Month: May 2014

At about 9am a swell appeared which has to an extent broken our ‘in a marina without shorepower’ type feel to our world and we started a little rolling and yawing. 11am pulled in a bit of wind 8-10kn SW and we set full sail. During this time we decided to check out the clew, tighten the line fastening the sail to the aft of the boom roller, and as it was a touch frayed, work in a second 10mm line. The 10kn wind gave us about 5kn SOG for 5 hours then died again. At least we got a

Clearly we need to start an Ocean Snailing Club as wind remains 3 to 6 knots and we crawl along under power making about 100nm a day. Could be there’s a little wind for 12 hours or so on Saturday but that’s about it. The sky has been crystal clear and panning 360 degrees on a searingly hot deck one can stare straight at the razor sharp edges of the horizon in any direction. No haze, no squalls, none of the fade out to a white blur. Just a sharp blue line. And I’ve never seen so many miles, mile

Aye Aye Jim…and so it is hundreds of years later. No change. We are out of the trade winds and into The Variables, The Horse Latitudes, so named because the galleons full of livestock would be running out of water in the calms and to save on consumption would throw another horse over the rail. Sharks trailed the galleons and eventually a law was passed requiring that the horse be shot first before being flung to the feeding frenzy below. Wind currently South circa 5-7kn and at 11 pm we were making under 0.5kn so we are back on the

Heading 020/030 at about 5kn in a flat sea; another beautiful day gliding along although hardly closing the Azores. Suddenly I noticed a piece of plastic by the mid-ship cleat. Picking it up it looked like a piece of sheave so out came the binoculars to pan round the mast head. Can’t see anything amiss. Puzzling, what did fall out of the sky 3 days ago? Minutes later….and there it was. A bolt, one of four, fastening the vang to the boom had sheared and it was the bolt head that had fallen on the doghouse window. Looks like an

To sum up day’s 1,2 and 3 we have been navigating to wind on a close reach resulting in courses of 020, 040 and more recently 000. With so much north in our course we close the Azores by about 15 or 20 miles a day. The boat loves close reaching. Initially we were in the trades and stonking along at 7.5kn but more recently we have been gliding at about 3.5 to 6kn on a flat blue sea under clear skies in about 10kn wind with a small swell. Below deck it’s 34 deg C during the day but

Left St Martin on the 08030 bridge somehow! Things were thrown in lockers, lashed to tables and what didn’t find a home ended up inside the washing machine for re-discovery sometime in the future. At the bridge the news regarding Cheeki Rafiki was acknowledged and it’s hit the sailing community hard. We offer our condolences to all family and friends. Queueing at the bridge was amusing. A large Swan wanted to rush out to get to a race start a few miles away and asked if he could slot in ahead of us; as if the minutes mattered to our

To sum up day’s 1,2 and 3 we have been navigating to wind on a close reach resulting in courses of 020, 040 and more recently 000. With so much north in our course we close the Azores by about 15 or 20 miles a day. The boat loves close reaching. Initially we were in the trades and stonking along at 7.5kn but more recently we have been gliding at about 3.5 to 6kn on a flat blue sea under clear skies in about 10kn wind with a small swell. Below it’s 34 deg C in the day but cooler

Well I don’t know what’s happened to the blog meister. Too much sleep I think! So, for the avid blog readers out there I thought I’d share what I wrote to our shore support crew for day 2. We had another good day, better than the first. The sea has smoothed and the wind keeps getting some south into it so we are bending towards the Azores beautifully. Just call the boat ‘Bend it like Beckham’! The report we send in to Pangolin includes the speed and course plus wind direction and speed etc if you are interested. We had