Raparee - Possibly RAPAREE's last full day outward a l'Atlantique

Possibly RAPAREE's last full day outward a l'Atlantique Made a mitsake there on last blog. Of course day 19, yesterday, wasn't 12th Dec. To be sure it was only the 8th Dec.Anyway it was a most remarkably windless day. Surrounded by a great curving panorama of sky with huge distant cumulus clouds hull down on the horizon. A big slow easy swell gives the illusion that our horizon is tilted down to the south west and that we are gently sliding across a huge sea-meadow down into some distant valley. Its hot and sticky so we stop to allow us to jump into the clear blue sea and swim around the boat with 6000 metres below our toes. The after waterline and counter are covered with barnacles so skipper sets to with the brush. Under way again, lunch of marinaded tuna chunks in couscous with. read more...

Raparee - the dog days drone on

Raparee's exciting-ish Days 18 & 19 at sea Onnyway (as they say in Nornairlond) we carried on ghosting until the dogwatches when suddenly our trailing line thingy sort of went alltwangy, like big time. Nick goes to Don Gloves (one of our stowaways)to help with line hauling while Mike gets out the gaff from the loo. After a bit of hauling, in comes a meaty blue tuna neatly landed in the deck bucket.Some smart-ass suggested an alcoholic aerosol would send the fish to sleep (and I've known a few alcoholic aerosols in my life, so I can vouch for that). Anyway we tried gin in a killa-spray bottle but it no workee and made the poor crathur dance around like Michael Flatley on speed. Skipper resorts to the old mackerel method of breaking the neck and this works a treat, although it does. read more...

Raparee - days 17 & 18

Well folks, yesterday, Tuesday 17th, was a bit pooey to say the least. It rained, it poured, it blew, it stopped, we went backwards and sideways, but not forwards. Sails up and down again and clothes from foulies to shorts on and off again. Finally becalmed all evening, so after a few hours of angst (and we know what this skipper is like about angst)we sadly decided to bend on the iron topsail for a bit of chug-chugging. Megga penalty points at the end of course, but probably better than going backwards and meeting the back end of the fleet.  Anyways folks we put-putted for a few hours and stopped at ohcracksparrowfart this morning so we could drift a bit and ponder fings under Orions belt. Nothing in sight. No whales. No wind. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Other yachts have seen pirate. read more...

Raparee - Facing up to the final week (possibly?)

Sunday 4th - Tuesday 6th Dec Its early hours on Sunday and RAPAREE has been running all night under goosewinged main and genoa. Beautful moonlit night, but skipper sitting below fuming as it's a pain in the bum trying to get the sailmail and pactor modemHF comms system to work. It's incredibly slow and takes hours to download. Call the hands 0730 and its a pretty morning....excellent for big floppy coloured sails. After some frantic efforts, the chute is once again pulling us along and by 0845 we are having our boiled eggys and toasty bits. Our very first foreign visitor is a lone hungry young gannet who circles Nick's trailing lure several times. We start reeling in and he loses interest (the bird, not Nick). Our daily radio conference shows most of our group have now gone south of us,. read more...

Raparee - The weekend starts here - fun with blobby sails

Sat 3rd December Crossed the 1000mltg line at 0100. Quietish night with some squalls but steady progress. Sat morning perfect for a spot of proper downhill sailing. Time to divest ourselves of our awkward 3 sail set-up and stick up one of those big coloured lightweight jobby sails that one sees in jaunty seaside photos. Our feverish on-deck activity spurred on by the sight of an enemy vessel on the distant horizon. Got the thing up safely this time and away we went burbling along looking very professional apart from the mayhem on deck. David threw together an interesting spicy hot choritzo and tomato broth to celebrate and revive the crew.Afternoon in lightish airs with good progress. Nick practising on the expensive Frieberger sextant was able to confirm we were after all in the. read more...