Que Sera - We're off - 23 November 2008

I cannot believe That the day has finally arrived when we are off - less than 4 hrs to go!The idea was first bourne 15 months ago when Jock and I attended the ARC seminar in Southampton during the 2007 Boat show.  Since then much preparation and many £s later it is all coming to fruition.And talking of fruition I wonder whether we have overdone it or whether we are all going to become veggies - certainly we meet the "5 a day" until it all goes off!Boats all dressed up! Some unexpected guests to see us off, Richard and Greame Team shirts! So there we are..Love, kisses and best wishes to all from Gerald, Jock and Mike.m_are we veggies m_five a day m_decked out m_Dick and graeme m_team kit. read more...

Que Sera - End of the first day

Its been a phenomenal start.Fireworks at midnight, a not too early start with a swim for all of us, then a meet up with Richard and Graeme for coffee, and then a saunter back to the boat at 11ish to cast off at 11.55. m_Team m_leaving Harbour       The team at 11:50                                                            Leaving Harbour - What a cacophony of noise and crowds on the sea wall Great atmosphere - Bands up and down the quayside, more fireworks, Boats blowing horns and blaring music ( ours was Hooked on Classics as we left the harbour entrance), with it seemed the whole of Las Palmas was there to cheer us off!  Not too hairy a start up the windward end of the line but not too far up which thereby avoided the inevitable fracas of boats coming in on starboard and then tacking. read more...

Que Sera - Day 2

Made a good average speed of 5.5kts almost due south and then, having cleared the wind shadow of the island, turned towards the Cape Verde islands. We are taking the South route to avoid the low pressure system further north as much as we can. Wind dropped during the afternoon to about 10 kts, rather less than the boat enjoys! The strange thing is that we can hardly see any other of the 220 participants - just 3 on various horizons. Hope we are going the right way! However, two great successes. Firstly,the DuoGen (a device which can either operate as a windmill or with different blades be towed as a generator) has been in tow mode all night and day and kept our battery power stable allowing us to use the autohelm all night without running out of power.We supplement during the day with a. read more...

Que Sera - Fw: Day 3

Very low wind, sad to say - 4/6/kts through the night and not much better by mid day. We flopped through the night with the Parasail, experimenting with how much main to have at the same time. We have reefed in the main to second position so as to get some wind but not blanket the Para. We also tried sheeting the main right in which made the Para set better but also reduced speed. The trouble with this speed is that the duogen doesn't generate enough to keep the electronics in equilibrium, therefore around mid-day we had the engine on to recharge the batteries at the same time as making more water. Not much to photograph so I thought I would let you see the dawn coming up. I wish though you could have seen last night's sky which was truly impressive! m_CIMG0118. m_CIMG0119.. read more...

Que Sera - Day 4 -Wednesday 26

Today had the potential for being rather boring, low wind and thus speed through the night (only 4-8 kts so very difficult to get the boat going) and relatively light winds through the day. There has been a great deal of chat with some other boats on the VHF ( about 25 mile radius so although we can only see one or two on the horizon -a few more at night-we can talk) about whether we are in the best place for wind, and the answer appears to be YES.  But its slow progress. We have now travelled only 310 miles through the water and 340 (with the tide) over ground. So we are a bit short of our average of 120 miles a day ( i.e. 5 kts) to make St Lucia on our ETA of 13 Dec. No matter it should pick up when we turn right at the Verde Islands. But the excitement has been that Jock caught 3 fish. read more...