Logs

Air Power - Log day 14

Day 14-Nov 18th.Last night, fuel got critical enough for two of the boats, they had to be assisted by a passing cargo ship. Rumor had it, the same ship helped both of them out. The U.S. Coast Guard had to get involved in both of these instances. At least no one's life was put at risk. Being out of fuel and being blown away from the islands is more of an inconvenience than a life or death issue. Unless, the crew was threatening the captain for putting them in this awkward situation.Since the stress of running out of fuel was over for us, thanks to those extra long wooden chopsticks able to reach the bottom of the tank, we were able to resume enjoying the trip again. As we sit here in the marina, we still don't know how much fuel we burned. We got in early before the fuel station opened.. read more...

Air Power - Log day 12

Day 12-Nov 16th.Not all days transmitting HF signals through the ionosphere are created equal. This morning we connected with the station in Virginia Beach immediately. Unfortunately, I made contact about 5 minutes before the morning position report was created. After waiting 10 or 15 minutes, I was never able to make a connection again. This most likely had to do with sun spots, or some other solar anomaly invented just to make these radios interesting. So, we have no idea, if any other boats are still out here with us. We do know there is at least one. We heard them flagging a passing tanker to see if they had any diesel to spare. What few vessels are still out, are most likely sitting on fuel tanks holding nothing but fumes. But then, these are sailboats. Some boats don't have. read more...

Air Power - Log day 11

Day 11-Nov 15th.It's quite clear to us, we are not going to make the medal ceremonies, let alone, get a spot on the podium. We'll be glad if the tents are still up, and there is still a slice of pizza left, when we arrive. Even some discarded crust wouldn't be bad. At 300 miles to go, we still had to sail Air Power upwind to our destination. We all carry a finite amount of fuel, and we need to use it wisely, less we run out at some point. So, on we sailed.One of the nice features of our autopilot instrument, is that it allows you to track the wind. That means, if you want to sail 45 degrees into the wind (upwind), no matter if the wind shifts, the autopilot will keep the bow (front) of the boat into the wind. 45 degrees is about the maximum limitation for us with this sea state. Even at. read more...

Numada - log day 11 dolphin day

Our day started with a beautiful sunrise and a pod of about 10 dolphins who came to play under our bow: of course by the time we woke the children up and brought them outside, they were all gone.Dolphins showed up again at lunch time and it was really a special treat! We are making progress South one tack at the time, hoping the wind to turn South West tonight.. read more...

Air Power - Log day102

Day 10-Nov 14th.A couple of weeks before we departed the Washington, DC area to meet up with the World Cruising Club in Portsmouth, Va, we received a handbook in the mail. With all that we had to take care off, our main focus was on purchasing additional safety equipment that is required. Such as, a spare VHF antenna, in the unlikely event you lose your mast. So I quickly skimmed through pages, figuring I would have plenty of time to read it more thoroughly during this passage. I remembered a topic that said, Prepare your heavy sweater. Now, what is that suppose to mean? Jill loves to knit, and I have a few Irish Aran sweaters. I don't need them where we're going, so they are in those bags you suck all the air out of, and stored in the forepeak. (That's the storage area in the bow of the. read more...

Pytheas - Whale sighting

Whale sighting!!! We saw a small group 3-4 times about 50 yds off ourstern quarter over about a 10 min period. Unfortunately, none of us gotit on camera, so you'll just have to take our word for it.See you all in the BVI soon if we can keep cranking along.CrewS/V Pytheas. read more...

Air Power - Log day 9

Day 9-Nov 13th.Being on watch last night, with gusts blowing to 23 kts, made you sit up straight and keep an eye on the wind gauge. Other than the occasional glance outside to see if there were any lighted vessels in our path, we pretty much kept our eyes on the instruments. Primarily, concentrating on the Apparent Wind Speed. This is different than True Wind Speed. Imagine yourself standing facing a 5 mph wind. The true speed of the wind is 5 kts. Now, get on your bicycle, and head into that same wind at 5 mph, and you now have 10 mph of apparent wind in your face. Since we are at an angle, we rely on our instruments to calculate these speeds. The apparent wind determines how much sail we can put up. We are especially more concerned at night. It's better to have this straightened out. read more...

Galileo - Getting closer!

After almost 48 hours of fighting the wind and the accompanying pounding - we are rewarded with an absolutely beautiful day.We are sailing on the CodeZero in generally the right direction. With mixed emotions, we’ve watched the front half of the fleet pass us by. We’re happily cheering them on while wishing we could have been a contender. It will be great to hear everyone’s stories and strategies. We are looking forward to our BVI arrival and so grateful that the WCC has arranged for a volunteer day on Thursday. We’re anxious to see the state of the island and learn more about how we can assist recovery efforts. All is good. Thanks for readingSariSV Galileo. read more...

Air Power - Log day 8

Day 8-Nov 12th.The winds have certainly picked up for us. We are now starting to make up for lost time. We are on somewhat of a port beam reach or close reach. This means the wind is coming across the left side of the boat, just a little forward of the mast. The wind is out of the NE, but we want to go SE. Of course with the wind, the waves have picked up considerably. They usually travel the same direction as the wind, or somewhere within 45 degrees of it. As it is approaching dark, we feel like we are a carnival ride. You know, the kind that made you sorry you ate all that deep fried food, before getting on.Up until this evening, the sailing was so great, it just made us want to blast that song "Come Sail Away With Me" by Styx, on the stereo. I was thinking how great it would be to. read more...

Numada - log day 8 Matthew’s birthday

Today we celebrated Matthew’s birthday with pancakes for breakfast, gifts, birthday cake and a movie in the afternoon all in rolling swells and being bounced all over the place. I am still amazed the cake did not end up on the floor!! We have also started heading south towards Tortola which has brighten our moods a lot. image1. read more...

Air Power - Log day 7

Day 7-Nov 11th.Today is Veteran's Day, and the closest thing to parade out here, in the vicinity of 29N 66W, is a flotilla of sailboats heading south for the Caribbean. We're like a flock of geese, honking and .... okay maybe not a flock of geese. We're not going to poop all over the islands, like they do in Washington, DC. But we will stay until weather makes us leave--unlike the geese in DC.Yesterday evening's weather made for considerable motoring. Pretty much 3 kts from every direction, none pushing us where we wanted to go. It is just as well, as we plowed through rainy weather all night. Multiple squalls convinced us to to drop both sails. The lightening that went on all night made us wish we could lower the mast, but there were no instructions in our manual, and we're too far off. read more...

Numada - log day 7 baking on Numada

Matthew is turning 8 tomorrow so today he baked a vanilla cake that we are going to decorate with chocolate frosting and fill it with salted caramel sauce!! Last night we had to deal with several squalls and this morning ended up changing course for 3 hours to avoid a very large one: I have never seen so much Lightning in my life. Lastly today I made the discovery that fruit flies can infect the galley even 500 miles from land!!image1. read more...

Galileo - Code Zero rocks

Flying today, yesterday not so much. We sailed slowly on the jib yesterday. Hours were spent attempting to re-rig (for the second time) our main sail. Our earlier fix significantly chafed our spin halyard and aside from not wanting to ruin the line we also didn’t want to risk another failure. Eric, Don and I worked creatively, cooperatively and diligently in the hot sun. Unfortunately, the solution didn’t work out as hoped. Tired and sailing very slowly we started the starboard engine. We decided to motor through the night - making watches and sleep easy. Today the wind has shifted and out came the Code Zero. On the Zero alone we are flying along at 9+ knots COG - speculating how fast we might be going if we had a main sail! Nonetheless, we are grateful for another beautiful day. I love. read more...

Air Power - Log day 6

Day 6-Nov 10th.As Forest Gump so eloquently stated, "weather is like a box of chocolates. Ya never know what you're gonna get." Each morning we receive a wx forecast from a wx routing service, covering the next couple of days. We keep expecting some force-full winds that will send us skipping across the waves to our final destination. We're still waiting. Makes you want to light the fire under one of those engines and get this train moving.So far, the only animal or marine life we have seen since crossing the stream is one flying fish. They are not very big, so unless there are an entire school of them, you'll probably miss them. The setting sun must have hit it just right. We're still wondering what possessed it to leave the water. Hmmmm. We had some fairly large swells coming from the. read more...

Numada - log day 6 square sail is back on Numada

Our captain has managed to repair the square sail and after lunch we put it back up in the hope to gain a little more speed in this 5-10 knots wind which is not enough to get our 25 tons steel boat moving at decent speed. At the moment it seems we have gained 1 extra knotversus the reacher sail we put up yesterday: fingers crossed!! The crew has also enjoyed the last two nights watch without squalls or showers: we are all feeling more rested and relaxed, what a difference!!. The children have been reading a lot, made some Thanksgiving decorations and built some nice tunnels and forts using all the pillows, blankets and towels they could find on the boat. image1. read more...

Air Power - Log day 5

Day 5-Nov 9th.Yesterday, we did a little motor sailing in the afternoon. No more than a couple of hours. Then we were able to make progess, just using the wind and sails. Albeit, a little slow through the night. (around 4kts). That was just fine with us. Off watch, we slept well. One thing that makes sailing at night enjoyable, is having cooperative winds, and the light of the moon. We started the rally with a full moon that stayed up all night. It was almost like sailing at dusk. Now the moon is waning (getting smaller) and it comes out about an hour later each night. I think last night, it was close to 10:30 pm before the moon was up high enough to make a difference. Otherwise, it was pitch black. This is where having an operable radar adds a level of comfort. It served us well by. read more...

Numada - log day 4 trip up the mast on Numada

Unfortunately our square sail that we like to use in light winds snapped in the upper clew. We quickly rescued the sail but ended up with the up haul line on top of the mast. So the captain decided to climb up: Richard has done it many times before but this was his first time out at sea. Everything went well but Richard felt a bit sea sick afterwards. In this way we ended up using a reacher sail to speed us up: that is the beauty of having two masts!!image1. read more...

Numada - Log day 3 Numada crew went for a swim

Today we celebrated leaving the golf stream behind with a swim in the calm sea. We are all feeling hot and sticky already and a swim in the ocean was a special treat. image1. read more...

Galileo - Good news

Ladies and gentlemen- we are back in business! Eric and Don devised an alternate (albeit temporary) rigging configuration. Main is up to the second reef point.Yahoo! SariSV Galileo. read more...

Air Power - Log day 4

Day 4, 11/8/2017.We are now starting our 4th day at sea and less than 900 nautical miles from Tortola, BVI. After yesterday's post, the winds started cooperating with us. We shut off our one engine that had been propelling us and enjoyed the quiet and serenity that sailing offers at it's best. As I mentioned previously, we are anything but competitive sailors. We were having a perfect sail through the evening and night, when the winds started to increase 20-25kts. We decided it better to drop the main sail around 3:00 am, and keep sailing using just our genoa, foresail. This way, there would be no more reefing the main, (making the sail smaller), in the night, and the person off watch could sleep uninterrupted. There are only 2 of us crewing Air Power, and we rotate every 3 hours. Pretty. read more...

Galileo - Beautiful sailing and then......

It is an absolutely gorgeous day here in the North Atlantic. We are currently approximately 640 nm off the coast of Georgia @ 31 01.55N / 68 59.10W. Last night was equally stunning. We were treated to a blaze orange moonrise followed by a moonlit night that danced on the water. The winds were favorable and we were cruising along comfortably at 11 knots or so.Disappointingly, at approximately 23:43, the main halyard snapped and our main sail came crashing down. Eric, on watch, responded calmly and expertly. He immediately called a “all hands on deck”.In quick order, the main was secured in its bag and a damage assessment completed. No other impact was noted. We reported in to rally control who were very supportive. Fortunately, we have other sails and for the rest of the night sailed on. read more...

Air Power - Log day 1-3

Here we go, Day 1, of the ARC Caribbean 1500. We tossed our lines off the dock early, as Air Power's slip on the end of the pier, blocked others wanting to get out before us. I thought retirement meant, never getting up before the sleep wore off. So we headed off for the starting line about 10 miles north, near Ft Monroe, Va. We all had our sails up tacking back and forth waiting for the starters gun to go off. Jenn & Chris, who kindly loaned us their car, while we prepped, met us on the water in their motor boat. For Jill and I, this Rally Race (with all it's rules and conditions),is sort of like how we treated running marathon races. We don't care about our finish time, just don't eat all the goodies, before we arrive. (Hopefully, we will arrive in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. read more...

Galileo - Glorious sailing

After a slow last place start (Capt. insisted on sailing the start - pretty sure everyone else was motor-sailing) we are keeping pace with Katina and Avanti. It is a treat to travel in the company of other boats. The sailing has been stellar. Of course, as I write this the winds are lessening, lol. This morning’s sunrise was breathtaking - shades of green, orange, reds and yellows. We’re truly enjoying ourselves, getting enough sleep and eating well. Last night’s dinner was chicken and veggie quesadillas with black beans, yellow rice, guacamole and sour cream. On the menu this morning is waffles, bacon and granola parfaits.Anticipating another great day. All is good. Thanks for reading. SariSV Galileoimage1. read more...

Numada - Log day 1 Numada back at sea

Today we finally crossed the start line And started our new adventure. The weather has been very nice but with light winds so the noise machine has been running all the time. We saw several dolphins (already ahead of boat Taiko on spotting them!) but did not manage to take a good photo. Our new crew members are quickly adjusting to the movement of the boat and the rhythm at sea. I am pleased to be the first out in the night to enjoy the stars and the moon later on: such a great feeling. Maura got the best fortune cookie for dinner tonight " success starts with a beginning!"... well this is ours. Raffaella. read more...

Air Power - Air Power ready

Charts and log ready, salon daybed prepped...just a few more checklist items to go and we're ready for the start of Caribbean 1500!20171105_061806 20171105_061825. read more...

Numada - Log day - 4 Cooking day on Numada

Today the boys helped me out cooking four different dishes for the first few days at sea. Sebastian chopped several onions while wearing his googles and Matthew, still wearing his Harry Potter scar from last night trick-or treat, handled carrots and potatoes. The pressure cooker did the magic. True team work!! Raffaella IMG_4457 ATT00001. read more...