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Defyr - Beginning of the crossing



Defyr has had a bit of a radio... I mean log-silence for the first few days. That is due to Head of Communication (that would be me) beeing seasick and mostly feeding the fish over the reels. Having eaten yesterday, I now feel strong enough to take an ipad on our hands.

We had a really good start. First we hit the acceleration zone and then we got jammed to a total windshadow. So everything went as Chris Tibbs told us. Anyway we managed to make quite a shortcut, as almost the whole cruising fleet headed to Africa. So when we left Canarrt Islands behind us, we were first in our class. No need to mention there were lots of cheers in our boat.

I guess it was wednesday, when we got an email from home saying that we were first in the cruising fleet! We celebrated like we didn't know, that we still had more than two weeks to go. So receiving the emails in the morning has been really exiting, still in lead or not?

COOOKING

So, today was the first day, when I was able to eat breakfast and what a breakfast it was! Axel, who mainly cooks our foods, made cinnamon/apple/nuts/oatmeal porridge. Goes without saying, that it was made of fresh apples.

Food has been really good, on the menu has been for example coq au vin, chicken curry, spaghetti carbonara, goat cheese pasta... And Axel has said, that when the winds and waves get milder, he can start to cook. Sounds too good!

TACTICS & WEATHER

Perttu is responsible of tactics. Every day he picks up the gridfiles and also listens to the ideas of our onshore tactician Heikki. We also get valuable info from the boat owner Alf, who sends us information about the fleet. So far our route has been really good!

We are basicly sailing straight to St Lucia, but because the planet earth is round, the route doesn't seem straight in 2D map. We have mostly sailed with genua and code zero. So not that much downwindsailing up here north.

We have done huge amount of steering our selves and saved the autopilot. That means also better speed and smoother cruising, specially when Ville, Ville, Jaakko or Perttu has been on the wheel. We do have a really good autopilot also, which is a relief specially during the night,

BREAKING AND REPAIRING

Of course everything is not going as planned. On tuesdaynight we noticed that our batteries are not charging. Some kind of shortcut thingie was done for the night and next day the problem was fixed properly.

Wednesday our code zero smashed one of the blogs, but that was an easy repair. We just replaced it with a new one.

And the toilet... Of course it gets jammed! So Jaakko had his hands full of itself as he repaired it. He was salvaged from all the dishwashing for the rest of the Atlantic crossing.

We have one unresolved problem. Our plotter gets affected by moist weather and it has stopped working during the night. That means no AIS-data. We have tried the usual tips and it's better now. Have to find out a way to make it function through the whole night. During the day it of course works like a charm.

Crew is feeling happy and now also more rested, since thursday night kept us all awake with big waves. Now it is getting milder and the waves are ok. No one is throwing up. So, all good on board of Defyr!!

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