Daily Logs

Saida - day 7

All good on SAIDA. Another great sailing day today towards St Lucia. We caught our first Mahi Mahi! Oli says the fishing is slowing us down.But the crew is looking forward to a fresh fish dinner, except for Damian, our only carnivore on board.. read more...

Saida - Saida day 3

Still trying to catch the trade winds off the coast of Africa but no luck yet. Instead, our fisher man Büsche is trying his luck to catch Tuna, but there is a bit of a struggle with the equipment.Instead he prepares a nice Roast beef for us in the evening. Perhaps more luck with the wind and the Tuna tomorrow.. read more...

Northern Light II - Saturday 25th November

1145 miles is roughly half way to Grenada. There was much discussion yesterday on what we might do to celebrate the half way mark with most of the crew voting to break the dry boat rule. Skipper ruled that at 5pm we could have a gin and tonic with appetisers to toast our achievement. Sarah and Geertje not only did a bit of yoga in the morning but also dida relaxation session on the foredeck this afternoon. Cat and Tom continued reading their books with Tom doing his second Focaccia today. Fishing continued but other than then normal weed we did manage to catch a floating rope! A boat within 2 miles of us has caught 8 fish including a tuna with the same line and lures so I hope our luck turns …….All was going to plan until Tom discovered a small tear (about 2cm) in the parasailor just as. read more...

Valent - Some progress towards Grenada

Valent had a great 24hrs sailing with just the Bora up. We recorded our best daily mileage so far on this leg. Other notable activity today included catching a couple of tuna, though in our excitement we managed to lose one just as we were hauling the monster (not exactly) on board. Still we have 1 lovely tuna filleted and skinned in the fridge. Tuna wraps for lunch tomorrow. Today we got the sextant out and did a sun sight. Good to get rid of the cobwebs and after a bit of checking and revision I ended up with a sensible result. Will do a full day tomorrow and see what it looks like. Also our egret guest returned. Despite calling it an egret we weren’t convinced, but following research and ‘call a friend’ it is confirmed as a Great Egret, possibly juvenile. But the real news was we’ve. read more...

Uno - Day 6: two fish with one lure!

Flying fish have officially made their appearance! They look like flocks of birds skimming across the water in huge groups, every so often. Also this morning we noticed the antenna at the top of our mast was moving around a lot & wondered if it might be affecting our AIS, which has been playing up every so often these past few days. We had been working on the theory that our LED tricolour light on top of the mast was interfering with it (not that it ever had before) but seeing this meant we might have another cause. Nothing for it but for the captain to go up the mast! So in a few metres of swell, with 8kts of wind, 350nm off the coast of Africa, we took the sails down, turned on the engines & hauled him up the mast. We used all the safety precautions we could, and it was a quick. read more...

Asante - Day 7 of the never ending poem

Day 7, it started early, for in the middle of the night.Nick did come a knocking to say the jibs not looking right.Ian jumped out of the bed.He said the pole had slipped the track.But though it was annoying, we could quickly get it back.Now for those of you who wonder, how we pass the time each day.Here’s a little window, into life along the way.James is the expert, on every kind of bread.Though his Nutella loaf with marmite, is one that Tom did dread.Kirsten is the wonder.She can rustle up a dish.Tonight you will have guessed it.Yes it’s once again more fish.But on the other hand she’s a dab soul with the wool.A bobble hat she’s knitting.For climates way more cool.Tom is happy reading, while basking in the sun.Always on the lookout for a little bit of fun.Nick is busy fishing and can be. read more...

Champagne Hippy - Day 7 - November 25th

There was a beautiful sunrise this morning after which Josh put some croissants in the oven to make waking everyone up early (to put the spinnaker up) a little easier, he also made coffee so forgiveness was swift.  Rodney (the fishing rod) finally decided to pull his weight after a few days off, Matt steadied himself and reeled in a Wahoo! Later in the evening, these made a delicious starter prior to Julias fantastic chick pea curry! Apart from that today has been very much the same as yesterday, suns out music on, sails are up!  Due to today being a “slow news day” and our 7th day at sea I thought we could introduce ourselves by answering the below 7 questions: Name/ageWhere are you from?How long have you been sailing/working on boats? What’s your. read more...

Blue Pepper - day 6. 25/11

We have finally stopped our chase south seeking wind and today made our ‘turn’ broadly west to head down the trades towards the Caribbean. The wind is ideal and Blue Pepper is humming along happily (9.2 knots and 10.1 knots SOG as I write) and we expect to comfortably beat yesterday’s 172 miles by the morning. Some chafe challenges needed attention on the Spinnaker sheets today - after 4 days aloft - and we keep ‘nearly’ catching fish.. but we will crack it!Risotto for dinner tonight and a possible re-run of last night’s Name That Tune in the cockpit… :). read more...

JaZoFi - day 6

Today we did have an event – The Hound came out, it was joy all round as we were very happy to see her flying again! Smiles all round as we congratulated ourselves for being such capable sailmakers! Then the truth became apparent after half an hour, she split along the repair and we gathered it back in for professional work in St Lucia. So the mighty JaZoFi is back to its trades rig with twin headsails and heading downwind.Chef continues to feed us well as reward for the hard work. However, after a week, the luxury of fresh fruit and salad is becoming a rarity so the joy of avocado and tomato salad was cherished.. read more...

Tahira - ARC BLOG D-Day 6 [25-Nov-23]

TAHIRA ARC BLOGD-Day 6 [25-Nov-23]Location: North of Cape VerdeLat: 19.31N Long: 24.56W Meet the crew: BRYAN 'Q' HAMMOND How would you describe yourself in one sentence?" Bryan is a creative and energetic person who always has a project on the go.He is an engineer at heart and is at his happiest solving practical problems.What is your first favourite piece of music and why? " 'Pride and Joy' by Stevie Ray Vaughan.He just loves it and reminds him of an instance when he was driving late at night to Colorado Springs and just turned on a local rock music station.What is your greatest achievement in live to-date?" Bryan has had a successful and fulfilling career in the Telecommunications industry and likes to think he played his part in bringing up two wonderful daughters with his wife. read more...

Vitamin Sea - Tag 5: Von ruhigen Nächten, vermissten Eimern und der Vollmond-Fischtheorie, Freitag, der 24. November 2023

Die Nacht vom 23. auf den 24. November 2023: Stille, Sterne und sichere Nachtwachen In unserer fünften Nacht auf See hatten wir das Glück, von ruhiger See und stabilem Wetter begleitet zu werden. Der Wind blies konstant mit einer Geschwindigkeit von etwa 10-12 Knoten, was wieder ideale Bedingungen für das Segeln mit unseremWingaker waren. Die Wellen waren die gewohnten rhythmischen Atlantikwellen, so dass das Boot ganz harmonisch durch das Wasser gleiten konnte.Eine Besonderheit dieser Nacht war die Anwesenheit eines anderen Bootes namens "Emily" ganz in unserer Nähe. Uns fiel auf, dass "Emily" oft ohne Licht und AIS-Signal unterwegs war. Manchmal war es im AIS sichtbar, manchmal nicht. Manchmalsahen wir ihr Licht, dann wieder nicht. In der Dunkelheit auf hoher See kann das durchaus. read more...

T-Rex - 2023 11 25 Part 2 - The Egret Has Landed

With only two people on deck, the egret decided our cockpit was big enough to take a chance. What a cutie.IMG_9376. read more...

T-Rex - 2023 11 25 - Gaff-rigged schooner, ahoy!

First of all, we’re glad to hear that the egret that circled our boat yesterday looking for a secure place to land seems to have found a nice roost on Risque Business. Egrets don’t generally hang out near water deeper than their knees, so we were sad it didn’t think our boat had any worthy resting places. Our second noteworthy moment of the day is when the Avontuur came into sight. We had seen a boat on our AIS in the wee hours without a name, just an MMSI, and Teff searched it down by figuring out that the 664 start indicated it was a Seychelles flagged boat and there were no Seychelles boats on the ARC+ comms list. So he checked MarineTraffic for that MMSI, and there it was, a gaff-rigged schooner by the name of Avontuur. Apparently it is running passengers and cargo in a zero-emission. read more...

Adina - Birchers is best on ADINA

Day 7 - 25/11/23, 19 30N, 24. 25WWe left last Sunday (19/11/23) in very light headwinds but after a few hours of running the engine we settled into a broad reach. As the wind moved north and we have travelled south and are now running downwind with the Genoa poled out wing on wing. This provides good downwind speed but also provides a roll, making sleeping difficult.The crew are all well and agree that currently Bircher is the food of choice for breakfast, closely followed by bacon sandwiches as long as Andy H does not try to fry the bacon in white wine vinegar!Andrew remains focused on sail plans whilst Carole considers the benefits and practicalities of roasting pistachio nuts for her great salads. Pete continues to knock up excellent side dishes to accompany the precooked meals we. read more...

Blue Pearl - log, Gaining speed!

This morning we were very pleased that the steady winds form last night were still present and that we are managing a course in the right direction, more or less anyway! Having had yesterday as a quiet day with no spinnaker flying and a lot of flappy sails its nice to be moving again. With the seas now similar to the first leg we are also managing similar speeds with just the main and Yankee up. Having fitted chafe protectors onto the Yankee sheets we though everything would be a lot easier and wed just have to check for chafe but we seem to have unintentionally given ourselves an extra challenge of keeping the pole on the proctor. Having a bread maker on board is coming in really handy and this morning I put another loaf on so we will have fresh warm bread for lunch, delicious! During. read more...

Hot Stuff - 18:40.93720N 24:57.8340W

Captins*log; Stardate 251123 {have always wanted to say that}We continue to explore this strange new world. I thought the natives were friendly until I was sat having a brew in the cockpit yesterday evening, when all of a sudden I was 'butted' by a flying fish who has now been named by Jack as 'flymo'! Without warning it hit me, square in the temple - it then took a few minutes to work out what was making all the noise. Scotty {Chris] and Bones {Nick} did their best to rescue Flymo, but after being fished out from under the wheel, he looked a tad worse for wear.....fingers crossed he made it. {there's always one in Star Trek that takes a hit}So the theme onboard for the last few days has been 'whack a mole' - for the uninitiated it is a game where a mole pops up from several holes and. read more...

Hot Stuff - 18:55.71N 24:45.05W

Made some good progress last night running down wind which looks good on the chart. Especially if you dont plot too often! An inch is quite a long way on this chart. The Mk3 engine start system is working well .Cable runs off the relay electrnics box to a heavy guage wire attached to a bolt and then wrapped in inssulation tape to give a handle. This goes onto the starter contact to get her running and then cable tied out the way to avoid accidental shorts. Mk4 is being worked on if we can scavange or make a switch up which would be nice.First fish landed aboard but not by Jack (still to try). Flying fish in the dark landed in the cockpit flapping around in the dark making Darren jumpOnwards SW for the next 24-36 hrs and hopefully straight into the trade winds and fully West here we come!C. read more...

Risque Business - Another Setback

14:40.13N 39:30.52W0445, Saturday 25th November 2023.Merde! Our medieval spinnaker (& that’s being polite about its age) is no more! Soon after midnight, with about 9kts of wind up our chuff, a loud pop from on high, followed by an awful tearing sound. Nick looked up to see our wonderful friend in pieces. It was doing so well at propelling us along in the light winds we’ve got, that we all feel a sense of loss! The call for “all hands on deck” was hailed and the crew donned their lifejackets to gawp at and haul down the sorry sight aloft. Not even Ed’s marvellous sewing skills, can put Humpty back together again!The back story: in the build-up to the ARC+, we all decided that a spinnaker pole was needed and after a bit of hunting around we found a secondhand carbon one suitable for. read more...