Daily Logs

Occhi Indaco - update 25/11

We are already on the fourth day. Finally we have reached the 200N . The winds are calmer and the seas are more organised. The weather is wonderful and the sun is shining. Crew is still complete, though all with various blue spots covering more or less body parts from stumbling around in the dark and being tossed around by the swells. Everyone has had a shower today and what a wonderful change in odour. One of the guys cabin was really smelly and as the shower did not do the trick we realised that the leeks had gone bad so tonight we will have quiche. We have changed course and are now heading towards St. Luicia. Although Mindelo Cap Verde has been considered a few times the last couple days for repairs and a massage. Unfortunately Bluejay is moving ahead of us at this point as we lost. read more...

Jo - Tag 5 - der Angler und sein erster Biss (Crew Special, Teil I)

Wie schon geschrieben, ist unser Frischfleisch Vorrat nun erschöpft. Ok, bis auf diverse luftgetrocknete haltbare Churizos, Bockwürstchen in Dosen und ähnlichen Leckereien, von denen die Crew aber noch nichts ahnt. Daher haben wir dann auch gestern die offizielle Angelerlaubnis erteilt. Warum erst gestern? - Weil wir bei der ARC 2018 bereits an Tag 2 damit angefangen und direkt einen 1,30 m langen Mahi Mahi an der Angel hatten, der für zwei Tage gereicht und uns unseren Menüplan ordentlich durcheinander gebracht hat. Das wollten wir dieses Mal vermeiden. Einen gab's, der konnte es kaum erwarten.Unser Ralph Roller. Roller ist nicht nur langjähriger Segler mit viel Erfahrung, immer fröhlich, hilfsbereit und interessiert an neuen Themen rund um das Schiffsleben, sondern seit einer Weile. read more...

Navasana - Day 6 Fishy fish fish!

We woke up to a BEAUTIFUL morning only to realize we were being headed off our planned course by miles! After a quick gybe and a shake out of our nightly reef we decided it was time to finally drop in our fishing lines.Just as we was wondering what we should eat for lunch we see some chomping at one of our lines and right enough…. A nice mahi mahi was hooked!! We reeled it in and we all prepared for a swift cleanup job - fish blood and brand new Nautitech gel coat are not really the best of friends. However, thanks to some great research from Chet, Sardinian vodka poured in the gills really gets the fish happy and calm. No blood needed 🐟Let’s just say we celebrated with a top quality Verdejo and some fresh ceviche and guacamole for lunch. Looks like this passage is finally shaping up to. read more...

eXite - Exite 25/11 - halfway point

Early morning we reached the halfway point and celebrated with apple pie. 1080Nm left until a full night sleep again. If nothing major breaks it looks like we will arrive first or second of December - but you never know as a lot of things can happen.As a short handed crew we really feel for the other short handed boats that now suffers from an autopilot that doesn’t work, a nightmare. Everything sailing wise works great for us now, but that is due to the autopilot steering like a champion around 20 hours a day so we can get our rest and sleep. Before leaving Las Palmas we bought a complete autopilot to have as a spare, to hopefully just switch the cables to the new one if the one we have would brake - just to be on the safe side.However, we have been having some minor issues as well that. read more...

Sunbeat VI - Day 6 - light winds

Frustrating day’s sailing due to light-ish winds. Gybed south this morning to get more favourable wind direction. Gybed back again late afternoon as the wind went back to the ENE. Big Red spinnaker up all day again. Continued on our sustainable fishing quest - I.e. no fish. No other yachts spotted today. We had the ocean to ourselves. Currently sailing at 7 knots into the sunset. A perfect evening with the only thing that is missing being a rum and coke. We will have to wait for that for when we get to Saint Lucia since we run a dry ship while on passage.. read more...

Oceano - Log Day 6 - Weather Girl

Last night’s sunset was a thing of beauty. Opal-like, radiating pastel sky and clouds like taken from an impressionist painting. Almost everyone from the crew was at the deck taking pictures or just staring in pure amazement at this spectacle people call weather. I do love sunsets at the boat too, but my favorite time of day is this delicate timeframe just before the sun rises, when colors gradually come back to the sky, darkness is slowly dissolving into grey, then lighter shades of violet, navy, blue and finally pink, white, eggy yellow, golden shades that release the sun like a pearl, and with it the warmth and clarity of the day. I am not a morning person, but I am always excited for this kind of ocean dawn. It is less kitschy and attention seeking than a sunset, less cliche. And it. read more...

Amokura - Log Day 7 - Half Way!

Well the momentous half way point was passed yesterday evening, and we are counting down the miles. On watch at 0100 I was excited to see the Distance to Waypoint (our destination point) flip from 1000 to 999.9! It is a bit too early to start projecting an arrival day and time as still a lot of miles to go! We are delighted to still be slowly progressing through the fleet, although winds are a bit lighter so our speed has dropped correspondingly. The sea state has also calmed, making for better sleeping conditions for the crew - the Skipper seems to have the ability to fall asleep whatever! It is strange to note it is exactly a month to Christmas Day, we are so removed from the commercial run-up to the big day and the accompanying damp and chilly weather. No Christmas trees out here, we. read more...

Lothlorien - Tag 1 auf See - ein rauher Start

Um kurz nach 12 Uhr fahren wir bei Sonnenschein aus dem Hafen. Eine große Menschenmenge steht auf den Hafenmauern und schaut sich das Spektakel an. Ganz vorn dabei die 'yellow shirts'. Das sind die Mitarbeiter der ARC, die uns allen noch einmal aufmunternde Worte zurufen. Die können wir auch gut gebrauchen. Direkt hinter der Hafenmauer erwarten uns Wellen von über 3 Metern. Pünktlich um 13 Uhr wird die Cruising Divion gestartet, zu der auch wir gehören. Wir fahren hinter den Racern, den Katamaranen und anderen großen Schiffen, die vor uns gestartet haben, um Gran Canaria Richtung Süden. Der Wind nimmt ständig zu und wir haben bald über 30 Konoten. Mit Selbstwendefock und ersten Reff im Groß wird es uns zu schnell und so geht zunächst das 2. Reff ins Großsegel und dann am Schluss wird. read more...

Charisma - SY CHARISMA | Tag 5 - ja ist den schon Nikolaus?

Mit ausgebaumter Genua segeln wir durch die sternenklare Nacht. Nach dem gemeinsamen Frühstück im Cockpit ist es dann soweit: Spi TimeDas große rote TuchWir nehmen die Genua auf Backbordbug und schlagen das Spi-Geschirr an dem bereits in Position befindlichen Spi-Baum an. Dann heißen wir ihn auf, den 150 qm Starkwind-Spi - die CHARISMA trägt eine große rote Mütze. Den Nachmittag gleiten wir durch den Atlantik, begleitet von blauem Himmel und vereinzelten Passatwolken.Runter mit dem TuchNach dem Abendessen und vor der Dämmerung bergen wir den Spi bei zunehmendem Seegang. Wir baumen erneut die Genua auf Steuerbord aus. Bei stockfinsteren Neumondnacht ist das Segeln vor dem Wind zu tricky.Wir nehmen die Genua auf Backbordbug und setzten das 2. Reff ins Großsegel. So steuern wir auf. read more...

Lothlorien - Tag 6 auf See - Routine im Passat

Ich hoffe, dass unsere ersten 5 Einträge in diesem Log bereits online stehen, bitte gebt mir eine Nachricht, wenn dies nicht so ist, dann kann ich sie erneut versenden.Heute gibt es nur Gutes zu verkünden. Wir haben den Motor gecheckt und gestartet. Alles läuft wieder einwandfrei und wir konnten die Batterien ein wenig nachladen. Dazu haben wir ein 'fliegendes' Solarmodul zu den fest montierten Modulen angeschlossen, sodass ein Großteil der über Nacht verbrauchten Leistung der Batterie durch Solarstrom ersetzt werden kann.Trotz des böigen Windes haben wir während der Nacht unsern Parasailor stehen gelassen und sind gut voran gekommen. Im heutigen Positionsreport haben wir schon einige Plätze wieder gut machen können.Wir lassen jetzt auch jeden Tag unseren Wassermacher laufen und füllen. read more...

Falcon - Halfway Celebrations

The Half-way parties continue all day on board Falcon. :-)image1. read more...

Betelgeuse - BETELGEUSE Thursday 24/11/22 DAY 5 – The fish are flying, and so is the spinnaker!

Normal 0 false false falseEN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}At last the wildlife has started to appear between waves, and we have seen plenty of spotted dolphins, a whole air force of flying fish and a few lonely petrels skimming. read more...

Skye Blue - Skye Blue Songs from the Sea

Yesterday, all our troubles felt so far away, as we moved away from the choppy seas of the first few days. Skipper now deciding to - Go West!Under pressure we made our first proper sail change to a goosewing configuration, when we had to get our "motor" running. It's a kind of magic that we pulled it off! We were all happy.Ulrich (aka Baldrick) and 'mother' for the day had a cunning plan and serenaded the A-team with songs from the sea.We sailed with Dignity, until later in the day when someone shouted 'help' they needed somebody to land a Dorado fish and fillet it. Raymond (aka Nursey) stepped up to the challenge ably assisted by Stephen (aka Captain Darling).From the sea to plate in 30 mins and then in our belly's 5 mins later (2 mins for Neil, aka Flashheart). We all enjoyed our fishy. read more...

Endeavour III - Endeavour III - Day 5

The days are going surprisingly quickly - there is always so much to do. Thursday was particularly eventful - in a good way.Finally we felt we had gone far enough south to avoid the Azores high, and so at first light we made a significant course change to starboard, and directly towards St Lucia (“direct”, of course being a troublesome term when considering great circle routes). Then - suitably bolstered by coffee - we hoisted the spinnaker.As the crew were not totaly familiar with the drill, this took a while - but it was well worth the effort, and we put in 10 hours at pretty much the maximum hull speed.On the domestic side we re-jigged the schedule to split boat cleaning from washing up - the result: a clean boat and clean dishes, to go with the ongoing inventive use of ingredients. read more...

Falcon - Crossing Day 7 - Halfway

Distance run 158 nautical miles.Miles to Grenada 1021.Half-way day… whoop whoop.To celebrate, the skipper authorised firing up the generator and breakout of the galley electrics for toast (made from Bev’s delicious boat made bread yesterday) and Lunghi coffees… for himself. For Bev and Helm Monkey, it was dried ship’s biscuits as usual, but with added weevils as a token gesture of appreciation for getting us this far!After yesterday’s fun and games at the bow gybing the genoa, skip finished off his third delicious real coffee of the morning, gave his chin a ponderous rub, then informed the crew he had had ‘another one of his good ideas’.In short, this required yesterday’s survivor party to suit up again, head back up the pointy end of the boat, and launch the Bluewater Runner (BWR)!The. read more...

Skyelark 2 - 1/3rd down

1/3 of the way homeD4+D5It is now 1pm on Friday and we are now a full 5 days in... the wind has dropped into the low teens but we are still aiming for a 15 day crossing. The sea is calm and spirits are high, we have not seen any rain.To our great surprise we find our selvesat the front of our class running neck-to-neckwith a dutch boatW.K with about 1900nm to go anything could happen but we are verypleased with progress so far. Skyelark 2 is a great boat, perfect for this sort of crossing and we are in great shape.Amazing gastronomic delights continue to emerge from the galley aided the keen fishermen amongst the crew. In the last 36hrs we have landed 5, lost 2 and returned 1. Friday: we caught another 2 Dorado before 10am. It looks like we have ample provisions with many more delights. read more...

Lissy III - Ein Rückblick und Einblick in unsere bisherigen ARC Erlebnisse – aus Crew Sicht

Ein Rückblick und Einblick in unsere bisherigen ARC Erlebnisse – aus Crew Sicht   (Fr, 25.11.2022, 11.11)Eine Woche vor dem Startschuss war die Crew der Lissy III in Las Palmas angekommen, von Schiff und Skipper fehlte jedoch noch jede Spur. Einige Tage hatten wir kein AIS Signal und wussten nicht, wann das Schiff ankommen würde. Mit Marina (unserer Schweizer Skipperin) hatten wir vorab bereits einige Aufgaben unter uns Crewmitgliedern verteilt und die Anweisung erhalten für spätestens Samstagvormittag unsere Einkäufe zu ordern. Somit hat, als die Lissy III auf Grund von schlechtem Wetter und zu wenig eingeplanten Puffer am Tag vor dem Start Abends ENDLICH angekommen ist, nicht nur die gesamte Crew, sondern auch unsere gesamten Einkäufe bereits am Steg gewartet. Beim ARC-Team und. read more...

Sabine - Sabine update for 24/11/22

Hello interweb friends, Captain Stape on sail boat Sabine right here (///formally.precipitously.revelations), bringing you up to date news on Sabine and her crew. First the crew: Kia the skipper from Guam, Polina from USA (Kia’s SWMBO), John from USA, Richard from U.K., and me, the ship’s parrot. Well, weren’t the first 48hrs fun?!? (this being a new meaning of the word fun that really pushes the boundaries!) Most of the crew got through this unscathed, but Richard was regularly and frequently examining the contents of his stomach for the first 24hrs.Luckily Kia (also ships surgeon) took pity and issued meds that helped. But boy oh boy, what a dramatic start! When things started to calm down, and Richard could actually eat and drink without violently rejecting it, the sun came out and. read more...

Falcon - Happy Halfway Day

The very excited crew of Falcon about the celebrate Happy Halfway Day…. All days fun and excitement has been planned by AdmiralBev image1. read more...

Games Maker 2 - Games Maker 2 - Eco Warrior

Eco Warrior, Jozef, gets the solar panels sparkling and earns his coffee machine amp hours! Especially important when the generator is proving a little temperamental - can we buy a new one in the Black Friday sales today and get it delivered to us or a ‘safe place’ mid-Atlantic!?C’mon Mr Bezos, we’ve got Amazon Prime Membership for goodness sake!image1. read more...

Salamander - Early food

To give everyone a chance to settle into life at sea we've chosen to have mainly dry pre prepared food that is simple to both prepare and eat. This means that no one has to do anything too stressful for the first few days.We've already got a good routine going with breakfast of porridge at 6am lunch at 12 noon and supper at 6pm.The second night we did have hot food of mince, peas & new potatoes which went down well.Sue has been hard at work in the weeks running up to departure and has created around 168 precooked meals ready for the trip. I don't think we'll be going hungry somehow!Tim - Salamander Tour Manager and Guest Social Media Editorthesalamandersailingadventure.com. read more...

Salamander - Drinks

Not that sort!! We are a dry boat! Seriously though hydration is really important at sea. We all have numbered 500 ml water bottles and numbered thermal mugs.Whilst coffee is not banned it is discouraged and I seem to have set a trend in alternative herbal options. The current favourite is ginger tea which seems to have been well received by all those that have tried it. It is quite strong though if the bag is left to brew in the mug.We have plenty of other alternatives,I wonder which will be voted the most popular by the time we get to St.Lucia. Perhaps we can make a brew for Mary the flag lady?Tim - Salamander Tour Manager and Guest Social Media Editorthesalamandersailingadventure.com. read more...

Salamander - Line up, look up

Steering a boat that you are not familiar with can take some getting used to. On Salamander there are plenty of instruments to help with steering and navigation.There's obviously a compass but there are also dials showing wind strength and direction, boat speed through the water, depth (of little use in an ocean - ours currently reads 2.6 m below the keel! Clearly this is not the actual depth, more like a passing dolphin or shoal of fish has swum under us triggering the sensor!) and a digital compass. We then have a full blown AIS screen with every conceivable piece of information we could ever need.Even with all this kit, including Autohelm we are choosing to hand steer the entire trip!When we are sailing in inland waters there's usually something to aim at to hold your course. In the. read more...

Jadamama - Day 5 blog Jadamama

Good morning from Jadamama as we finally get beyond the Cape Verde islands and well on our voyage west. We are certainly taking the scenic road and have covered 860nm to date with just over 2,000nm to go. We had been following the pressure southwest until we hit the easterly trades this morning at about 19 50N 24 50W just when I was beginning to worry about my strategy !We have carried our trade wind sail now for 24 hours on starboard tack and not planning to change so today is all about housekeeping and settling in for the long haul ahead. We had our first fish supper last night as Marc and Maryrose vie for top dog on the rod to all our benefit but we haven’t been so lucky with the vegetables with some of the storage strategies not really paying off. The only breakages of note have been. read more...

Bluewater Mooney - BLUEWATER MOONEY 25.11.2022

Guten Morgen!Wir hatten 12 Stunden kein Internet, weil im Hintergrund Weise von einem iPhone, ein Update lief, welches in kürzerer Zeit sämtliche Gebühren der Prepaidkarte verbraucht hatte. Wir hatten zwar genau aus dem Grund eine Priepertcard, weil bereits 2014 ein Update mehrere 1000 € gekostet hatte, hatten aber für diesen Fall keinen Plan B. Wird geändert!. read more...

Navasana - Day 5: Dolphins and the watermaker diaries

A whole pod of dolphins swam with us for a while, was amazing! Really hoping we see them at night when they look like torpedos with the bioluminescence. Watermaker rejected 0% yesterday and produced the full 100 liters per hour of water!!! back to normal it seems. Wooohooo! Fingers crossed it stays that way. We had really wonderful trade wind sailing conditions, 15-20 knots of breeze, blue water and blue skies! Dan made an awesome Brazilian feijoada beans and chorizo stew last night. Yum yum!Chet. read more...

Joanna - Fishy business

Fishy business - an update from JoannaIt's been a quick start to ARC2022 with strong winds and high waves for the first few days. A quick start can't be said for Joanna's fishing experience - well until today.After the initial excitement of the start in Las Palmas and first set of night shifts, we dropped our fishing lines in the hope of having a tasty, fresh dinner to celebrate a successful departure. After a long day of waiting for a bite, we pulled the lines having had no luck. To our surprise when the lines were back onboard, we saw one of the lures had been bitten off and line snapped - how did we miss that!? What a turtle disaster! It wasn't all bad - we were still rewarded with an excellent sunset.A similar situation happened over the next few days. The crew eagerly dropped the. read more...

Petoya Too - Petoya Too on the way southwards

After strong winds and heavy swell on the Start we tried to go westwards and hoped to get a Wind window for a direct Trip to St. Lucia. But allthe weather forecasts were right. The ridge will come more south and we changed our plan. So now we are heading south as we should have done from beginning on. Today we had a very nice siling with our spinnaker and hopefully we are on the way, to get a little closer to the yachts in front of us. We are in good condition although I have a little problem with a rib because of hitting an edge on the boat very rough. For tonight the spinnaker is down but as soon as possible we want to sset it again to get a little faster. Best wishes for a safe trip for all the crews out there. Regards, Thomas. read more...

Xenial - Day 18 - HALF WAY

Yes the title is purposefully in all caps, we are very happy to have reached this milestone. Today, after 6 days, 1 hour and 10 minutes, our DTD (distance to destination) indicator read 1'100 nm. The Swedes broke into song, and more precisely they sang "For he's a jolly good fellow". But let's begin from the start. We had a good night, albeit really slow and kept losing positions because we were without foresail. Still too much wind to hoist the code zero or the gennaker. From a sailing perspective then, we were a little demotivated and didn't do much throughout the morning. But our crew is never idle and always needs a new project. Please make some noise for our newly formed engineering committee! Ulrik and Janne are the two members, and Gustaf is a permanently seated observer (read -. read more...

Amandla Kulu - D4_ From Zero to Hero (Part II)

Captain’s Log. Star Date 24Nov. Day 4. Fourth day on the water.2320 GMT.2320 Local.21º 10 N024º 51 W ///bunching.pucks.arminghttps://w3w.co/bunching.pucks.arming  You’ll be reading about a collective sigh of ‘ahh’ cross fleet blogs today.  Breeze dropped a little at first light, sea state settled and the sun was warm.  We were able to get some air flowing through The Good Ship Amandla Kulu as the temperature rose.  Immediately after first light, we hoisted our Code Zero (big flappy sail thing that goes at the very front) which was great for morale. After a few days of [necessary] neglect a solid few hours was spent on a deep clean and getting things clean, tidy and ship shape. Some chopping of vegetables and a tasty fresh lunch. read more...

Kali - Taking Black Mamba for a walk on the Atlantic

Good morning Atlantic,Kali is up and running again! With our spinnaker (the Black Mamba) up front, we are steadily and happily making our way south. Okay, there have been some minor hickups: we have some doubts about the functionality of our AIS system and our bilges have seen some salt water. The good news is: there is absolutely no traffic here and we have an incredibly skilled crew member who has managed to fix the salt water pump so for the moment there are no more worries.Our skipper delighted the crew with a creamy coconut curry with roasted almonds and coconut flakes on top and so we have sailed well nourished into a beautiful starry night. We applied the knowledge from the ARC seminar to find Polaris and determine our latitude. During the night we were accompanied by different. read more...

Jo - Tag 4 - süße Grüße aus der Bordküche

Unser - weiteres - Motto für die Überquerung: "Wir wollen sicher, gut gelaunt und wohl genährt in Saint Lucia ankommen." Für die Sicherheit ist in vielerlei Hinsicht gesorgt. So wurde JO u.a. noch in Las Palmas einer gründlichen Sicherheitsinspektion unterzogen. Natürlich von keinem anderen als Wilhelm, einer der Yellow Shirts Helfer und lebende Legende unter den deutschen ARC Teilnehmern. Vom Ablaufdatum der Rettungsinsel (haben wir im Mai erst neu angeschafft) über persönliche Peilsender (sogenannte MOBs) per Crewmitglied bis zum 1. Hilfe Kasten wird die Schiffsausrüstung dabei auf Herz und Nieren geprüft. Zusätzlich haben wir natürlich noch eigene, weitere Sicherheitsmaßnahmen, auf deren Umsetzung wir ähnlich streng wie Wilhelm achten. So verlässt z.B. nachts niemand das Cockpit, es. read more...

Mairmade - Day#5 - Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, but especially to our new American friends aboard Out of the Woods, Coronado, Second Wave, and North Wind...What I'm thankful for (not in order 🤣): -- On this sunny day of light winds and calm seas, I'm thankful for Jeremy the Gennaker (😜 Mr. Wyatt!).We've been flying it most of the day and it's allowed us to make good progress almost directly to St. Lucia.It'll be sad to put him away for the night, but safety first!-- My darling wife of 30 years, Claudia, who was brave enough (crazy enough?) to embark on this adventure with me.Today she pulled out all the stops in the galley to serve up a full Thanksgiving dinner of Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and green beans; pumpkin pie for desert of course 🤩Happy crew, happy. read more...

Salamander - Seasickness

I'm so lucky! In over 40 years of sailing I've never had seasickness. I recognize that this is very unusual and that professional sailors can be seriously affected. The crew of Salamander did amazingly well although there were definitely some affected quite badly.We worked together to help those affected and encouraged minimal stressful activities that might bring on the dreaded sickness.By the end of the second day we all seem to have adjusted quite well and are capable of doing all that we need. Appetites are up and normality is starting to pervade, whatever normal is!!The wind and the sea do seem to have abated somewhat and although the rolling motion is still ever present it feels much less now than the first day.Tim - Salamander Tour Manager and Social Media Editor. read more...