Daily Logs

Widago - St. Lucia Leg (3): Chicken of the Sea

Decent downwind sailing all day and night with Big Blue pulling us ever closer to St. Lucia. The winds picked up this evening as we saw steady winds of18-20 kts, with gusts up to 25. The swell behind us has made for fun wave surfing. The gusty winds tend to challenge our favorite crew member, Othello Paddington Lotte, whom we just call Otto P., so a bit of hand steering practice was on the agenda for yours truly.Ahab over did it earlier today making needed repairs to our first reef (just in case we have to go back to white sails), analyzing weather data, and constantly tweaking Big Blue. He missed his morning nap, the oatmeal didn't quite cut it, so by noon he was both tangry (tired + angry) and hangry (hungry + angry), resulting in "thangry". I made minor inroads to improve his demeanor. read more...

Widago - St. Lucia Leg (3): Chicken of the Sea

Decent downwind sailing all day and night with Big Blue pulling us ever closer to St. Lucia. The winds picked up this evening as we saw steady winds of18-20 kts, with gusts up to 25. The swell behind us has made for fun wave surfing. The gusty winds tend to challenge our favorite crew member, Othello Paddington Lotte, whom we just call Otto P., so a bit of hand steering practice was on the agenda for yours truly.Ahab over did it earlier today making needed repairs to our first reef (just in case we have to go back to white sails), analyzing weather data, and constantly tweaking Big Blue. He missed his morning nap, the oatmeal didn't quite cut it, so by noon he was both tangry (tired + angry) and hangry (hungry + angry), resulting in "thangry". I made minor inroads to improve his demeanor. read more...

Sunrise - 23.11.2015 2. Tag

Weiter ruppiges Wetter mit Windböen, Regenschauern und größeren querlaufenden Wellen. Trotzdem einen Kochversuch Spaghetti Bolognese zugetraut. Abenteuerlich und artistisch. Gleichzeitig kochen und festhalten ist bei dieser Schaukelei nichtmöglich. Bei dem unvermeidlichen Sturz des Kochs geht glücklicherweise nicht alles verloren. Das Meiste kann man noch essen. Nur die schmerzhaft geprellte Rippe stört ein wenig dabei. Etmal 150 Seemeilen. . read more...

Sunrise - Tag -1, 21.11.2015, Sunrise

Die Spannung steigt.Noch 15 Stunden. Der letzte sundowner, die letzten Gespräche Face to Face mit den anderen Crews. Bald nur noch über UKW möglich, wenn sie nicht mehr als 30 Seemeilen entfernt sind.Unter mehr als 200 Yachten trotzdem allein auf dem Ozean. Der Atlantik ist zu groß für diese Schar von Booten. Insgesamt 106 Mill. qkm, ein Fünftel der Erdoberfläche. Zum Vergleich : Europa 10 Mill. qkm, BRD 357000qkm. Da verliert man sich schon mal aus den Augen.Zum Trost für die Zurückbleibenden, haben wir noch ein künstlerisch sehr ausgereiftes Werk an der Kaimauer hinterlassen. Motiv: Die Sunrise vor der aufgehenden Sonne , im tiefblauen Meer, unter einem passatbewölkten Himmel, begleitet von majestätischen Albatrossen. Wow.Leider haben wir uns dabei farblich ganz schön zugesagt.. read more...

Marisja - Marisja log dag -1 - Voorbereidingen afgerond

Elkekeer weer is het voorbereiden van de boot voor de overtocht best een klus, maarwe hebben alles af. Vandaag de schoten uitgelegd, de juiste zeilen aan dekgehaald en de boot rondom gecontroleerd en opgeruimd.   Ook alle boodschappen zijn nu echt aan boord, en we hebben het mooier danooit in kunnen pakken. Het is waanzinnig om te zien wat er allemaal verdwijnt,maar een selectie: - 250 sinaasappels - 150 afbakbroodjes - 300 blikjes drinken - 200l flessen water - 60l melk - 4 doosjes wijn (voor Marja) - 40 potjes aardappels/groenten/etc - enkele kilo’s chocolade (dankjewel Haico) - afbakpizza’s - gegrilde kippetjes - gehaktballen en draadjesvlees - instant-noodles (dankjewel Bert) - en genoeg WC-papier voor wanneer dit weer passeert   Zodirect ook een paar foto’s van vandaag!. read more...

Timshel - Cape Verde to St Lucia Day 3

We seem to have the ocean to ourselves, only contact with others by SSB.Still going west downwind under main and poled out yankee, both slightly reefed plus a scrap of staysail to help keep her on track.Making 6 or 7 knots with occasional little surfs 8, 9, 10 knots, we can't really go any faster.Noon to noon run 158 miles.It's just a pity the generator bust and that we can't run the watermaker.Maybe it was a risk getting a 240v rather than 12v watermaker but the output is so much greater.Now we are having to be careful with water rather than filling the tank every few days.Luckily the wind and towed water generators are more or less keeping up with power requirements including Steve's SSB habit.We have turned off anything non-essential - the echosounder, the chartplotter - no point just. read more...

Marisja - Marisja log dag -1 - Voorbereidingen afgerond

Elke keer weer is het voorbereiden van de boot voor de overtocht best eenklus, maar we hebben alles af. Vandaag de schoten uitgelegd, de juiste zeilenaan dek gehaald en de boot rondom gecontroleerd en opgeruimd.   Ook alle boodschappen zijn nu echt aan boord, en we hebben het mooier danooit in kunnen pakken. Het is waanzinnig om te zien wat er allemaal verdwijnt,maar een selectie: - 250 sinaasappels - 150 afbakbroodjes - 300 blikjes drinken - 200l flessen water - 60l melk - 4 doosjes wijn (voor Marja) - 40 potjes aardappels/groenten/etc - enkele kilo’s chocolade (dankjewel Haico) - afbakpizza’s - gegrilde kippetjes - gehaktballen en draadjesvlees - instant-noodles (dankjewel Bert) - en genoeg WC-papier voor wanneer dit weer passeert   Hierbij ook een paar foto’s van vandaag!. read more...

Luna Quest - Saturday, 21st November, 2015

Dear Readers,We are still in the marina of the Zululand Yacht Club in Richards Bay. During the crossing from La Reunion I developed toothache and tore a tendon in my right arm. It appears that I have 3 impacted wisdom teeth that need to come out and are scheduled to come out in hospital on Thursday, 26th November, in Cape Town. My right arm needs a lot of rest and we are therefore somewhat handicapped in sailing the boat to Cape Town. We have engaged a professional yacht deliverer, who with two young lads will take Luna Quest to Cape Town and it is likely that they will set off on Tuesday, 24th November. You can follow the boat’s track on Yellow Brick. Once they arrive, we shall repossess the boat.There will not be a new blog entry until we set sail, hopefully, early January.Eric. read more...

Meltemi - Tag -1 Endspurt Vorbereitung

Hallo und moin, die „MELTEMI“ Crew hat das Schiff bis zur Loadline vollgebunkert. Alles ist geprüft und für i.O. befunden.Die Startnummer und der 6. ARC Aufkleber ist angebracht. Die Spannung steigt und das Wetter wird, wie jedes Jahr zum Start, schlechter.Immer noch warm aber bewölkt und kleine Schauer sind möglich. Gruß  von der MELTEMI Crew RüdigerDSCN4054. read more...

Mojeka - Mojeka – Transatlantic Day 4

15:33 UTC Saturday Nov. 21, 2015Position: 157.770025N, 32.916832WTHIS IS WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE ON MARS!We are currently qualifying for the next Mars mission where they leave you behind and you have to be super creative to survive.Of course I am talking about the watermaker which worked for about 4 hours last night and then packed up again. Same symptoms: stuck pistons in the "Rooibos generator” and the need to take it apart to get the pistons unstuck.2 lessons learnt today: 1: the more often you take a complex machine apart, the faster you get. 2: the pistons are stuck because there is an extremely high pressure in the cylinders. Once the water in them is evacuated they move easily.the last observation (in conjunction with some very constructive French input) finally got it. read more...

Mojeka - Mojeka – Transatlantic Day 3

17:00 UTC Friday Nov. 20, 2015Position: 17.898851N, 30.697025WWATER, WATER, WATER!…I am not talking about the blue stuff surrounding us for miles on end.I am talking about the pristine fluid coming out of our watermaker.Dave and I with the help of a large support team performed extensive open-heart surgery on our watermaker by spending hours in “the cave” to take the machine apart and extract the “Rooibos generator” (we found that name to be easier to remember than “Rooboost Amplifier”). It is the large central unit in which two pistons move around (when they do) to produce the pressure with which the salt water is pushed through the membrane. In the course of events we think we now know so much about wastermakers, we could design one!Anyway, you take that apart, see the pistons, “take a. read more...

Mojeka - Mojeka – Transatlantic Day 2

14:22 UTC Thursday Nov. 19, 2015Position: 17.226667N, 27.776667WTHE ROBOOST AMPLIFIER PISTONS ARE STUCK!before you start wondering what they are (I first thought it was a HiFi system for chicken coops), let me start at the beginning.We had not filled our water tank fully in Mindelo because 1) the tap water there did not taste so good, 2) there have been reports of people getting ill from it and 3) we did not want to use the watermaker in the marina because the water there was not exactly clean either: dead fish and diesel fumes (most boats ran their generators since the voltage that was supplied at times dropped to 184V).So the plan was to start our watermaker after departure and fill the water tank on the way out. That worked for a couple or hours when the watermaker seized. read more...

Mojeka - Mojeka – Transatlantic Day 1

18:45 UTC Wednesday Nov. 18, 2015Position: 16.90013N, 25.50300WA FURIOS START – AND THEN………...beautiful weather, lots of wind (20-30kt) and rough seas: the start was awash with adrenalin. For about an hour we vied for positions, adjusting sails and watching each other live and on the AIS in a glorious northwesterly tradewind breeze.Then came the lee of San Antao island and all bets were off. The wind first turned to north, then to southwest and then died. We had gotten close to the island hoping to get through the lull quickly. Most other boats stayed further away probably hoping to get less of the leeward effect.It took almost an hour to get clear of this and in the end it probably did not matter, it just separated the crowd and now we only have 3 ships still in sight and we. read more...

Free Spirit - Friday, 20 November 2015 Terra Firma

We crossed the finish line yesterday in daylight as promised, 8 days and 23 hours from start to finish.The Caribbean 1500 staff met us at the dock at Nanny Cay with an ice cold rum punch welcome… sweet!We staggered ashore like a bunch of drunken sailors, definitely smelling tired and headed for a land based shower and the stationary head that graciously accepts all offerings.Dinner was a sit down affair eaten off plates (as opposed to doggie bowls) with separate meat, vegetable and a starch.Funny how you appreciate the little things in life.No more watches and hot bunking.We all get to sleep through the night in a dedicated berth… fresh sheets and bodies.Friday was a "get Free Spirit back in shipshape" day, scrubbing away all vestiges of an arduous passage.She performed very well during. read more...

Bamarandi - Saturday 21st November - Ships in the Night

Position 16.30.406N 033.22.022WWe continue to tac back and forth as the wind has not really changed much. We covered 189nms last night in total - 151nm of then towards our destination - the rest taken up with tacs. Not having the use of our gennaker downwind sail is starting to have a building compound effect now. We have sailed as close to the wind as we can and we have our boom retained with a line to stop it banging in the waves and the sometimes changing wind. To achieve the progress we have has meant us letting our boom swing out as far as we can and then tying it back into that position with our genoa flying out front.We have averaged reasonable knots per hour with this setup and we have quite a few boats in the fleet around us.A yacht called Blue Raven was very close at around. read more...

Lea - Log Day 13 – Friday/Accidental nap

21:42Local LEA Time: As the skipper and I are now on team early bird, our days starton watch at 7 am. Yeah, it’s a tough life at sea. The morning starts with astroll on deck, and todays catch was five (not so happy) flying fish. Afterfinding one on our bathroom floor the other day, I’m a little anxious aboutkeeping the side hatch to my cabin open. This creates quite a problem,considering the heat that builds up down there over the night. So I’m left witha dilemma. I can either (A) – keep my hatch open at night, with a slight chanceof getting smacked in the face by a fish with wings, or (B) – play it safe andkeep the hatch closed, and have the joy of a good night’s sleep in a pool of myown sweat. Quite the Sophie’s choice that one. Anyway. As a result of Reidun’s very productive. read more...

Chimo - Reisversla 6 ARC+

Start 1, woensdag 18 november 13.00 uur. Na 10 minuten moeten we omkeren omdat we water maken via het roer. De waterkering komt er helemaal uitzetten. Het probleem lijkt groter dan het was toen we hier aankwamen. Er waren veel boten met problemen bij aankomst in Mindélo. Niet iedereen kon geholpen worden voor de vertrekdatum. Enkele schepen zijn blijven liggen tot na de start en daar werd hard aan gewerkt om ze alsnog zo snel mogelijk te kunnen laten vertrekken. Wij moesten wachten op onze beurt, maar om 22.00 uur diezelfde avond, na weer een reparatie, doen wij poging 2. Helaas, nog meer water binnen. We moeten weer terug. De volgende ochtend gaat Leo kijken wat hij kan regelen. We boffen. We krijgen nu de beste monteur en hij gaat het goed aanpakken. Het probleem is dat er een nieuwe. read more...

PG Roshni - 21/11 0910 Waahoo

16:58.1N 34:09.9WMorning allFantastic night sail with the moon until 0130 then BLACK BLACK (its ok Johnny) but the breeze was good increasing from 10-20kn apparent with us sailing close to downwind with the pole out to Stb. Speed always over 8 but touched 13.5 or so a couple of times and breeze is with us this morning.Spent plenty of time on the navigation this morning and happy with where we are N and W but not seen a position report or weather update yet.All good after I got a lie in for 45mins after Ali felt sorry for me waking me up with Dire Straights after my dog watch with Susan... Will be making this part of the rota now as the shower and shave after completed the luxury of being free of salt for a few hours.Better go and do a stint at the helm as Daisy is killing the batteries. read more...

El Gato - grrrrr

Nice sunrise after a busy night.Jibed with no moon, auto pilot testing us by quitting consistently when we least expect it.Blowing 20 and wish we could sail straight downwind like others.Grrrrrimage1. read more...

Sunrise - Tag 0 , Kontrolltörn

Einen Probeschlag auf den Atlantik gemacht. Kontrolle der Genua, des Großsegels, der Winschen, Fallen, Schoten und Leinen.Mann über Bord Manöver gefahren. Jedes Crew Mitglied. Walter , Jochen, Jochen, Gunter, Berthold, Stephan, Hans-JuergenGroße Sicherheitseinweisung durchgeführt. Gibt relativ viele Dinge die passieren können. Ausführlich mit Feuerbekämpfung beschäftigt. Leckabdichtungen. Notrufabsetzung über das Funkgerät. Akut Behandlung von Verletzungen, etc. etc.An-Ablegemanöver gefahren. Diesel gebunkert.20:30 zum königlichen Yachtclub. Abschiedsparty ARC. Königliche Kleidung vorgeschrieben. Keine offenen Schuhe, lange Hosen.. read more...

Timshel - Cape Verde to St Lucia Day 2

Good sailing under main and poled out yankee overnight and today, mostly making 6 knots or so.Is this what trade wind sailing is all about?Stopped to haul in and sort out the Aquair towed charger which had got all kinked up and was vibrating the whole boat at times, probably because we were going too fast when it was deployed. Had to put away yankee and staysail and reef main right down and still doing 3 knots to attend to it. 143 miles noon to noon run.We are counting down miles to go on the GPS as the brand new log (fitted in Lanzerote) has stopped working. It seemed to have a glitch before in that when turned off and back on again on the cumulative log the numbers after the decimal point reverted to zero (e.g. 15.7 became 15.0), but now it just reads 00.0 (it read 1017.1 when we went. read more...

PG Roshni - Snuffed 20/11/15 1800UTC -2

16:55.4N 31:55.9WAfternoon allSomewhat frustrating day so far; the wind came round a bit ESE pushing us off track to the N. Having spent an hour messing around with the u/s snuffer for the kite decided to deploy it one more time to see how we got on. After much faff with the ropes and gybe launched the kite only for the wind to come round NE again and push us way off course. As we snuffed the kite the whole fibre glass foot disintegrated while the wind freshened and had plenty of tiring fun getting it down and back away in the bag. Definitely only a very light wind tool now !Anyway the pole is back up and we are heading off the same way as we were first thing running down wind at 285o ish. Other news, Susan feeling a bit rough still but stoic. Nigel is saving something for Barbados.We. read more...

Raylah - LOG DAY 5-The Cape Verdes discovered

We came to Cape Verdes expecting no more than some barren islands with poor communities, a place to regroup, repair, refuel, refresh and restart. We leave with memories of a special place and a proud and welcoming people. Our first view of the archipelago was the majestic and precipitous cliffs of Sao Vicente, a wonder to behold even if a sailors nightmare as a lee shore. Our tourof the nearby Island of Santo Antao showed us mountain scenery that was stunning even to the most jaded traveller. It had the feeling of a lost world where the appearance of a dinosaur would not have been out of place. Towering pinnacle rockscovered in sub tropical vegetation contain narrow valleys and volcanic calderas often shrouded in cloud and mist where the islandersliving in isolated holdings and little. read more...

Weohgi - We're going -This Way, That Way , Forwards and Backwards Over the deep blue sea!

This reminds me of a song we used to sing with Peter and Emily when they were little - We sang it all the way from Appledore to Lundy Island to keep our spirits up as we were only in our little inflatable and it seemed a long way to go in such a small vessel! Well here we are again!We are definitely doing the motions as we have a 2m+ swell mainly from behind so we are corkscrewing around all the time. Even in bed it is hard to wedge yourself in to stop the movement.We are getting back into the routine of watches again. Andy is learning to take sitings with the sextant and trying to teach the rest of us. He is not doing too badly and was only 10nm out today.We had trouble with seaweed yesterday - Andy noticed a lot had collected around the hydrovane rudder. He tried to dislodge it with. read more...

El Gato - guess who's who!

We have made up a secret code for mapping out the competition on our chart plotter!The cat peopleimage1. read more...

Bamarandi - Friday 20th - Yachts all around

Position 16.48.020N 030.43.562W0 0 1 35 205 Bamarandi LLP 1 1 239 14.0 Normal 0 false false falseEN-US JA 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-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}Day Date Time Miles to St Lucia Miles in 24hrs to destination Cum Miles to Dest Miles sailed in 24hrs Cum miles sailed total Wednesday 18th 13:00 2090  . read more...

Cookelu meu - 1st report, still big seas

We did a good start on Wednesday at 1300 Mindelo time. We tried to sail as much to the south as possible to avoid the wind shadow of Sao Antao island about 10 nautical miles to our west. In doing so we ran into the acceleration zone and encountered stormy conditions with big seas and wind gusts up to 50 knots (force  9 on the Beaufort scale). But the wind shadow we didn’t avoid after all and ended up stack for 15-20min  in a swell and light winds from variable directions. It was hard even to point to the right direction. A sudden gust from the north freed us from our misery and headed south as fast as possible. On the AIS screen we saw several boats around us struggling with the conditions.After that the conditions stabilized to medium seas and a nice breeze from the east north. read more...

Widago - St. Lucia Leg (2): Running Downwind

Spent the past day flying big blue downwind towards St. Lucia. Winds have been steady between 19-21kts with 7-9 rolling seas that continue to get more organized. We seem to be huddled in a nice pack with Distant Shores II, Anorak, and Sea Bear dancing in and out of AIS range. Since we are settled into the passage, I persuaded the boys into their science lessons in exchange for cheeseburgers on grill. We are working our way through the fresh fruits and veg - even felt good enough to eat salad at lunch. Not a bad way to detox after the shenanigans in Mindelo.Once we clear out enough space in the fridge & freezer, the fishing gear comes out. Mahis beware!-Ali. read more...