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Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures 2)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures 2)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures 2)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures 2)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures 2)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures 2)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900nm to go! (pictures)
06/12/2019

Hello World - 900 nm to go!

Suddenly the sun comes up and then it goes down again. Each day goes faster and faster - looks like we will get land under or feets faster then we ever could imagine! The last couple of days have been rough. Waves are getting bigger, wind is getting stronger, the squalls bigger than the last one and crew is getting tired. Håkon and Eskil was behind the wheels all night steering like pros while having the light from the moon. The autopilot is having a hard time keeping up with the huge waves coming from all kind of directions. Right now I sit on the cockpit floor looking at the wall of sea hitting behind us while listening on some christmas music. It kinda makes the waves a bit nicer together with som tones of christmas. Somehow, spotify managed to delete most of my music 2 hours after. read more...


06/12/2019

Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)

Picturesimage3 image4 image5 image6 image1 image2. read more...


Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
Hello World - 900 nm to go! (pictures)
06/12/2019

Scarlet Oyster - Ross Update

Hi All!,Lot been going on here, been some challenging sailing with some very unstable winds at times.we have had anything from 8kn to 40kn, in any direction from NNE to SE, the unstable nature of this wind makes sail selection a headache, we can only sensibly fly spinnakers upto 27kn, we have a hard limit onboard that as soon as we see 30kn, the spinnaker comes down, bravado of sailing in more with a spinnaker may seem to have rewards, but the potential risks become too great, also in 25kn plus we can sail with poled out jib and still make very acceptable speeds.The trick the wind seems to have is to peak at just over 30, so we drop the kite then within 1 or 2 mins drop to 20kn, we have to tie the spinnaker in bio degradable natural wool for each hoist to ensure no twists or other. read more...


Meltemi - Arbeitsschutz an Bord
Meltemi - Arbeitsschutz an Bord
Meltemi - MELTEMI's Passatbesegelung
Meltemi - MELTEMI's Passatbesegelung
06/12/2019

Moana - ARC 2019 "Moana"

We are living in a steady change of be on watch, working in the kitchen and try to sleep. The last night shifts tropical rain and squalls to 33knots showed us the impact of sailing in the south Atlantic. Only 1200sm to St. Lucia and a cold beer! (no beer on board allowed!)@Moana. read more...


06/12/2019

Oyster Moon - update from oyster moon

Day 12:Monday 2nd December - The 'Mystery Tin' We woke with 20 knots of wind from the rear and a lumpy 3 metre swell just a few seconds apart. Whilst it made life on board much more challenging, we were finally able to head directly towards St Lucia at a good pace!Hurrah! Joe has gradually taught the children how to play poker since leaving Cape Verde.This culminated in a game with high stakes today. The person finishing with the most chips would receive the 'mystery' unlabelled tin that has been sat under the floorboards since Southampton!There has been much speculation over its contents for many months. Baked beans, kidney beans, or the most favoured option - rice pudding.Both children played with determination. Charlie resorted to wearing his Ronaldo mask as his poker face needs. read more...


06/12/2019

Fish Pie - Horace has croaked

Hello everyone from Fish Pie. Bit of a disaster on the wind vaneself-steering gear, Horace, who we had to decommission as we have run out ofspare mounting bolts. Originally one bolt snapped off in use, fortunatelyI had a couple of spares, but they have both failed as well, so without any morebolts, we can’t use him any more. We have been quite frugal with thediesel, so we have plenty to run the engine and charge the batteries, but notenough to run the autopilot 24/7, so we will have to hand steer most of the wayfrom now on. We are well over half way, as I write this we have 1224 milesto St Lucia, from 2800 originally, so we’re getting there steadily with dailyruns of an average of 145 miles. Wind is averaging 25 knots from behindwhich is quite manageable, but the swell is getting to. read more...


05/12/2019

Sweet Dream - Thursday December 5, 2019

Somewhere in Seattle halfway round the world, my daughter is running a marathon. Go Rachel, go! We are here off the coast of Africa enduring a marathon of very difficult sailing. This morning we moved to the fuel dock...a very tight parallel parking job well executed by Captain. Dave came onboard and helped us get the anchor chain up as we came out of our berth. Zululand’s docks aren’t designed for 54 foot, 30 ton boats, so we had our anchor out to augment the lines holding us on the dock. And very happy we did too, especially in that 40 knot blow night before last! Lars had removed the chain to paint the inside of the locker, so pulling up the remaining 75 feet was a delicate task since the chain wasn’t feeding off the gypsy into the hawse pipe, but needing to lay flat on deck. Dave was. read more...


Sweet Dream - Thursday December 5, 2019
Sweet Dream - Thursday December 5, 2019
05/12/2019

Sweet Dream - Wednesday December 4, 2019

First thing in the morning Jackie, the commodore of the yacht club took Mike and Dave of Chao Lay, and Lars and I to check out of immigration and customs. Jackie’s assistance made an otherwise bothersome chore quite quick and easy. Afterwards, Captain and I went to the Elephant restaurant and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast off the boat, and out of the weather. We discussed options for heading to Cape Town; deciding to straight shoot it in one hop if possible. Came back, spent the afternoon readying the boat for offshore, then had a lovely supper at the yacht club with crews from Chao Lay, Nilja, Christine, and Nimbus. Even Eric, our favourite taxi driver showed up! Zululand has been a lovely place to get work done on the boat, use as a base for land travel, and hang out with other. read more...


Sweet Dream - Wednesday December 4 2019
Sweet Dream - Wednesday December 4 2019
06/12/2019

Celtic Star - Blog 12 Day 12. Friday December 6th again!

We are experiencing interminable swell that causes theboat to roll endlessly making anything even sleeping very difficult. Helming isquite a challenge too! Aching arms and shoulders, and the crew are gettingtired. Sleep, eat, steer, repeat. Sleep, cook, steer repeat. Sleep,clean, steer,repeat. Dark nights and starry nights, bright days and cloudy days the time justpasses by. Watch after watch we are making progress, and last night we passedthe point of less than 1000 miles to go. Woo hoo hoo!The fresh food iscoming to an end-lots of onions and apples and a few courgettes left. We nowhave jars and tins and imaginative cooking! Anyway it is Friday and the weekendwill bring a move on of watch partners on Saturday and another hour off theclock on Sunday. That will be UTC -3! Petra. read more...


06/12/2019

Karhammel IV - News from Karhammel IV

The wind reached us finally Monday 2nd December at 7:44 UTC : 14 knots, not that much but we haven’t see such figure since the gusty departure day on 24th November. 20 knots at 20:00.Now heading 267°Second refill of our small freshwater tank  necessary : unfortunately our water-maker refuses to deliver any drop of water. Bruno spending hours down in the bilge to find the cause, and tighten all fittings, with no result.Tuesday second attempt to fix the water-maker, the problem is that air comes in: manual purge of the intake pipe successful. Tank filling completed.Wednesday, batteries 100% full. Our towed generator working beautifully. Afraid it could boil out our batteries. The point is we cannot switch it out or remove the propeller out of the water without stopping the. read more...


06/12/2019

Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 12

Day 12. The last 24 hours, sailing with a reduced wardrobe of sails, started with praying for more wind. (We had 12-15kts the guys just wanted more - Alex) We were so desperate to catch some that we've developed a semi-god "Baba Gayu" from one of our crew members. We sacrificed half of our food to make him happy enough to bring us wind!It worked, but came with a price as a lot of rain came in the package. After that everything became better ending up with 30kt gusts in the middle of the night.Tuna ate our last lure so now we are fishing using home made lures out of an old bit of line. Not sure if it will work or not but whatever, we are just happy to be here!We passed the 1000nm marker to St Lucia. Now it's getting to us that completing this trip is really happening!- Franek writing for. read more...


Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 12
Jua Kali - The Jua Kali Report - Day 12
Amari - Day 15
Amari - Day 15
06/12/2019

Challenger 1 - TS crew blog Challenger 1 5/12/19

Some good team work over the last few watches including rigging the port spinnaker pole ready for the other watch to gybe and this morning when we had an issue with the staysail. The clew became disconnected and swift action meant the sail was lowered, reconnected and returned within 5 minutes. Good job team. Then we arrived at the roundabout - apparently rain causes team members to disappear down the companion way faster than if dinner was ready, fortunately I was able to keep enough on deck to ensure we could react to an issue. After the squall passed I found most of them asleep in the saloon, the birthday party today seems to have taken its toll! The team spirit to celebrate Michele 25th birthday was nice to see and the whole crew coming together and enjoying each other’s company. read more...


06/12/2019

Idefix - Idefix update day 12

TGIF!Another quiet day aboard IDEFIX, regarding activities or events, as the wind was still decent. Lots of reading, chatting, and napping!We managed a decent barbecue for lunch, to keep the cooking standard high. No playing card, but movie night! With popcorn. Quite a fun break before getting back to the night watch routine. These started really rough with a squall not showing up on radar but getting us almost 40 degree of course with more than 30 knts of winds.Painful when the swell is well established and instead of getting it from the stern nicely, you are Rowling sideways. But it didn't last too long.Maybe tomorrow we'll hit the less than 1000 miles to go. Another key milestone to celebrate. We will see!c.. read more...


06/12/2019

Amari - Day 15 One More Day

“You sailed across the Atlantic Ocean! Holy cow what an accomplishment, how did you even do that?”My friend Lisa heard this question many times after they completed the ARC Europe passage. I’ve heard versions of that as well. I think about the beginning, when we started with bareboat chartering, and we would be out for 7 to 10 days at a time. All day time sailing, within sight of land, and stores, and a bar for when you get nicely tucked away at anchor.When we thought about open ocean sailing and passagemaking, it seemed overwhelming, even scary. But when dreams are big, they pull you forward. We did our first overnight sail heading to Corsica from Sardinia. We had watches and did all the things you’re supposed to do for a passage. Then when we got our own boat, we needed to bring her. read more...


06/12/2019

Next Step - Thursday 5th December 2019

During the night we had a number of squalls come through and some fairly steep seas, not particularly comfortable down below. In the morning there were still a number of clouds about with the sun appearing occasionally. We needed to run the engine out of gear last night to charge up the batteries so we took the opportunity today of having a shower with hot water. As we had now run out of fresh meat we put out the fishing lines to try and catch a fish for supper.I got an email from my son in the UK to say that his wife Nikki had had a baby girl, I am a grandad! Congratulations to Charlie & Nikki.At lunch time, David went down to make us some wraps, at the same time a squall came through which Dobby could not cope with so the mainsail tried to gybe, the next minute before we could get. read more...


06/12/2019

Hatha Maris - Hatha Maris day 11 05/12/2019

Hatha Maris day 11 - 5/12/2019Midway and 30000 boat log, The big day of the Midway is today. We were all waiting for it asking “how many miles away we are?” and “what with the other boat?”... “oh they already finished it?!”... and so on and so forth. Finally we did it. It was somewhere around 3pm after we moved our clock to -1, for the second time of the passage. The other watch was on duty when I woke up to the screaming of “Yulia get up!!! Bring the second bottle of cava as well!”. Mirijam was helming while we were having fun, singing the songs from the Sweeds (Sophia & Ebba) - a special edition playlist, drinking cava, driving crazy, throwing the empty bottle into the Atlantic like a bride throwing her flowers during a wedding etc.One hour later or so we had a magnificent. read more...


06/12/2019

Hawkeye - Hawkeye ARC Blog 7 – Halfway Across the Pond

It’s been an eventful day on The Happy Boat. Today's excitement culminated in a midday crew celebration as we passed the half-way mark to St Lucia!Our fête had a Caribbean vibe as we toasted with a small glass of bubbly and chocolate cake made by Lizzie. It was a fitting tribute to what has become one of the least arduous voyages our crew can remember.We have also had our first squall, handled impeccably by Watch Team Stephens and its crack helm the ‘Cat Whisperer’ Peter.Mostly we have been surfing down the 3 metre waves kicked up by the 20 to 25 knot trade winds, with the record speed seen so far being over 14 knots.However, as Hawkeye is built for comfort, not for speed, we have been sailing conservatively with our twin Genoa’s often reefed at night, and a lovely relaxed atmosphere in. read more...


Hawkeye - Hawkeye ARC Blog 7 – Halfway Across the Pond
Hawkeye - Hawkeye ARC Blog 7 – Halfway Across the Pond
06/12/2019

Agua Dulce

Log Day 12 – Rescue at seaWhen I came up for my 7am watch this morning, I was just chatting with Charles about weather and the sea state when I heard something flopping around on the starboard deck. I looked over, and there was a flying fish trying his hardest to flop off, but he couldn’t “fly” over the toe rail. Good citizen that I am, I reached over to give him a boost, but he was very floppy. When I finally caught him, I tossed him, but I heaved him into a rail and he landed back on the deck. He probably wasn’t so happy with my help. But, on the second try, I was able to send him back into the Atlantic to live another day and perhaps fly onto the deck of another Caribbean bound boat.Winds are holding steady from 18-22 knots from the east. The Atlantic swell is still rolling the boat.. read more...


06/12/2019

Salamander

Day 11. Why I Joined the ARCDear Salamander Nation,TheSalamander blog reporters got lucky this afternoon, when they were able to interview their press averse crewmate Kevin while he was at the wheel.Salamander Media: Kevin some of our readers are asking us to post more human interest stories.Could you share why you decided to sail across the Atlantic aboard Salamander?Kevin:When I was a kid, my uncle sailed most of the way around the world.I was really excited by his stories, and I knew at that time that I wanted to do something like that myselfsomeday.. read more...


05/12/2019

Umiko - UMIKO Blog 5th December Day 12

UMIKO BLOG Thursday 5th DecemberGreetings again from SV Umiko. As I write, we have just passed the 500 DTD (Distance to Destination) mark, making slow progress towards St. Lucia. While our primary objective now is the comfort of our crewmate Barry, our course to obtain medical attention for him at St. Lucia takes us towards the finish line, so we’re still in the race, albeit sailing with a conservative sail plan – currently under main and jib. We got some encouraging news from home this morning as the YB Racing App reported us lying second place in the Racing A division, but we’re not sure how much faith to put in that report as we think that there may be a number of yachts sailing faster that us and closer to the finish.Barry remains in good spirits given his injury and is proving to be. read more...


05/12/2019

Zaurak - Zaurak's Bimbling Blog

Zaurak's Bimbling BlogThursday 5th December 2019 The halfway point! This morning, around eleven, Richard received the daily email regarding the ARC boat positions. Zaurak's read '1431nm from St Lucia'. Richard looked up at the log, which read in that very moment 1431nm -- half the miles behind us, half the miles to go! We celebrated this momentous occasion with decadence: chocolate ice cream at 4pm, a satellite phone call to Yael and Maia and champagne and crisps on deck. Hooray for Zaurak!. read more...


05/12/2019

Sally - Whisker pole in the water

Tonight we have our first incident, the snap shackle to the uphaul on the whisker pole opened and the pole fell down with one end in the water. At the moment we did 7 knots and the pole was pushing back on the forward lower shroud. After a couple of stressfull minutes, we get it up from the water and released the pressure on the shroud. Now we are back on track again and we also know why the snap shackel opened. The pin that secures the shackel has a small keyring used as stopper, think it’s standard on most of this kind of snap shackles. One end of the wire in the ring has fastened in the unused genua sheet that run over the end of the boom and the sheet finally opened the snap shackle. Lessons learned, put tape on every sprint with a locking ring that can be stuck in a rope like this. read more...


Amari - Day 15
Amari - Day 15
05/12/2019

Verbena - Day 12 - RIP Auto

We are reaching what feels like the home stretch, only 900 nm to go!  We estimate we’ll be in around Tuesday.  Winds from here forward seem consistent 15-20 kts from behind us, periodic squalls.Losing the autopilot was like losing a key crew member.  Hand steering all day and all night on 2 hr shifts between the 4 adults wears you down.  The kids have also been a big help as watch-partners.  With the support of X-Yachts they are already looking at sending us a new autopilot drive motor.  We’ve had some other setbacks.  The water maker developed what I’m being told by Spectra (the manufacture) is ‘sticky pistons’.  Seems easily fixable but a project.  We have enough water so I’m not going to attempt a fix at sea, but we are now conserving… ie. read more...


Verbena - Day 12 - RIP Auto
Verbena - Day 12 - RIP Auto
05/12/2019

Hatha Maris - Hatha Maris day 10 4/12/2019

Hatha Maris day 10 4/12/2019( had twice day 6)Fishing adventureOne of the things Tara and I (Sophia) looked forward to do during this crossing was fishing. Since the second day we started to try and rig the fishing rod. Tara then started fishing and caught something within 15 minutes. Unfortunately it got away and the take up reel burned out. However, we did not give up and tried another time with the same rod. By manually pulling in the line and carefully winding the reel. This time we lost the weights and the new lure she bought in Las Palmas. With no weights and a broken reel, our fishing prospect was looking rather grim.We had to try to figure out a new solution to be able to make the lure sink down to the right depth. We also had to figure out a way to re-rig the reel since we were. read more...


05/12/2019

Skyelark of London - first squalls

Day 12All change again today! After several days of fine sunny trade wind conditions, someone obviously decided that life was getting a little too easy. At 2.00am this morning the first squall of our trip arrived, heralded by a sharp increase in wind strength and driving rain, which sent the, on watch crew, scurrying to reduce sail and batten down the hatches.Squalls have continued to be the theme of the day, passing through every hour or two. Sunscreen has been swapped for waterproofs and the interior of the boat is doing a good impression a large tumble drier in the increasing seas. We are all hanging on twice as hard as usual and telling ourselves the increased wind will provide a faster roller coaster sail to our destination. As always our splendid skippers carry on as usual and even. read more...


05/12/2019

Mabetica - 05.12.2019 - Leg 2/Day 15

05.12.2019 - Leg 2/Day 15 - Our last day on this wonderful trip, tonight the last night, hopefully with all the beautiful stars :) A Dutch Santa Claus was already here in out cockpit - what a nice surprise by Willem :) Happy crew :). read more...


05/12/2019

Albatros - Albatros - DAY 11 - Spaghetti

Der Wind blies uns gestern mit Böenspitzen über 30 Knoten über den Atlantik. Die Routen-Taktik schien bis dahin ganz gut aufzugehen und wir konnten im angepeilten Windband mitfahren. Die Speedrekorde wurden in regelmässigen Abständen beim Wellensurfen überboten, mit 19.0 Knoten hat schlussendlich Manfred eine vorläufige Bestmarke gesetzt. Leider konnten wir die Geschwindigkeit nicht bis heute so beibehalten. Pünktlich zur totalen Dunkelheit, Gewitterwolken verdunkelten den Himmel, kam Hektik an Deck auf: Der Genoa-Pole hatte sich aus der Verankerung gerissen und tanzte mit ausgefahrenem Segel 10m neben dem Boot. Leider schwang er zwischenzeitlich auch über das Deck und verursachte kleine Schäden. Nachdem wir beide Vorsegel einfahren konnten, wurden wir dem Pole wieder Herr und konnten. read more...


05/12/2019

Rum Bucket - Rum Bucket update

Got up, furled Genoa, gybed, blew up outhaul, put 1st reef in main, had a coffee, swore a bit, got A5 up, 17 knots of breeze wrapped A5 halyard in jammer, swore a lot, got A5 down, poled out Genoa, crash gybed the main, pulled in Genoa, put down haul on pole, poled out Genoa, had bacon eggs and beans for breakfast, filled fridge with beer... the Rum Bucket crew have a bit on at the moment! Yo ho ho and a Bucket of Rum.... read more...


05/12/2019

Oyster Moon - update from oyster moon

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