Daily Logs

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...

Cats Pajamas - Catss Pajamas Day 8

Seems everywhere can quickly seem like home once the routine sets in, it’s quietly comforting or is that comfortably numb, we look to the small pleasures of Dolphins for 10 minutes each day, a chat about another endless number of topics with friends you have known for more than 20 years yet still discover new things or a more common theme like the fish that steel our lures as their personal trophies for allowing us to explorer their special place on earth, so yes not a lot to tell other than blissful ignorance of world problems from our current view point.. read more...

Penny Oyster - Tasty fish, sail repairs, and awesome stars!

Day two, our fishing master, "Tuna Tom,"had set out two fishing lines with the hope of catching us some dinner. The day started well with more breeze, so we were able to fly our beautiful blue spinnaker. At around lunchtime, we dropped the spinnaker as the wind had increased to 20knts, and we maintained good speed with our poled out jib. Tuna Tom and Dave had gone down for an after noon nap, leaving Millie and Phoebe in charge of the watch (and also the fishing) when, much to our surprise, we heard the fishing line begin run. We quickly woke up the boys who began to reel it in as we tried to slow the boat down. After a bit of a fight (due to our reel breaking), we managed to land a perfectly sized dorado. This resulted in a delcious dinner, which was a definite upgrade from our original. read more...

Wolkenschlößchen - Day 6 - Sunny and calm

Family day on board of Wolkenschloesschen. While we all enjoyed the calm weather and low winds, Lonneke had lots of fun with her granddad, uncle and great cousins on board. The sailing day was quite uneventful. We made two jibes with the oxley and nothing more. More of these days please! We have passed by Cap Verde and will hopefully soon reach proper trade winds. We are hurrying to use our fresh vegetables as long as they survive. Yummy vegetable and meat soup today. Daily run: 127nm  . read more...

Adrienne - Tag der Begegnungen

Blogautoren Steffi und ThorstenDie heutige Segelnacht begann bei immer noch zunehmendem Mond und entsprechender Helligkeit mit wenig Sternen gleich mit einer Halse, um unsere Position zum Wind zu optimieren und uns einen guten Kurs zu garantieren. Der Segelwind frischte im Vergleich zu den Vortagen sehr vorteilhaft auf, sodass wir mit 6,5 bis 7 kts Fahrt durch die mondhelle Nacht glitten in Richtung 240 Grad. Diese Windgeschwindigkeit blieb uns auch den Rest Tages treu und erlaubt uns, endlich die Geschwindigkeit zu laufen, die wir uns eigentlich von Beginn an erhofft hatten. Den Vortrieb besorgen Groß, Genua (ausgebaumt) und Solent. Kurz nach Mittag entdeckte Mark, der auf dem Vordeck chillte, eine Schule Delfine, die uns ca. 20 min. begleitete. Sie spielten mit unserer Bugwelle fangen,. read more...

Valent - It’s Friday and it’s Amberjack

It’s Amberjack time. This afternoon we caught not 1, not 2 but 4 Amberjack, all thanks to Dwight’s perseverance. The first was the biggest and we returned the smallest. The fridge has 6 lovely fillets waiting for culinary inspiration tomorrow. We also have our egret back on board, he/she has stowed themselves under the kicker. The wind has again dropped so the Bora is back up. We also made some apple chutney both to satisfy the insatiable demand from the crew for chutneys and also to salvage something from the rapidly deteriorating apples. image0. read more...

Champagne Hippy - Day 6 - 24th November

After the adrenaline-spiking adventure of "mission save the turtles" yesterday the crew of Champagne Hippy were ready for some well-earned rest.  The AC unfortunately is still not working meaning most of us have been struggling to sleep with the heat. However, with the sea state being fairly calm it has provided an opportunity to crack the cabin hatches and welcome in some much-needed breeze. Last night however, we found out it was not just the waves we needed to be worried about with the hatches open as there were some unexpected guests in two of our cabins.  The first arrived onto the hatch blind in Julia’s cabin. She ran up on deck where Josh and I were on our first night watch and exclaimed she thought there may be a fish on her blind but she was too worried to. read more...

Cassini - Blog #59 - Mildred

Well, hello everyone. I've managed to sneak onto the blog thingy while no one else is looking. I thought that it's about time I had my turn. It's all well and good all of them banging on about watch keeping and navigating etc but we all know who really does the work around here, don't we? When did I last get a cup of tea? And how many of those does one person need in a day? When did I last get to go off watch and lie down for a while?Anyway, having gathered myself, this is Mildred speaking. The rather good-looking, slim attachment on the stern (see picture - rather a nice one I think, catches my red vane nicely in the light). I have a separate rudder from the one on the boat, which does the 'point it in the general direction' type work; but when there's any form of subtlety or finesse. read more...

Tahira - D-Day 5 [24-Nov-23]

TAHIRA ARC BLOGD-Day 5 [24-Nov-23] toLocation: North of Cape VerdeLat: 20.52N Long: 22.59WSTAYING ON TOP OF THINGSAn old Army friend once commented that 'no-plan ever survives contact with the enemy'. Whilst in his context the enemy were an opposing military force, in our case it is the challenges posed by the sea and the weather. Having a clear and effective plan was critical to our preparation, but ultimately it will be our ability to cope with things that go wrong that will determine the success or failure of our mission to cross the Atlantic.Today we were given some stark reminders of the challenges of undertaking an Atlantic crossing.DemastingOne of the boats in our fleet - Hilma, was demasted. We do not know the details, but losing your mast means you cannot sail, and so. read more...

Asante - Day 6 of the never ending poem

Day 6 of this adventure and it’s still all about the fish.Cerviche for our breakfast.That’s quite an unusual dish.Then lunch was mahi goujons, wrapped in Kirsten’spita bread.While supper is fish risotto.We are certainly not underfed.Today is ‘tidy Friday’.In the morning we all cleaned.It’s good to have a fresh boat and the stainless it now gleamed.Then the afternoon was busy too.‘Twas time to do the gybe.The point we’ve all been waiting for.To St Lucia we all cried.For from this point, if the winds stay true.There is no more pole to move.The sails are out, the trades are here.The crew are in the groove.We know our jobs.We’re working well.Shift patterns we all follow.It’s just a matter for us now for more fish we’ll have to swallow.Ah talking of the fish we’ve caught.There are also those. read more...

Saida - Saida day 6

A great day today! Heading west straight towards St.Lucia with 15-20 kn winds pushing us forward with up to 11 kn boat speed. It was also laundry washing day today. Sundowner Happy Hour around 1830 with lots of Dolphins joining us for the sunset. Beautiful!!!. read more...

Northern Light II - Friday 24th November

We’re almost half way to Grenada. We turned all the clocks back yesterday by one hour and we’ll do this once more before our arrival. We continue to try and make up the time that we lost in turning back to help the yacht in trouble but progress is slow. The winds are light and the Patricia has remainedhoisted for the last 36 hours. Life on board has settled into a routine. Checking the fruit and vegetables in their nets for those that are rotten or requiring eating, turning the eggs to keep them fresh, checking the lines and halyards for damage and wear and cooking and cleaning all take place around the watch schedule. In recent days we’ve found time for reading, yoga, meditation and playing games. In Cape Verde it was suggested by one of the IOW boats that we could form a book club. A. read more...

JaZoFi - JaZoFi day 6

They say uneventful days are what you want when sailing across Oceans – JaZoFi had one of those days, still heading SW to avoid the doldrums, most discussion was when to turn right and head West. Winds have been in the range 11 to 18 knots for the past 24 hours and direction has been very steady out of the ENE. 18 knots is nice, 11 a bit light but another day with good mileage under the keel is good.Apart from a cargo ship, we haven’t seen anything today except a few birds.. read more...

Blue Pepper - Blue Pepper, Day 6 - 24/11

The last two days have been great trade wind sailing, very much as we hoped for. The spinnaker has been up continuously and we are barrelling along in the sunshine/moonlight, rolling down the increasingly big waves.Three days ago the plotter was full of boats around us, now there are just a couple - and they are well out of sight. Life on board is well settled. Our first day of fishing today was unfruitful, but we nearly got one! Tomorrow is another day….. read more...

Vitamin Sea - Tag 4: Von ruhigen Nächten und erfrischenden Duschen, Donnerstag, der 23. November

Die Nacht vom 22. auf den 23. November 2023: Peter und Anne in Aktion - Der Wingaker wird in der Dunkelheit geborgen Bei ruhiger See mit 10 Knoten Wind und dem gehissten Wingaker, gehen wir in die nächste Nacht. Doch wir sind nicht mehr allein. Das Schiff "Serene" tanzt die ganze Nacht um uns herum wie eine elegante Ballerina.Um 2 Uhr morgens, während Annas Nachtwache stirbt der Wind plötzlich ab. Peter und Nicolas müssen geweckt werden. In der Dunkelheit holen Anna und Peter den Wingaker ein. Wegen seiner Verletzung ist Nicolas auf Standby und wie immer mitdem Headset verbunden. Anna ist mittlerweile schon geübt und meistert die Aufgabe souverän.Wir setzen den Motor ein, um voranzukommen, und das bleibt bis etwa 10 Uhr morgens so.Als ich um 3 Uhr morgens die Wache übernehme, empfängt. read more...

Vitamin Sea - Tag 3: Süsse Nachtwachen und ein herrlicher Sonnenuntergang, Mittwoch, der 22. November 2023

The third night from November 21st to 22nd, 2023: A clever snack system for quiet nights The night was a bit restless, but we were well equipped with fog and mainsail. A fast, large luxury yacht and a tanker sailed past us. But otherwise the night was pretty uneventful. On such calm nights at sea, the entire crew's appetite is particularly high. The snack bag is a welcome rescue. And thanks to Anna, we have developed a clever system to enjoy these delicacies on board fairly and harmoniously.At home it can happen that one or the other secretly helps one another's chocolate and a few treats disappear. However, on a boat this would be catastrophic and emotionally unimaginable. After all, there is no store far and wide to get supplies. The peace of the house or boat ultimately depends on. read more...