Nakesa - A happy ship!

Ships bLOG 24 November NakesaSituation report... Averaging 7kn with a light following breeze we have progressed a pleasing but average 455 miles...in the wrong direction. Notes from a small ship - hands on hearts, foot in mouth, tongue in cheek...Our Captain, Atlanta Applin (9 yrs) took the early decision to head south along the African coast as her competitive edge got the better of her! Feeling that there would be more wind to assist us close in on the Eastern edge of the Atlantic, we set sail and a course for the Cape Verdes, approx due south. This strategic decision has seen us storm into an early 180th position, everyone on board is of course elated with this great position news coupled with the fact we are heading for the southern ocean as opposed to the "brochured". read more...

Nakesa - The One that got away...

24 November Nakesa 21 1oN 18 2oW The one that got away....I am sad to report a wave of sadness washed over Nakesa this morning. At approximately 0630, skipper Graham Applin was on watch with Atlanta, when he heard the unfamiliar rattle of the hand line spool clattering on deck...An immediate reaction from Graham and a shriek of joy from Atlanta confirmed, that, oh yes! Nakesa was indeed in with her first serious bite (or at  least one we knew about).Later, Applin (42 yrs) confirmed; "I saw a bloody great fin break the surface"Shortly after the fight began, the plastic handline spool, some 6" in length and 4" in width shattered in Applin's hand, folding in half, cracking and shattering, leaving a bundle of line and a large spiders web in his hand, still he relented and fought. read more...

Nakesa - Go West!!

N16 52.597   -   W29 42.638Sailing 2 points west of south?? Still???Well, we made it west... a little...for approximately 36 hours, just enough to give the crew a lift after sailing to the wind for 36 hours, the lift being that we made up 100 places in a day on the fleet! (stil the skipper is not competitive though!)A brief lift it was as the grib files are still showing disturbed and confused wind patterns, the waypoints on the plotter that had been placed so innocently 'Wednesday waypoint' & 'trade winds begin' have been either erased or renamed or more often than not relocated... Our only concern is that the beginning of the trade winds proper may be down off the coast of Suriname!  still we chase them, just a couple more degrees and we will be screaming. read more...

Nakesa - 10 December - the end is nigh

N14.48.000 W57.35.000 Nakesa was reported to be some 150M off the St. Lucian coast this morning, making around 8knots, still limping under Genoa alone, she is however sailing under beautiful blue skies and a rising temperature of 28 celcius.  It was very clear that the end was in sight as the leg of Jamon Iberico is now nothing more than a deformed looking set of bones, the crew are still thanking Cortes Ingles supermarket for their error in meat deliveries. Our reporter on the ground had said“you can see the preperations for the celebration of arrival are clearly underway. There is a string of washing running pretty much the entire guard rail, port and starboard (Applin of course frowning at this).The Children, Atlanta (9yrs) and Aston (11yrs) even made it out on deck. read more...

Nakesa - 11 December 2010 - NEWSFLASH St Lucia

It has been revealed today that the sailing yacht Nakesa, a 57’ Swan, who had reportedly been crossing the Atlantic as part of the much coveted ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) event. Some 250 yachts were taking part in this years jubilee event. News got out this morning from an unknown source that Nakesa and her crew, Captained by Applin (42yrs) who have made regular appearances on the ARCs website with blog entries and have also been positioned by the organisation daily in an online system, have in fact played everyone the fool!Nakesa who had reported a problem with their tracking device early in the race, and following this have had to manually update the event organisers with their position by email every day, were spotted at a small beach bar in the Rodney bay area of St. read more...