Nutmeg - Trip Update - 21st November 2008 Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canaries

Position: 28:07:74N 15:25:56W Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands Countdown to the Transat… Well this week has been very different from the previous five months.  Nutmeg has been transformed from a family boat, with all the homely accompaniments (toys, dolls, Lego on the floor, childrens books everywhere), into a boat for four adults.  I have to say that I preferred her as she was, but that is just the way things have to be for the next few weeks. I find it really hard to visualize Sarah and the girls on the pontoon, walking around here in Las Palmas as they were just a week ago.  It is a different world.  The whole atmosphere of the place here has changed, from a small community of similar families and couples who had spent the last few months living on their boats and bumping into. read more...

Nutmeg - Transat Day 1 - 24th November 2008

Position: 26:31:50N 16:29:50W Transat Day 1 Well we’re finally out on the ocean.  We didn’t quite have the relaxing morning that I’d hoped for before we left yesterday – I thought it was all going a bit too well.  An hour and a half before we were due to leave the dock, I was just topping up the water tanks when there was a bang and the sound of a lot of water flowing into the bilges.  I quickly realized that one of the flexi water tanks had burst.  After initial thoughts of “this couldn’t be worse”, I managed to pump out the water, take out the offending tank and found that one of the heat-sealed seams had failed over a length of 50cm.  This tank stored about 80 litres of water.  For a moment, I thought that we would not be able to leave – disaster! After. read more...

Nutmeg - Transat Day 2 - 25th November 2008 - light winds

Position: 25:13:10N 17:26:50W (position as at 1200UTC) Transat Day 2 So this is what it feels like to do an 82-mile day!  The good ship “Nutmeg” has been ghosting along doing between 2 & 4 knots all yesterday, all night and all day today.  It feels so slooow!  It appears that most of the rest of the fleet are in a similar position, although in complete reversal of what the weather forecasts say, those further West have got more breeze.  Good old weather forecasts.   I’ve never been a fan of being patient – are there many people of my generation who are? – but this is going to be one long lesson in waiting. All is well on board; I finally got some sleep early this morning and I think we are all adjusting into routine.  We started out doing a 2-man watch system with a view. read more...

Nutmeg - Transat Day 3 - 26th November 2008 - more light winds!

Position: 23:57:30N 18:17:90W Transat Day 3 Urggh – even slower today.  73M on the log.  Interestingly (for me anyway!) the ARC position reporting had us doing 93M yesterday rather than the 82 I had posted, which means we must have had 11 miles of current under us.  Quite useful, but still too scary to extrapolate out our ETA at this stage.  An uneventful 24 hrs; we tried putting the gennaker up but it was not giving us any more speed than our large poled-out genoa.  This afternoon’s activity will be to see if we can put up a second genoa to complement the main & mizzen – she goes best at about 150 degrees off the wind so there is a slot between the mast and the goosewinged genoa.  I suspect it will be futile but we’ve got time to experiment. My prediction is that if the. read more...

Nutmeg - Transat Day 4 - 27th November 2008 - breeze at last!

Position: 23:00:03N 20:02:W Transat Day 4 I had a feeling yesterday afternoon, which grew stronger and stronger as the time passed.  It just felt like we needed to go West.  I downloaded the weather files, pored over them in detail, plotted known positions of other boats, and spent time on deck trying to work out what to do.  Then at 1630 I gave into my hunch and we turned the engine on and pointed the bows 30 degrees further West. I really wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do, but it feels wrong to be sitting doing 1kt for another 24hrs.  Anyway, 6 hours later, and we had a lovely fresh 12 kts of wind from the N, and we were able to turn the engine off and sail on starboard gybe at 5-6 kts!  So it feels as if my hunch paid off, but who knows – maybe this breeze filled in all. read more...