere. Instead we have had a school of dolphins for company diving around our bow and quarter wave.James has been up the mast in the bosun's chair some 23 metres to the top, to check for chafe and wear and all is well. He took two of the pictures in our gallery from the end of the spinnaker boom.When we are off watch and not involved in the galley, where Ben is producing some mouth-watering meals, sunbathing. read more...

Sulana - Day 2 - Gently past Western Africa

Day two and welcome to our friends in Year One at New Hall Junior School and Year One at Tring Park School.We have now sailed for 24 hours heading south along the west coast of Africa. If we were to head in to the land now we would find desert.(see if you can find its name).Although the real course we want is due west across the Atlantic to the  Caribbean Island of St Lucia (some 2,600 miles away) it is normal to continue down the to the region of the Cape Verde Islands, where the natural  "Trade Winds" will blow with us across the ocean.It is strange to think that tall, square-rigged, sailing ships have followed  this route for centuries, heading from Europe to the Americas, to trade, then continuing way up north to Nova Scotia, picking up the Gulf Stream currents for the return to. read more...

Sulana - Day 4 - What a CHANGE!

Day 4 already -and what a change.The wind dropped away to nothing in the early hours of this morning and we have been struggling all day to make any headway at all. We are some 180 miles offshore and it would seem that boats up to 100 miles nearer the African coast have held a breeze and kept sailing south, so our reported 17th position in fleet yesterday is but a memory. However, as we also said yesterday, there is an awfully long way to go.So what have we been up to? We have been fishing and got two big bites but, sadly, in neither case was the fish hungry enough and got off the line before we could land them. So, instead, we all went for a swim ourselves, making sure first that we had a long line on a fender astern, so we could not be left behind. The water is remarkably warm, but it. read more...

Sulana - Runnning Repairs

Well life at sea after 5 days is not all cider and roses .....although it IS  pretty darn good right now.Earlier today our new blender packed up and it was only brought along  specially to make our smoothies when the fruit looked like getting too ripe!  Step into action one super-chef / Mr Fixit, AKA Ben. He dismantled the whole  thing, with some force, then, alarmingly, threw half of it over the side, put the tattered remains back together again and, Hey presto! We are once again a Smoothie Team - Amazing!This has given us all a whole lot more motivation and so Fi got to doing her calisthenics ( exercises for some of you..) on the aft deck, in anticipation of a Big Catch, using her new favourite lure, "Bob" the Caribbean Squid.More on that tomorrow.For all our Mersea. read more...