Daily Logs

Cadences - Bilderbuchstart / / Picture Perfect Start

Für eine Nicht-Regatta-Crew war das fast schon ein Bilderbuchstart: Nur 20sec nach dem Schuss sind wir ganz in Luv, unter Groß und Genua über die Start-Linie gegangen. Optimale Position und ohne Abdeckung von anderen Schiffen. Nur 10sec später war der bereits vorbereitete Gennaker gesetzt - also auch nur 30sec nach dem Start. Aber dann: viel Wind (18-22 Knoten, etwas mehr als angesagt) und ganz schön viele Boote dicht zusammen im Pulk. Ein kräftiger Düseneffekt zwischen Mindelo/Ilha de Sao Vicente und der Nachbarinsel Ilha de Santo Antao produziert ordentliche Böen. Zwei heftige Sonnenschüsse können wir noch gaaaaaanz knapp abfangen, bevor wir mit 7-8 Knoten beinah eine Bavaria mittschiffs halbiert hätten. Deutlich aufregender, sportlicher und gefährlicher als geplant ...Außer unserer. read more...

Lubilu III - LL3: Delivery trip

From 'Chichoulet' in the North West Mediterranean to 'Las Palmas' in Gran Canaria1583 NM (14th July to 27 August 2019)Depart Northern Mediterranean 14th July with a fantastic NW breeze and made fast passage to North Majorca for a brief stop at the first cove, behind Cap Formentor. Cruised down Majorca and enjoyed a couple of lazy days on the North coast of Ibiza thenonto Formentera to the South of Ibiza town.Cruise the Costa Del Sol passing Alicante, stopping at Cartagena, fuel stop at Motril, becalmed for 24hrs and hot hot hot! Past Malaga and arrived in Gibraltar 31st July for 24hrs of R&R.Excellent passage through the straights of Gibraltar and out to enjoy some of that famous Atlantic breeze (cool cool breeze). Great passage South with fair to strong winds along the Moroccan. read more...

Sweet Dream - Thursday November 21, 2019

We finished cleaning, caught up laundry, took a taxi to the shopping mall, where we procured amongst other things, a cable for our printer that Dave of Chao Lay helped us get configured early in the day. We shared a pizza with Matt, our local yellow shirt guy, then loaded up a shopping trolley with fresh food and snacks for our company coming to visit. Back on the boat, John, the Raymarine repair guy showed up to sort out our malfunctioning AIS and radar, we put away all the goodies. We had a late supper of beef and noodles and fresh green salad, watched the hilarious Madagascar movie and turned in for the night.image1.. read more...

Layla - Better Layla than never 21 Nov 19

We made it to the finish line in Mindelo at 16:33 UTC 13:33 Local time – last in the fleet but not surprising given the delay to our start. With the start of leg 2 at 12:30 the following day we had just under 24 hours to turn around. One of our crew Steve had been suffering from abdominal pain for a few days so we were met by the ARC team and directed to a local medical centre – an exam, an ultrasound and some interesting translation attempts confirmed nothing serious but with a minimum of 12 days at sea ahead of us Steve chose to depart for home. Steve the crew will miss you a great deal, we planned for 5 crew because if one could not make it we would not need to cancel the trip but it is not something we had hoped to experience.With the news that Steves condition was not serious we. read more...

Saoirse - Saoirse Diaries - moonlit finish

We crossed the finish line of leg one to Cape Verde, which lay between a lighthouse and headland, at 21.36 on Friday night November 15th. When we first picked out the lighthouse in the distance it was still daylight. By the time we crossed the line, the sun had long since set and it was pitch black, but for the moonlight. The wind had eased to about 12 knots and the time between the first sighting and finally crossing the line passed beautifully slowly. We really had the perfect conditions for that last stretch, everything quiet but for that most soothing of sounds, wind in the sails and lapping water as Saoirse slowly surfed down the waves. Cuisle and Oisin both sleeping and the rest of us sort of lost in our own thoughts, enjoying the peace and beauty of the moment. On the one hand it. read more...

Layla - Destination is in sight 19 Nov 19

Well on the chart plotter it is in sight as I write this we have about 150 nm to go to get to Mindelo. We had a great sail today wing on wing for long periods, the waves have reduced and it had been delightful eating up the miles in the sunshine. It has been lovely to take your off shift time outside and to catch up on your sleep in the sunshine.Today we have finally experienced a day like the ones we had all imagined. Overnight we had a few visitors in the shape of flying fish landing on the deck – given that we are 100s miles from land a fish must be very unlucky to land on our decks. The fishing competition resumed today with all three rods in play…. Rods 0 Fish 3 so far- we were told it was about 1000 miles per fish which at this rate it means we will have to wait. Our citrus fruit. read more...

Zan - ZAN is in Cape Verde

Sorry for the delay in sending our first blog. We hope to do better on the next leg to Saint Lucia. All has gone well on the first leg; we arrived at Mindelo last Friday at 5:45 PM local time under genniker and jib. On the trip down we tried out the whole sail wardrobe including a brand new Doyle spinnaker set from the two hulls ( no pole required!) Zan performed really we doing over 5kts in 10kts of breeze.The only sail that hasn’t had much of an airing is the mainsail- welcome to cat sailing! Top speed was 20kts but only briefly surfing down a wave and we hardly noticed!!! We are well fed and watered and surprisingly rested unlike some of the monohulls who are still rolling about- this isn’t helped by a rather ‘ bumpy’ marina. We head off this Thursday and assuming local expert Gilson. read more...

Life of Reilly III - blog

A day-long tour of Santa Antao started at 0615 with a 1 km hike to the ferry terminal. A 60 minute ferry ride took us from Mindelo to Porto Novo (pronounced Portneuf in the local Creole dialect). There we boarded a convoy of Toyota minivans that conveyed us around Santa Antao, the second largest island of the Cape Verde archipelago. Geologically, Santa Antao is a long-dead volcanic seamount - a place where the forces of nature evidence themselves in the folded ancient geological strata vividly displayed in vertical cliff faces. The prevailing northeasterly trade winds build a huge surf that continually pounds the windward side of the island. The high and steep mountains of the island wring the moisture from the winds creating a fertile rain forest on one side and leaving the leeward side. read more...

Challenger 1 - ARC Youth Team TS Crew Blog - Training day 1

So much build up! So much planning! So many emotion!Finally, 6 St Lucian, 4 from Gran Canaria and 2 Brits joined Challenger 1 today. I can’t think of a time where a crew has joined my boat with So much expectation.The training had to start somewhere. People always ask me “how do you prepare a person/crew for such a big challenge?”. For me in this case the answer is easy… “Take them offshore”. The ARC is an offshore race after all. Offshore I where they will be tested, offshore is where we will train.The job of introducing and setting the scene on these long trips is still a job that daunts me. I’m mindful and conscious that I have 5 languages onboard, English being the common one, and that my accent is maybe more difficult for our non-British participant too.Every briefing is about the. read more...

Challenger 1 - ARC Youth Team - Crew blog day 1 and 2

Day 1 - Saturday 16 NovemberThe UK team arrived in Gran Canaria in the evening. We travelled to Las Palmas marina where we met up with the Gran Canaria team and the guy from World Cruising. We all then went out for dinner and met some of the other boats inside of the marina. The following morning, we joined the ARC opening ceremony made up of all of the crews in the marina and the ‘VIP’ from St Lucia, it was amazing to see how many participants there are in the race and it gave us all an idea about the scale of the event.Day 2 - Sunday 17 NovemberOn day two, the St Lucia team had arrived in Las Palmas and we all met at the Yacht Club where we had a small ‘Youth Team’ meeting followed by an introduction to the boat. We then had a series of safety briefs before setting sail. We planned for. read more...

Sweet Dream - Saturday November 16, 2019

The sun shone through the sparkling wet rigging and trees, and we began cleaning up. The repair guys showed up and began clearing away the old caulk around the mast boot. They worked all day, but didn’t get finished. After lunch we took a taxi to the giant mall. Culture shock! Ha! There are shops for everything you could imagine, very nice grocery markets, restaurants, and even the lowest price liquor store we’ve seen since Panama. We mostly did a reconnoiter run, with an all important phone data top up. We had received a SIM card from WARC when we arrived, but it was only one gig, and with all the weather research and emails to the boats out at sea, we blew through that gig in 20 hours flat. At the mall phone store we bought 30 gigs, now it’s lovely to have internet. Captain had a. read more...

Layla - Sunshine at last :-) 18 Nov 19

Another night a bit colder than expected but with amazing stars and moon rise to keep us entertained. This morning we changed our auto helm to wind angle to see if we could eek out a little more speed. This morning the sun was shining the whole team was in great spirits and we had the music cranking for a while. At breakfast we watched the “400 miles to go” milestone pass. Around mid-morning Martin put his line out and we snagged a fish which after a heroic fight broke free before he was able to land it. This has spurred on the other two fishermen in our crew to get their lures in the water and now we will wait to see who gets first honours! (hopefully soon as our citrus fruit is passed its best) From the position report it looks like there are six other boats – one still in Las. read more...

Fidelis - ARC+ 2019 Fidelis video

pls follow link :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_9Zzeoysxg&feature=youtu.be. read more...

Layla - Steady as you go 17 Nov 19

As you all probably know, life on board pivots around watches, sail changes, food and sleeping. Last night it was cold – not what we expected being so far down the African coast. We were all wearing our wet weather gear, hats and jumpers and in the small hours it was pretty chilly.Early morning gave us some sun which put a smile on our faces but as I am writing we have a squall passing and it has gone cloudy again.We breakfasted in the sun with eggs toast and bacon accompanied to Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles and Sailor by Rod Stewart….:-) let’s just say we are going a bit retro today with the top 100 from 1975!It seems our water conservation efforts are paying dividends with the tanks holding well even though our water makers seems to have stopped working… scores on the doors are. read more...

Layla - Good morning day 2 16 Nov 19

Our first 24 hours at sea has passed and we are all getting back into the rhythm of life on board. Not too much sleep reported but we are still getting used to our new lodgings! With the new forestay we decided to sail conservatively yesterday and this morning changed our sail plan to a polled out genoa. With this configuration we can sail a more direct route to Mindelo and we have plenty of smiling facesPaul - Layla BloggerSailing-Arc-Plus-Nov19-494-1-small. read more...

Fish Pie - Mountain of supplies still to buy

I think we have broken the back of the work on Fish Pie in preparation for the start in a weeks time.  A few bits left and more spending to be done, but all quite manageable now.  We will need some advice on fishing gear, as none of us has a clue, but there are lots of experienced ocean crossing yachtsmen here and we should get some good advice.  He are hoping to have a sail over the next few days to test the new Hydrovane, but its a bit windy today.  Hoping its going to work out well.  Adrian. read more...

Sweet Dream - Friday November 15, 2019

We awoke to the call of a group of large birds singing over the dock. After meeting Coco De Mer, and welcoming them, we had just enough time to hoist the flags before the weather turned wet and windy. What a joy to be in such a cool, comfortable place! Happy came and took all our wet laundry and sheets away. She brought them back fresh, clean and folded just four hours later! So impressive! On our journey in, we had a wave catch us by surprise and things got wet in the galley, then the mast boot, which has had a wee bit of a leak for awhile, decided to give way and become a full fledged waterfall. That’s why all the towels were wet, I was tying them about the mast, but they had to be changed every half hour. There was no way to coax the water to fall into a bucket, because the motion of. read more...

Sweet Dream - Thursday November 14, 2019

Long day that started at 04:00 with an amazing display of electrical storm power. By 06:00 the wind was getting up, so I had to get Captain up as well, we put a reef in the Genoa, which we foolishly left on the pole. At 07:00 the wind hit 36 knots and we were hard pressed to get the Genoa reefed in...we finally just furled it as far as the jury rigged line would allow....the Hoyt staysail decided it wanted to come out and play...somehow, a line caught the handle on the cleat and voila’ the staysail was flying! Well, ok, we just sheeted it in and flew along wing on wing with the bit of Genoa on the pole and the staysail on the opposite side. The storm rolled over us for 7 hours! About noon, things calmed down enough to tie off the Genoa so it couldn’t unfurl, take down the pole, and. read more...

Life of Reilly III - Life of Reilly III

the Mystery of the ShearwaterAn ocean passage requires endless hours of standing watch in the cockpit. Nothing to do except watch. Watch the vessel's heading, watch the set of the sails, watch for other boats, watch the wind, watch the waves, and - occasionally - watch the wildlife. Sadly, in recent years the wildlife has been scarcer than in previous years. I try to put it off to the fact that my vision is failing with age, but I fear that the true explanation for the dearth in sea life is much more tragic.One of our frequent companions when 100s of miles at sea is the shearwater. This graceful acrobat of the waves follows us tirelessly. I wonder whether it is out of a need for companionship or out of curiousity. He swoops effortlessly in the troughs between waves, never flapping his. read more...

Oyster Moon - Oyster Moon Blog

Day 1 - Sunday, 10th November 2019Today is the day!After a very busy week of preparations in Las Palmas, we have now started Leg 1 of our ARC+ Rally.We had considered postponing our start due to the weather forecast, but decided to leave with the rest of the fleet. We knew we’d be in for a bumpy start, but felt that it was more important to have other boats around us on our long journey down to Cape Verde.After lots of hustle and bustle on the family pontoon this morning, the boats wished each other well and waved each other off one by one. Our dear friend Kate (from Kathryn del Fuego) acted as our official pontoon photographer and the Oyster Support crew even came to wave us off and hand us our ropes. Quite an emotional send off. From the exhilaration of leaving the marina, we were. read more...

Sweet Dream - Wednesday November 13, 2019

We motorsailed until 01:00, then turned off the engine at 01:00 and made fairly good progress under just the poled out Genoa until 04:00 when Coco de Mer came up and passed us with a nice wide margin on our starbrd side. We waited until they were well ahead, then turned on the engine again and began to follow them. At 07:00 we did some calculating, and decided if we pushed it, using the engine, we had a shot at arriving on Thursday evening. After the ubiquitous coffee and yogurt, and a unanimous agreement, we decided to go for it. The morning SSB net was quite lively, with some strong words put forth by one of the parties about when to enter the harbour. Lots of the boats seem really keyed up about this approach, and with a good many of them using diverse weather routers, the differences. read more...

Sweet Dream - Friday November 8, 2019

04:00 I rise for my first watch of the day, make a mug of black tea with lemon , grab a piece of cold quiche and come topside. There is plenty of wind from the east south east. We rumble along at six knots under just the poled out Genoa on a port tack. At 07:00 Captainshakes out the reef, rolls out the main on the port side and puts the staysail tight in the middle. The wind is steadily creeping back to the north. I make coffee, serve it with the ubiquitous granola, fruit and yogurt and we savour the morning. Big discussion about weather on ssb today...no conclusion...each weather router seems disassociated from the other. It seems too soon to know what the weather will be at Richard’s Bay coast anyway..so, we concentrate on doing our best to round the south of Madagascar. Two more days. read more...

Sweet Dream - Monday November 11, 2019

We ran under the poled out Genoa and a bit of main all night. In the early 04:00 watch I played dodge the ships. AIS makes this a breeze, and after having transited the German Bight, the North Sea, The straights of Messina and Gibraltar, and not least of all both sides of Panama and the English Channel, this part of the ocean is comparatively light on shipping traffic. Captain came up at 07:00 and we had our by now boring for you to read about, but never tiring to us, yogurt, granola, and coffee. He ran the SSB net for the day, while I steered the boat. We always turn off the autopilot and electronics to save power and cut interference during SSB use. After the net, Lars napped and I sewed a couple hiking patches on his backpack. He tries to collect one from each country we visit. It is. read more...

Sweet Dream - Thursday November 7, 2019

Morning at 04:00. I make Earl Grey tea, black, in a yeti mug (the one without the Magnetic slider top...the magnets mess up the navigation compass!) Being still a little tharn from just waking up, I grab an apple granola bar to eat with the tea. The lazy southern cross is lying on its side, sparkling brilliantly, moon has gone to bed, not yet accustomed to this journey, and I sip the hot tea, devour the granola bar way too fast and marvel once again of the beauty of predawn magic at sea. We’ve sailed the dark hours under single reefed Genoa and single reefed main. With dawn, the wind which appears to work the night shift only in this part of the world, went to bed. We shook out the reefs, but doggingalong at five knots wasn’t an option while trying to round Madagascar...on came the. read more...

Sweet Dream - Sunday November 10, 2019

Until today, the focus of the blogs for this leg of the journey between Reunion Island and South Africa has been food. Why food? I have written about what we eat because so many people ask us, “what about food?” What about it? Food is first of all, fuel for the physical body; it can be plain, elaborate, just necessary or enjoyable. It also transcends nutrition and becomes comfort, ritual, and helps define the parameters of the day, and contributes to the wonderful bond between people. Breaking bread together is a very important part of our day at sea. Yet today, I suspend my hedonistic musings to write about another subject; the hungry Indian Ocean. Heretofore we have sailed the Bay of Biscay, The Mediterranean, The Baltic, The North Pacific, The English Channel, twice through the. read more...

Sweet Dream - Saturday November 9, 2019

Wing on wing with the staysail in the middle, we are flying through the dark at 04:00 when I come up with my mug of black tea and bowl of plain yogurt. It’s an interesting watch because of so much shipping traffic. No fish boats today, but extremely large cargo ships and tankers which measure their length in tenths of nautical miles ply this route.With sorrow I finish “The Long Way”. Bernard was truly an odd duck, but he had a lot of beautiful things to say, and I really enjoyed his insights on the ocean and life. Captain came up at 07:00. It’s sail change time again! Coffee first, and yogurt and granola for him, then we furl the Genoa, take down the pole, put the Genoa back out without the pole, and shake out our night time reefs in the main. I went down at 08:30 for a wee nap, but. read more...