Disco Inferno 3 - The Start of the ARC 2008

I've attached a photo of us just minutes before we left the dock this morning, so from left to right, it's Jarmo, Sauli, Bo, Pekka, Sakki, Olli, Matt & myself - Lizzie, just so you know who I'm talking about over the next few weeks.It's 1700 onboard Disco, everyone is up and very pleased to be on the move. Our first dolphins have just joined us and are flying through the air.The watch system has started but it's all quite casual and Jarmo has been helming happily for over 3hours and just keeps increasing the top speed for the trip, he's done 13.7knots already, so who knows what it will be at by the time we get there.It's been a beautiful sunny afternoon, our most excellent ARC start ever!So there were 5 Finnish, 1 Danish & 2 English on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic.. Could. read more...

Disco Inferno 3 - Day 1, the first 24 hours

Boat position - 25' 55.1N 016' 54.6WBoat time - 1110Heading - 215Boat Speed - 8.8knotsWind speed - 13.8knots Direction - 060Sail setup - Spinnaker and full mainsailMiles to go - 2570At sundown last night we took down the spinnaker and put the genoa on the pole, better safe than sorry! As It turned out it was a calm night and everyone slept well, at sunrise this morning the guys put in a gybe and hoisted the spinnaker again. Disco seems to be quite effortlessly averaging 8 knots, the wind has built slightly over the last few hours, when I got up at 8am the wind was dropping down to 10knots at times but the lowest we've seen for a while is 12knots.In the night we could see lots of yacht lights around us but now we can only see 3, it will be interesting to see how many come out of the. read more...

Disco Inferno 3 - Day 2, A frustrating night

Boat position - 24'05.7N 18'30.7WBoat time - 11:23Heading - 237Boat Speed - 8.4knotsWind speed - 14.1knots Direction - 080Sail setup - Asymmetric spinnaker and full mainsailMiles to go - 2471Yesterday afternoon the wind slowly started to drop and swing round to the south. Just before dinner we took down the spinnaker, rolled out the jibtop and found ourselves 80 degrees off the wind. Our speed was still around 7knots until midnight and then the wind dropped to 4knots, the guys on from midnight until 4am said it was very frustrating trying to keep the boat moving and in the right direction. We were passed by 2 yachts under motor.At 4.30am Matt got up and they hoisted the Asymmetric spinnaker as the breeze had started to shift back to the NE. Over the next few hours Slowly the wind. read more...

Disco Inferno 3 - Day 3, Still heading south

Boat position - 21'24.5N 19'56.3WBoat time - 11:03Heading - 226Boat Speed - 8.6knotsWind speed - 15.4knots Direction - 072Sail setup - Asymmetric spinnaker and full mainsailMiles to go - 2377It's a beautiful sunny day here on Disco, the spinnaker has been up for 30 hours so our progress should be much better than our 24hour run yesterday. It feels great to be on the move again. It was interesting to get everyone's positions last night, we were trying to figure out if people motored or just had more wind than us.We reached our daily aim yesterday and passed the 2 boats that were in front of us at dawn. One was a Lagoon catamaran the second looked like a J Boat with a bowsprit and very big spi but we're not too sure. Today we have 2 boats behind us, we believe it's the 100ft Mexican boat. read more...

Disco Inferno 3 - Day 4, Top Gun 16.3knots

Boat position - 18'55.3N 22'28.1WBoat time - 10:43Heading - 262Boat Speed - 10.8knotsWind speed - 19.5knots Direction - 074Sail setup - spinnaker and full mainsailMiles to go - 2222It was very grey when I got up this morning but the sun is slowly burning through the cloud.It's been an eventful 24hours, starting with doing 56miles in the first 6 hours. Before sunset we took down the asymmetric spinnaker and put the symmetric back up. Jarmo then beat his top speed and reached 16knots. At 3am it was all hands on deck as we'd had a huge broach followed by a gybe which broke the preventer, so the spinnaker camedown (eventually after putting up quite a fight and leaving Bo and Sakka with rope burns) and we pulled the genoa out for the rest of the night. During this 'challenge' there was a very. read more...