Daily Logs

Blue Moon - Blue Moon blog. 1583 NM to go

Giordana’s watch:The trip keeps on going through the warmer season, Giorgio is the first having a shower with sea water.Every sunrise we set the fishing hook into the sea hoping to catch a beautiful Dorado or a nice and fatty Tuna, but for the moment we are only getting unwanted flying fishes during the night watches.After the kite’s halyard broke, Lyssandra climbed up the mast to fix it, we did a great crew job!We crossed our first time zone without changing our clock’s time, because we want us to be owner of our time and we don’t want a Capitalism society to decide over our free lives.Samuel’s watch:Riko: Sad sad sad in three points. After cracking the “belowdeck starboard side aft molar” a few days ago, the remaining piece of tooth has very sharp corner which is cutting my tongue.I. read more...

Little Island - 264 hours

A big, squally night sail followed by an excrement morning. That’s right. Excrement. As I was coming off my watch at 0630 this morning, one of the crew blocked the toilet (it was me). I fear that those reading these blogs will feel I have some sort of obsession over bowel movements and faecal matter. I really don’t, I grew out of that when I was 24. This is just the way events have unfolded on the boat. So, the toilet. There I was, pump pump pump, all going fine and then suddenly I encounter some serious resistance. This happens from time to time but unlike the other incidents, this wouldn’t budge. Fear not, I thought to myself, it’s probably just at the bottom of the toilet unit - I’ll get the plunger. Plunge, plunge, plunge. Nothing but black rubber marks on the bowl and a flurry of. read more...

Celtic Star - Blog 12 Day 12 Friday 6th December

Celtic Star was third in the poetry competition onthe SSB net. We are  a small group of boats about the same size that chatdaily and compare positions and weather.Our poem is called "ARC RadioNet" - the names of the different boats in our group are all featured, thoughDesert Eagle has been modified.   At midday UTC the airwaves come alive,On ARC 4Charlie listening watch there is a friendly vibe.We hear Eagles in theDesert as the Summerwinds blowand Pacific Pearls are shimmering in theradio's electronic glow.Alisara has an Accomplice to talk about 80'shits,Simane is a regular as the roll-call keeps our wits,The Next Stepis Gentoo sailing westward all the time,Santosha Too is put in here becauseit's a tricky one to rhyme!Grace & Hope are the qualities of oursplendid ARC net. read more...

Next Step - Wednesday 4th December 2019

We have passed the half way mark, today will be a day of feasting to mark the occasion.The sea remained fairly choppy with an erratic swell. Whilst on watch in the morning, I was minding my own business behind the wheel with Dobby doing the steering when two large waves broke onto the bathing platform sending a mass of water across the deck, me and the navigation instruments.For today, rather than having lunch we had bacon and egg butties for brunch, what a treat. In the afternoon we each had a small glass of Angel Delight with a topping of a couple of maltesers, so much for the waist line..! This evening I am cooking a beef curry. Before settling in for the night we took a reef in the main and a couple of furls in the genoa.. read more...

Montana - Log 3

Day 10, We have new friends to play with. Since last night Celtic Star came in sight 6NM in front of us. Hard to catch up, looks like they know how to sail. Wind is a little bit less and we discuss sail changes but can’t find a better set up for now. We are still good on stock, fridge is half full. Today we called it halfway or as we say in Germany, "Bergfest“, so all Crew enjoyed the extra beer, of course besides the Skipper. Have to deal with the first squalls.Day 11, The squalls were friendly last night, mainly past us in the south, caught just a bit of rain, washing of the salt from Montana. At the moment it is a bit of rolly and the Chef of the day has some problems in the Pantry. Skipper puts on the first Soca music on the speakers to get the Crew into the Caribbean mood.Markus. read more...

Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 11

Day number 11 at sea. Sometimes the ocean feels very very large (because it is) but something will happen to make it seem small.EH01, our friends/competition, passed close enough behind us that we could almost wave to each other! Then, when calling them on the radio, it turns out that another boat (on the Rorc Transat) was in range of us. This boat was called Kali which led to some considerable confusion!As EH01 passed behind us we also got another fish on the line, unfortunately at the same moment a big wave came which we surfed down at around 13 knots. This caused the line to snap meaning we are almost out of "good" lures. Hopefully we have better luck tomorrow!All in all, we are all eager to get to the finish now but we are taking things fairly easy. As long as we are going fast. read more...

Amari - Day 14 We Were Normal Once

We’ll be back on land in two days, with cars and malls and all the normal stuff that normal people have and do everyday. We were normal once. Had the house, the car, and the garden in a few different cities like Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Raleigh. Of all the things about “normal”, I miss the plants and herbs the most. We had the most amazing sage plant, woody and robust with leaves just begging to go into your baked chicken. At the risk of sounding like a Paul Simon song, yes, we had “parsley sage rosemary and thyme” to go with our tomatoes and basil that grew so huge in the summer we swore it was some kind of mutant plant from Little Shop of Horrors.So when we strolled through the Carrefour in Cartagena, Spain and Dottie saw potting soil, it was like someone had cast a spell. read more...

Challenger 1 - Crew blog challenger 1 04/12/19

4/12/19 - Today has been a very normal day on board of the Challenger 1. After some work of Alex’s team preparing for a gybe, Anna’s team carried out the gybe and we started heading south west. The wind continues pushing us towards our destination. We are currently 1400 miles from Saint Lucia, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean preparing to celebrate Michele’s Birthday. After this watch, Hugo is going to try to bake a cake (I hope it tastes better than the meals he usually cooks for the 16 of us). Jokes aside, tomorrow we have another Shower day, which will probably help to improve the crew’s mood. (Ariana and Enrique Blue watch) How do you wake up for a 3am to 7am watch?Some people on the other watch take in turns and wake me up. After that we have Anna the watchleader that. read more...

Amadeus - Amadeus blog dec 04

The wind slightly decreased yesterday, we prepared the gennaker and were waiting for just a littlebit more easing. Unfortunately the opposite happened, we got 30 knots, big waves and a squall front. Some of them hit us with heavy rain and gusts over 30 kn. We enjoy sailing in this fresh breeze . We have good boat speed, 10-12kn, butunfortunately we can't sail deep enough. So we will take a little longer tour. Blanka is the the master of downhill surfing, she easily reaches 14-15 kn and she keeps our ARC speed record (18.1 kn), too. Sometimes she entertains us with slight broaches beside the speed :) Meanwhile Blanka is entertained by the flying fishes, one hit her while driving, another one flew to her within the salon.. read more...

Agua Dulce - Log Day 11 – Halfway there

It’s hard to believe we are actually into double digits for days at sea. Right now, I think of this as two trips – Part I with no wind heading south toward Cape Verde Islands and Part II with lots of wind heading west toward our ultimate destination. Part I definitely seemed longer than Part II. Winds have remained steady from 16-22 knots mostly from the ENE, but starting to move around to the E, and even a little from the ESE. The swells are still 6-8 feet, but very gentle and rolling. If they would just come from the same direction as the wind, it would cut down the rolling more on board. We had some bubbly cava from Spain this afternoon in the sunshine to celebrate being over halfway there! We have crossed the 1400NM to go mark. We enjoyed some of the great Spanish cheese and Iberian. read more...

Idefix - Idefix update day 11

After a relatively rough night with up to 29kts of winds and some fun surfs, today was really nice and enjoyable. Exactly like what we were told sailing the tradewinds was: 15-20kts, reasonable swell, warm and sunny. We put the code 0 back on and went wing on wing. Very comfortable. Not sure we will break a record, but should get 7kts average and close to 170 miles today.Uneventful day and everyone got some rest. As usual, amazing lunch and dinner - still incredible how the stability of a catamaran and all the appliances we have on board allow in terms of food! Fresh bread pretty much every other day as well as yogurts. Cannot detail the main courses, too long! Only glitch, we lost a few of the eggs. Storage was not right and we will need to review this. Evening activity has been playing. read more...

Skyelark of London - Half way

Day 11 Just come hotfoot from the ’halfway point’ crew party. A fine meal of roast lambfollowed by peach crumble with custard, yum! Special mention to chefs Dan andEm. Fine sailing conditions maintain with winds around 15 to22 knots. The swell running yesterday has eased to comfortable proportions andgood VMG is being made. This morning’s deck shower on the foredeck remainedchallenging however. We seem to be disturbing a lot of flying fish these pastcouple of days, I’m very impressed by the distance they can travel above thewaves. The traditional crew ETA prediction competition hastaken place, with answers veering from the wildly optimistic to ultraconservative. Dawning on me that a lot of action could be occuring on Friday13th, could be interesting..... read more...

Rum Bucket - Last 48 hours on the NZ Rum Bucket

Rum Bucket update: the last 48 hours have been trying times for the crew and have limited options now going forward. Our 2:1 halyard has an issue at the top of the mast, so we used our masthead halyard to hoist our Code Zero to blast to St Lucia unfortunately in the middle of the night the halyard broke landing the Code Zero in the ocean but a very quick recovery of the sail by the crew had it back on board and stowed away. We have spent the day trying many ways to free the remaining masthead halyard trapped inside the mast but it won’t budge. We are now limited to our jib due to if we hoist a sail on our fractional halyard there is the unknown as to whether we will be able to drop it when the weather conditions change.The crew are very tired and just want to get to St Lucia ASAP.. read more...

Mabetica - blog

04.12.2019 - Leg 2/Day 14 - Today we are very fast on our way to St. Lucia. Happy Sailinhg :) The colour of the Atlantic is so beautiful and also all the stars in the night :). read more...

Umiko - UMIKO Arc Blog Day 11 (Brian Blog)

Dear Umiko fans,I hope this finds you well. We are currently broad reaching along in classic trade wind conditions with a lovely half moon to guide our way.It has been an eventful 24 hours. Yesterday after a cracking kite run where Nico set the record of 22kts boat speed we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and elected to drop the kite as the conditions were getting challenging. Earlier our new mast lock had failed to engage so we were on a "normal" stbd spinnaker halyard (having dropped repacked and re hoisted the kite) When we came to drop the kite would not come down. The cover had chaffed and parted from the core. This then bundled up and got stuck in the mast. We had set up for a "letterbox" drop and because of this the kite was protected behind the main. We. read more...

Zaurak - Zaurak's Bimbling Blog

Zaurak's Bimbling BlogWednesday 4th December 2019Motivational momentsThis morning, I smelt fresh bread and grilling bacon as I came out from a warm shower. These are the motivational moments that keep us going. Claire treated us to this almost-mid-Atlantic brunch treat and this, alongside the successful running of the water maker and an opportunity for a shower, put a new spring in our steps.Pete ceremoniously put the champagne in the fridge, another motivational moment, for tomorrow we will cross the halfway point, 1450nm on the log expected sometime before midday. For a brief moment we will cease to be a dry boat and the champagne flutes will be filled for an afternoon of celebration! Zaurak also celebrated her longest run in 24 hours on Tuesday, covering 178nm.The skipper is also. read more...

Sally - Soon less to sail than sailed

Each morning there are one or more dead flying fishes on the deck. They never hit the boat in daylight so I think they can see something when above water and control where to go. Tomorrow we will pass the waypoint named Half way on our plotter. I think Carina has prepared something to celebrate it. Now we have less wind than yesterday which is good, but the swell coming from north caused severe rolling when a train of swell passed by every 30 second or so. When thinking on it, there is always something that is not perfect when sailing, too light wind, too hard wind, wind from wrong direction, waves or swell from wrong direction, sun is behind the sails, it's too hot, it's too cold, wrong boat for this kind of sailing, the list can be made long, very long. Even if the sailing isn’t. read more...

Salamander - YB Connect Message from Kay Tower

Hello Salamander Nation,By night we see shooting stars and by day we are captivated by the shooting stars of the ocean- flying fish. Whether they emerge from the salty depths as solo fliers or in groups as a squadron, their presence lifts spirits as we watch wings move at hummingbird speed as they skim over the waves. Are they trying to escape from unseen predators, or is it simply the joy of flight that motivates them? We may never know, but it is fun to speculate.Jimmy's Word of the DayIdyllic: Especially happy, peaceful, or beautiful. As in "Downwind sailing is Idyllic."The Crew of the Salamander. read more...

Oarsome Dream - Log 4th Dec couting down the years, when is half way?

Hello Blog readers!The good ship Oarsome Dream is still powering towards St Lucia! We did 195 miles and 180 miles in the last two 24 hour runs which is a lot better than we doing earlier in the wind holes.Still counting down the miles on the plotter waypoint and trying to work out the years. We’d been looking forward to 1664 because we all finally knew something for that year (Kronenberg got invented) but we were too busy chatting and totally missed it! Lol. Any one got anything for the years around 1300-1400 where we are now? We’ve definitely run out of knowledge.We are just about to hit the 1400 to go on the waypoint which I think is half way assuming we log 2800 miles which is a bit more than the 2700nm because we went further than the rhumb line. But on likely days at sea, yesterday. read more...

Sweet Dream - Tuesday December 3, 2019

RainWind Research Chain paintedRainMore wind...40 knots in the marina! image1.. read more...

Meltemi - Tag 11: Bordbuch der Meltemi, wir sind über'n Berg

So, da bin ich wieder. Hat etwas gedauert, aber wir hatten auch viel Gerödel an Bord. Das wichtigste zuerst: vergangene Nacht sind wir durch unsere erste nennenswerte Squall gefahren, die uns kurzfristig Regen und für eine halbe Stunde ordentlich Wind brachte. 33 Knoten (wahrer Wind) in der Spitze, die wir in über 11 Knoten Fahrt (durch's Wasser) umsetzen konnten. Na das war mal was! Einige kleinere Squalls folgten, gaben uns jedoch leider nicht annähernd solchen Schub.Und: wir haben die Hälfte der Strecke geschafft!! Zur Mittagszeit loggten wir mehr zurückgelegte Seemeilen als verbleibende Entfernung zum Ziel. Das war uns dann doch mal wieder ein Bierchen Wert (sin alc.). Es ist herrlich hier auf dem Atlantik. Sonne satt, Blauwasser, -wasser, -wasser, seit 2 Tagen keine anderen Schiffe. read more...

Little Island - 240 hours

Over a decade behind the curve. Cat has discovered Greys Anatomy after copying 9 seasons over from the hard drive that Gitane lent us before departing. Fair to say she’s got quite into it, with sail choices on her watch hinged on whether the laptop will be securely positioned as to allow for an adequate viewing experience. As I write this, she is crouched in the bottom of the cockpit like some sort of boxset Gollum, leaning in and fixated over her precious. This is where I find her quite often now, with barely a glimpse of the old Smeagle left in her. A big highlight of the day was the grand opening of a Christmas cake that mum made us before we left - thanks mum. It’s beautifully decorated with holly icing and tastes the business. I reckon if we suddenly lost all of our food, we could. read more...

Cuvee - Days 10 - 12

Mond 02/12 - Breeze has comeHave a steady breeze for over 24hrs now from the west in the low teens. Occasional rain squalls, so pressure builds, rain drops, close hatches, clear cushions from the cockpit and zip up the centre panel of the dodger. Let the rain past huddled under the dodger and then open hatches, put cushions back and open up dodger panel. Few hours later repeat, and then repeat, ... That’s about it today, did a jibe to stay on course, saw a spotted wing gannet , eat sleep and read. Getting close now but need to be patient and hopefully the predicted wind stays in and we have no more breakages.Only 2 cargo vessels past us in 24hrs.Decided to change to St Vincent time tonight at midnight so we will be tuned in when we arrive.Tues 03/12 - Under 200 Nm to goSteady breeze. read more...

Fish Pie - 4th December

Rockin and a Rollin, Rollin and a Rockin. We have hit the trade winds andthe SWELL! It takes ten times as much effort to do anything, as we are beingthrown around in all directions. At times there has been about 3 metres of swelland we are touching eight knots as we surf down the waves. Sadly the Hydrovane is not liking the conditions and failed again lastnight, so we were having to take it in turns to hand steer – not easy in thedark, and with this swell. Repairs made today which involved skipper harnessedto the back of the boat as he hung off to slide the rudder back intoposition. The banana cake I made, to cheer the crew up at elevenses, ended up slidingdown the back of the oven due to the swell.We have been in radio contact with two other boats who are sailing onparallel courses to. read more...

Celtic Star - Blog 10 Day 10 Wednesday 4th December

Fabulous ocean sailing today, 2 reefs in the genoa andmainsail and surfing down waves at 11 knots is very exhilarating. However, thenight watches were very rolly and i was awoken by a wave coming into the sidewindow and splashing my face. Saves on fresh water for washing!No cetaceansightings since the dolphins a few days ago.  The crew are just realisingthat this is and endurance challenge as he constant and sometimes extrememovement of the boat makes daily chores a test of skill and ingenuity. Thatincludes typing!! All well with watches and domestic duties. Crew meeting atlunchtimes is our get together time for skipper news, weather news, fleet news-(we have daily SSB Radio contact and roll call). We also have a daily morale teambuilder-, like a tongue twister memory test, games,. read more...

Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 10

Day 10. The Universe continues to misinterpret "What could possibly go wrong?" as a challenge instead of a rhetorical question. Still, we try to invent solutions for sailing without symmetric spinnakers. So maybe we are not there yet, but we are still trying!In the meantime one of our crew members became 55. Good way to celebrate in the middle of the ocean, almost exactly half way to St Lucia! Baptiste (first Michelin star on a yacht) made muffin cake and a perfect dinner just to make the day special.- Franek writing for The Jua Kali Report.P.s. I would like to wish a very happy birthday to my little brother Hendrik whose birthday I am missing for the 3rd year in a row due to the ARC! Have a great day kiddo, see you soon. - Alex6fe3fc24-06e2-4eec-aba7-544d09d5f97e4807890055959825661. read more...

Challenger 1 - Crew blog Challenger 1 3/12/19

 3/12/19Big Atlantic swell, strong winds – this is what we have been waiting for. Up until now we have been making steady progress however today was the day we made 206NM in 24hrs. This stands as our record but with the weather forecast showing positive signs, we are certain that we can top this. Life on board for some has been challenging with constant rocking making great entertainment watching people cook. Normal jobs carry on for us blue watch, washing up, cooking and cleaning the bilges. Supper was prepared by our watch leader Alex – Can’t go wrong with pasta and tomato sauce! We have another breezy night, surfing waves with flying fish ahead of us! (Hugo, Blue watch) If you had a choose to replay a moment on board this vessel what would it be?Probably would be the. read more...

Amari - Day13 Swishy Butt

With just three days and just over 400 miles to go, we are all achatter about the things we want to do as soon as we get there.For me, I’m psyched about getting into wifi range because there are some things I really need to do for work that require, I don’t know, the internet?While at sea I can still be productive as long as I prepare in advance. Before heading off, like stocking your freezer with things you’ll prepare through the passage, I line up tasks that I can do off line. And before you think, your boss is a real jerk for making you do this, what a slave driver you must work for, what a total crap company, well it’s my company and I’m the boss. We started it 16 years ago and have grown it by being scrappy, doing what we can with what we have to survive and thrive. I have employees. read more...

Sally - No other boats in sight

For the first time since the start we are alone out here, at least on the AIS and there are no while sails on the horizon. We know there are other boats out here since each boat has a YB tracker and we get position reports daily. When can see other boats visually around 7 nm if the sun shines on the sails, and around 12 nm on the AIS. It’s very hard to spot a sailing boat on our radar unless it is within a couple of nautical miles from us. We had a couple of squalls last night and they are clearly visible as red dots on the radar. This time we got 25 to 32 knots of wind for a short period and since we always reduce sail during night, we could just continue to follow the wind in small squalls like this one.The waves are coming from several directions all the time and they make us. read more...

Agua Dulce - Log Day 10 – Rockin’ and Rollin’

9am - We’re sailing and making good time, but the seas have built and are really rolling the boat around and throwing things that aren’t lashed down around with a vengeance – including your body if you aren’t hanging on. We only lost one coffee cup today, so that’s still a victory in my mind. These are the days that you just want to get through. We broke the 1600NM to go barrier, and will break 1500 before sunrise tomorrow. Every 100NM closer is cause for a little celebration.12pm UpdateWe poled out the genoa to sail wing on wing now which has really settled the boat down. It’s still rolling a bit, but much calmer. We’re sailing at 7-8 knots in 20-25 knot winds from the east. Swells are 6-9 feet. They are gentle, but look big as they rise up beside and behind the boat. We’ve. read more...

Idefix - update day 10

After craving the trade winds for so long, here they come but a bit on the heavy side! The last 24h have been rough with the wind never going below 20kts.Good news, we should arrive earlier... but the lunch and dinner preparation will be more challenging than before. After being spoiled of being stable on a catamaran, we realized we are also on a sailing boat within 2.5m of swell: dont let the water jar in the middle of the table, it's too much confidence, and eventually it has fallen!Today we also saw an UFO (f for floating of course) - some weird black shaped object moving up and down the swell. Not the position of the mini transat wrecks, so not sure what it was. Maybe a submarine!!But more important, we had our first VHF chat with other ARC boats for a long time. And Brizo finally. read more...

Next Step - Tuesday 3rd December 2019

The wind stayed with us all night keeping our speed up but our track was a bit more northerly that we wanted. In the morning we gybed the main and got back to our track. We found a total of 10 flying fish on the deck in the morning, during the night Nicole had one join her in the cockpit. The sun is out and all is well, we are making about 7 to 8 knots through the water.Dobby, our windvane, was doing an excellent job driving the boat without any input from the crew, also enabling us to conserve power as we still have not managed to get the Watt&Sea going again. Lunch was a selection of Bimbo bread sandwiches. The afternoon was fairly uneventful, the wind was increasing and the swells were getting a bit lumpy. Before we had our supper, cooked by David, we put a further reef in the. read more...

Hatha Maris - Day 7 - 2/12/2019

Hatha Maris - day 7 - 2/12/2019Who we are: Karin Nebel - Since my childhood I love water, whether it’s a river, a lake or the sea. I was born in Zurich, Switzerland, which lays directly at the lake of Zurich and the river Limmat is running through. I grew up close by the river, my grandma taught me swimming when I was 4 years old, so no wonder I was always one of the best when we had swimming lessons in school :o) I learned windsurfing from my dad and my older brothers, and we spent some of our holidays practicing it in Italy, on the lake of Silvaplana, Switzerland, or in Hyères, France. After my schooltime I started to study medicine and became an anesthesiologist. I moved to a small city just at the lake of Zurich. My love to the water never ended, so I learned scuba diving and. read more...

Amadeus - blog Dec 4

Slower progress, technical issue20-25 kn (up to 30) wind and 2-3m waves slow us down. Dead downwind sailing in these conditionsis not what Amadeus is famous for. We try to find the best combination of vmg and comfort. Sailing under our large, lightwind dowwind sails is not an option, even with more shifts of full crew (helm, spi trim, grinder, main trim) would be risky.Dead downwind with jib is painfully slow and untolerable because of rolling. Now we run under jib to north, poor vmg but probably we will find some lighter winds an can try another sail combination.A day ago a big breaking wave hit us, Amadeus knocked down. The spinnaker flew across the salon and landed on my face. Not a nice wake up call. Just a little splash of seawater found is way into the salon, unfortunately hit the. read more...

Cuvee - Ted’s Atlantic Adventure - Epilogue

17:00 3 Dec2019 Director’s CutThe Director has just seen the finished product and is very unhappy with the editing. He states that he spent countless hours trying to build the tension in the storyline only to find it all cut from the released version. So after court action he has now released a Director’s Cut which includes totally superfluous material cut from the original that adds nothing to the storyline except about 2 hours of extra boredom.Management have responded by commissioning further Ted adventure stories including “Exactly What Ted and Brooke Shields Did in the Blue Lagoon,“ “Cap’n Ted Sparrow and the Mermaids of the Caribbean” and “The Big Wipe - The Adventures of Ted’s Kids.”.. read more...

Sally - A squall is catching up with us

It cover the stars and make the night darker while it approach us from behind. The wind is gusting to 25 knots and the radar shows that it contain rain as well, approx 2 nm wide but it pass south of us and we only got a few drops. When it has passed, the wind is back to the normal 18 knots. Then its time for the next squall, they have really queued up behind us tonight. Carina is resting, hopefully she got some sleep before her watch at 2 aclock tonight. Johan has just started his watch. Good night!/Jonas. read more...

Skyelark of London - nearly half way

Day 10, moving well, 184 VMG and 194 miles on the log inthe last 24 hours.  Today, sunnyskies, winds 18 to 22, seas 2 to 3 meters after a windier night with jib poledout and 2 reefs in the main.  Forthose of you who don’t know what VMG is, feel free to google this.  We are surviving without google, makingup answers as we go.  A fewquestions for you all...  The whalewe saw yesterday had a completely white belly.  We are thinking Minke.  Any ideas?  Also, we saw a bird today, mostly white,short fat body and relatively short wings. Any thoughts? Kitty. read more...

Salamander - YB Connect Message from Timothy Richards

Day 10.Small Boat, Big OceanDear Salamander Nation,We are in Salamander conditions now.Winds are averaging 20 knots out of the NE, with seas building, and we anticipate a series of 170-mile days to come.We are in the expansive middle period of the crossing,too many days into the sail to think about our departure from Las Palmas and too many days from Saint Lucia to begin anticipating the welcomes (and justifiably famous rum punch) to come.The watch system adds rhythm and structure to our days. The starting and ending times of each watch are fixed on GMT, so sunrises, meal times, sunsets and star locations shift steadily earlier as we move west. There is no land or any possibility of seeing land.There is seldom another boat in sight.We sail. Jimmy's word of the dayHumility: a low or. read more...

Zaurak's Bimbling Blog

Zaurak's Bimbling BlogTuesday 3rd December 2019High swellToday, we have swells of up to three metres coming in from the east. They are lifting the boat from the starboard aft quarter and sending us rocking at great angles. If you imagine putting down your tea and then rocking the table back and fourth through an arc of about forty degrees, this is how relaxing tea time feels. Now imagine doing that to your house and think about how many of your items you have to hold onto whilst dressing, washing and cooking. The crew on board each have their own techniques to wedge themselves into corners of their bunks in order to avoid being ejected unceremoniously from their beds whilst attempting to sleep.Albert Camus summarised a similar experience in 'The Sea Close By': "The waves come from the. read more...

Sally - Trade wind sailing

Now Sally has started to move a bit faster over the Atlantic Ocean, think we have an average speed of 8 knots since yesterday, it means 180 nm closer to our destination. The sailing is a bit bumpy and a crossing swell causes severe rolls now and then. We have adapted to the new movements during the day and always keep a firm grip on something. This kind of sailing requires more attention to the wind and sea so that we don't break something. We had a couple of light rain showers today, but only for a couple of minutes each time and only with a minor wind change. We are all fine and showing no signs of sea sickness even in this bumpy ride we have today and it should continue the whole way to Saint Lucia according to the weather prognosis.Cheers. read more...

Distraction - 3/12/19

Good morning. It’s 0300 boat time here, that’s 0400 GMT, since we have moved the clock back once to accommodate sunrise and sunset at a more suitable hour. Another few time changes to go before we reach St Lucia.We had another great sail yesterday. Following a minor tear repair in the morning we had the spinnaker up again all day, we were racing along. To facilitate a better cooking and eating angle we changed over to white sails before dinner; and a good job too as we are now truly ‘rocking and rolling’ in 17 to 20 knots of wind, gusting 25. The passing trains of cloud are causing some small wind shifts as they travel south westerly; otherwise all is stable - although walking around below can be tricky.And around us only sea and sky... and where better to spend a birthday than the. read more...