Daily Logs

Sweet Dream - Monday December 30, 2019

Dive party....in the howling wind that ripped through the marina, our gas grill spun on it’s mounts and dropped bits in the water...heroic efforts of Captain Lars, Joe from Charm, and Todd from EQ2 were all to no avail....but it made for great happy hour conversation.image1.. read more...

Sweet Dream - Sunday December 29, 2019

V and A waterfrontimage1.. read more...

Sweet Dream - Thursday December 26, 2019

Cape Town!image1.. read more...

Sweet Dream - Tuesday December 24, 2019

Merry Christmas Eve!image1.. read more...

ARC 2019 - Rodney Bay marina - Sailing Greatcircle (ep.152)

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ARC 2019 - Arriving in Saint Lucia - Sailing Greatcircle (ep.151)

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Skyelark of London - ARC Finish

It was nice to have a daylight arrival for a change!Team Skyelark crossed the finish line at around 7 am local time - we had boatsin sight ahead and behind and the last evening at sea was spent trying toimprove and maintain our position. There was some suspicion amongst the crewthat Kitty was letting out sail to speed up, and Steve was sailing extra milesin order to sway the arrival time for our ETA competition - the coveted prize helming Skyelark across the finishline. The winner was Kitty whose estimate came within a recordbreaking 15 mins! We crossed the line in fine style,  slightly overpowered with all sailsblazing, a fridge full of cold beers and a frittata in the oven. Smiles allaround, and a  great sense ofachievement as we were welcomed into the marina and handed. read more...

Sweet Dream - Thursday December 19, 2019

Fun times with the crew of Lunatix and Babsea!image1.. read more...

Greatcircle - ARC 2019 - Getting closer to the Caribbean - Sailing Greatcircle (ep.150) new music

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Karhammel IV - News from Karhammel IV

News from Karhammel IV, Thursday December 2019 19th :Our last –at sea, Las Palmas to Santa Lucia- messageAbout the broken jib : After 12 hours sewing, 132 holes in the ropes+head sail, 792 knots,the reparations allow the jib to work : grey plumber tape over the 6 sewed ropes & 12 jib weaknesses over the crema-white sail allow an original, excentric look, indeed, J J.Strong winds, 30-33 knots are our daily life, with a rough sea – 4 to 6 m,4 to6s, « crossed swells ». Main issue is that Karhammel IV is badly rolling,everything is flying across the cabin, including the crew members.Our hydrovane, Jean-Louis is working fine & beautifully : yesterday morning, his previous somehow neurastenic face welcome us completely illuminated with red nose –we immediateay checked but neither the. read more...

Sweet Dream - Wednesday December 18, 2019

Today we rode the blue line hop on hop off tourist bus to enjoy getting off the boat and out into the city awhile. The weather was perfect, the countryside is gobsmackingly gorgeous, the food was delicious, and had a grand time investigating places to explore. In the evening we had a fun time of fellowship with Helmut and Barbara from Babsea, and Helmut’s sister Marion and her husband, Otto at the night market. image1.. read more...

Sweet Dream - Tuesday December 17, 2019

Happiest of Holidays! This is a fantastic place to be celebrating in!image1.. read more...

Sweet Dream - Monday December 16, 2019

Day of reconciliation! Beautiful concept. The world needs more of this!image1.. read more...

Hatha Maris - Hatha maris day 20 / 14/12/19

Saturday day 20 / 14/12/19The final countdown (It’s a wrap .... only 100 more to eat ;-) )This is my 5th Transatlantic crossing and my longest one, ending tomorrow by sunrise in Rodney Bay after 19 1/2 days of great sailing with 6 awesome crewmates and a marvelous;) skipper. There is a lot of chitchat going on during watches which kept me from sleeping at times but made me smile very often. Everybody new to sailing made big progress and skills get polished. In my watch group people like to ride the squalls and surf the waves. The girls longing to arrive and join the party. Words to listen to: chop shop, bare off, keep it down, push ;) Words of wisdom: stay on course, TGV, 150 wind angle, faster! Looking forward to my first rum! Love corinneOh well, what a journey! I will arrive back home. read more...

Hawkeye - Hawkeye ARC Blog 11 - we've arrived!

Since arriving at 03:01 on Sunday morning, Hawkeye’s crew has been enjoying the rum punches and St Lucian hospitality – as well as decks that don’t keep jigging around in those waves.  We are rapidly working down our to do list and will leave St Lucia on Saturday to explore the rest of the Caribbean.  We are hoping to spend Christmas in Antigua and New Year in St Barthelemy.  But the beauty of cruising is that if we find some place we like better—we’ll just stay there!It’s been an amazing journey, especially for our novice Atlantic sailor, Lizzie, who we think was quite brave at her tender age jump in at the deep end.  She weathered every storm in a teacup, was a dedicated sunset watcher, vibrant painter and kept the rest of the crew on our toes with her remarkable. read more...

Hatha Maris - Hatha Maris day 20 14/12/2019

Saturday day 20 / 14/12/19The final countdown (It’s a wrap .... only 100 more to eat ;-) )This is my 5th Transatlantic crossing and my longest one, ending tomorrow by sunrise in Rodney Bay after 19 1/2 days of great sailing with 6 awesome crewmates and a marvelous;) skipper.There is a lot of chitchat going on during watches which kept me from sleeping at times but made me smile very often.Everybody new to sailing made big progress and skills get polished. In my watch group people like to ride the squalls and surf the waves. The girls longing to arrive and join the party.Words to listen to: chop shop, bare off, keep it down, push ;)Words of wisdom: stay on course, TGV, 150 wind angle, faster!Looking forward to my first rum!Love corinneOh well, what a journey! I will arrive back home and. read more...

Little Island - We made it!

We made it! And quite naturally I’m nowhungover whilst writing this. With every rum punch the achievement sunk in, and so we celebrated that moment with another rum punch; and so on...The first sight of land yesterday was an amazing feeling, coming into view as the sun rose and lifted the cloak of mist and darkness that had covered the island. We knew it was there for a while, but could never be too sure until we got that all important visual. Thankfully it was the correct piece of land, which was a relief having had no chart plotter for the final 300 miles or so. Despite standing next to each other at the time, we gave it a bloody good “Land ho!” call to mark the occasion, and briefly thought of those early explorers that stumbled across this green gem among thousands of miles of ocean. read more...

Nizuc - Blogs 27-30

Blogs 27-30BLOG 27 – We Have the Power The brown, Sargasso seaweed is now surrounding us in swathes, and the water is a pure blue. We have been looking for a lost fishing net, and a demasted Transac boat, but would be lucky to see it, but it’s nice to have a focus. We have sorted our battery problem by shorting the VSR, which was hindering us for safety reasons (kind of like when your car goes into meltdown because the puddle light isn’t working). The navigation has been easy without it, and we haven’t used the auto helm, anyway. We ended the day in perfect symmetry: the sun setting ahead of us, and the super moon rising directly behind us; we were definitely going west. Martin has been doing videos, today, so I hope they can be posted. That’ll do.BLOG 28 – A Good Washing Day When the. read more...

Summerwinds of Cuan - St Lucia

Emily, Ann & I crossed the finish line last night at around 8.15 local time  in a crossing time of 21 days which brings to a close this blog and this part of our adventure. The last 5 weeks have been amazing. The preparations & parties in Las Palmas, the crossing itself and now some more parties with the climax being the final prize giving and party on Saturday night. The reason for the whole affair: 'to cross the Atlantic on our own boat' has been accomplished again. We could have done it without the organisation of World Cruising Club but I think it wouldn't have been half the fun. Full credit must go to them as organisers for making such a great event happen.After this we head to Martinique for Christmas where we will leave Summerwinds in a marina and head back home to. read more...

Meltemi - Tag 23: Bordbuch der Meltemi, Fluch der Karibik, oder: last order

Hach, hier ticken die Uhren ja komplett anders. Da seile ich mich kurz ab letzten Freitag Abend, kaum daß die Festmacher ausgebracht sind, um unseren Verfolgern - also denen in diesem Block - mitzuteilen, daß wir gut angekommen sind, um am Samstag zu erfahren, daß nix erschienen ist. Was machen wir? Schicken das ganze noch mal 'raus, um am Sonntag zu erfahren: umsonst. Dafür steht Tag 20 jetzt 2 Mal im Blog... Also bitte auch 2 mal lesen, sonst war die Mühe am Samstag umsonst! ;-)Fluch der Karibik?Freitag Abend waren wir noch fix in einem Restaurant, Samstag Mittag schnell mal zum Lunch. Was uns nicht klar war: man nimmt am besten eine Dose Nüsse mit, denn vor mindestens einer Stunde Wartezeit serviert man hier nicht. Aber total nett und freundlich, immer laute Musik, die Petit Punch der. read more...

Karhammel IV - News from Karhammel IV

NEWS from Karhammel IV, Monday December 2019 16th :About the broken jib : After 12 painful hours sewing (132 holes in the ropes+head sail, 792 knots), we installed the « repaired » jib last Thursday before sundown. Till now, the reparations allow the jib to work : grey plumber scotch over the 6 sewed ropes & 11 jib weaknesses over the crema-white sail allow an original, excentric look, J. Today at 12.00 UTC, we were at 396 NM from Santa Lucia – ARC dixit-, Lubilu sailing boat’s  position in advance with 30 NM.Again strong winds, 30-33 knots are back, with a rough sea – 4 to 5 m,  4 to 8 s, « houles croisées ». Let’s use the pleasant terms picked up in  ARC weather forecasts : « enhanced trade winds », rather than. read more...

Greatcircle - ARC 2019 - First week on the Ocean - Sailing Greatcircle (ep.149)

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Sweet Dream - Sunday December 15, 2019

Lovely day. Lars cleaned rail in prep for varnish, I put up the flags and a few Chrismas decorations inside, we were to the wonderful market. Custard, samosas, waffles, botanical gin tonics; we had a splendid lunch! Then we shopped...free range meat, local cheese, artisan bread, pies! Oh yum! Food heaven! In the afternoon we had Great a Christmas cheer with our fellow WARC ers and their families and friends. image1.. read more...

Charm - Cape Town part 2

When we got up this morning, we were steering on one rudder, the auto-pilot was failing, and the mainsail was stuck.I asked Joe if he needed anything and he told me to pray the mainsail would fall down on its own.That didn’t work either.The night before we had decided to pass Port Elizabeth as an option to pull out.If the auto-pilot died right then, we would have 24 hours or so to get to Mosel Bay, the next option to pull out.We decided we could hand steer that far if needed and then assess our ability to continue at that point.If we didn’t feel like we could continue, we would pull out in Mosel Bay and pick up another person to help us steer the rest of the way to Cape Town.The next morning, with about 420 miles to go, Joe suggested we hand steer during the day and save the auto-pilot. read more...