Oarsome Dream - Log 10th Dec - Waves, Wuthering Heights

Hello Blog readers!We’ve now got about 365 miles to go, each watches mileage targets are being smashed and we are busy running a sweepstake on our finishing time already.We are bowling along in decent sized swell making good pace. When we pick up on a surf, it sounds like we are flying from down below! We’ve got two ARC yachts on our horizon today - Black Cat and Isteria. Isteria have been on and off our horizon for a few days now - they are a Beneteau 57 so I think they are faster than us in the day so they catch up but they reduce sail at night so we pull away again. Nice to know that there are boats around us!In other news, Richard has just a chapter or two left of Wuthering Heights to read. The significance of this is that it’s his wife’s favourite book so he wanted to read it.. read more...

Oarsome Dream - Log Dec 8th - Fish, Squalls, Fish

Hello Blog Readers!We’ve now been 14 days at sea and have 743 miles to go to our waypoint off St Lucia. The exact number is very important as competition of who hits their watch target is very important! We’ve been doing 175 miles days and St Lucia is getting nearer - which of course means the big discussion if what to have first when we arrive - sleep, shower, steak or pinacoladas! The choice of the first meal is always important - Lobster and steak at Spinnakers gets my vote every time.Anyway, we’ve also found time to catch a huge Mahi Mahi yesterday morning which was supper last night, lunch today and supper tonight, a smallish tuna this morning which will be Mondays lunch probably. Not me, I’ll stick to the pouches. Never got over the time we caught tuna in the med on Lancelot II and. read more...

Oarsome Dream - Log 4th Dec couting down the years, when is half way?

Hello Blog readers!The good ship Oarsome Dream is still powering towards St Lucia! We did 195 miles and 180 miles in the last two 24 hour runs which is a lot better than we doing earlier in the wind holes.Still counting down the miles on the plotter waypoint and trying to work out the years. We’d been looking forward to 1664 because we all finally knew something for that year (Kronenberg got invented) but we were too busy chatting and totally missed it! Lol. Any one got anything for the years around 1300-1400 where we are now? We’ve definitely run out of knowledge.We are just about to hit the 1400 to go on the waypoint which I think is half way assuming we log 2800 miles which is a bit more than the 2700nm because we went further than the rhumb line. But on likely days at sea, yesterday. read more...

Oarsome Dream - Log 30th Nov - Hot, yachts on the horizon and Happy Birthday to me

Hello Blog readers!It’s my birthday today whoop whoop. I was serenaded on deck by a dawn chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to You’ - just as well the guys are all very good at their chosen professions, I’d worry if they had to rely on singing to earn a crust. Everyone made me a lovely card out of a granola box, no expense spared or extra weight carried on Oarsome Dream.We’ve seen lots Flying fish jumping out and flying around this morning and we even found a couple on deck, drying out nicely in the toasty sun.Yesterday was spent in the company of ARC yacht Hanse 411’ Siberati’ but we lost them over the horizon in the night.We took advantage of light wind this morning to pull down the mainsail and stick on more spreader patches. Despite carefully taking photographs so they went in the right. read more...

Oarsome Dream - Log 28th Nov - Drones, no Dolphins (for me)

Hello from Oarsome Dream!Since the last blog we’ve had pretty light winds hence the general slow down but we have finally been able to gybe west this afternoon so hopefully our VMG should start to pick up again!Yesterday just before lunch was so light that we pulled our sails down becuase we were fed up of them slapping around. We used the stop to tip buckets of salt water over ourselves on the transom and have a fresh rinse - it was super hot and felt amazing to have clean hair again. Last nights dinner was bangers and squash mash with oven gravy a la Stu - yummmmmFrustrating night in light winds heading mainly towards Africa in the company of a Swiss Grand Soleil 46 ‘BlueOne’ and our Solent friends, Challenger 2. Stu saw the dolphins overnight, not me thought, its true, I am dolphin. read more...