30/11/2009 by admin.

“Day 9, and we have just celebrated reaching the halfway point, with some champagne and cigars (I had no idea Liz smoked cigars !). Today we have had the strongest winds to date with a good Force 6 blowing for most of the day. This has helped us in terms of boat speed, but the seas have been very steep and confused, so it has not been the most comfortable of days. We met up with another ARC boat earlier today, the Goldina, a 57′ Najad, which passed less than a mile from us. We had a chat on the VHF with them and swapped stories, then wished each other good winds and agreed to meet up in St Lucia.  The sun is now setting in the west and the wind has moderated, so we are getting ready for supper. We have adjusted our course to a direct line to St Lucia with the wind directly behind us. We have rigged the genoa on the port spinaker pole with the main out on a preventer to stbd, so are running well dead downwind. St Lucia here we come !! As we are sailing fairly fast today, the fishing has been put on hold, so no fish for supper tonight. We are now in the rain squall zone where you can get sudden squalls blowing through with winds in excess of 30 kts. These can be rig-breaking wind conditions, so we need to be vigilant, particularly at night, and ensure we reduce our sail area in time if there is a squall coming through. Having said that, it would be good to have a fresh water washdown as the boat is covered in salt. Poor old Fizz will need a good wash-down when we get to St Lucia. Well, the dinner gong has just sounded, so I had better get dressed for dinner, don’t want to be late.Till tomorrow. Chris”

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29/11/2009 by admin.

“Day 8 and we have had a very successful day’s fishing today. We caught 2 Dorado, one of which was too small so was thrown back in, The other, caught by David, was a good 10 lbs, so John filleted it and David cooked it in flour and butter for supper. It tasted absolutely brilliant. It is amazing how fresh fish tastes so good. If we are stuck out here and the food runs out, we should be fine for fresh fish. The weather has been great all day, plenty of wind, so we have been averaging 7 kts, with the curuising chute up during the day. We had our usual fight with the snuffer getting the chute down this evening, but eventually managed to get it in the bag, before getting the main and genoa up. It was very hot today, over 35′C, so sunbathing was the order of the day, after the daily chores had been done. The water temperature is now up in the late 20’s.  . We passed another yacht today on a similar course, and have just sighted another yacht that we lost sight of a couple of days ago. We are obviously doing a similar speed, althouigh our courses are slightly different. Otherwise there is nothing to see but bliue sky and miles and miles of ocean. We are now more than 1,000 miles from land, and hoping to reach the halfway point soon.That will be cause for celebration. I am due on watch now, so better get going. Chris”

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28/11/2009 by admin.

” Today, Saturday 28th, marks the end of the first week of the ARC. It is surprising how quickly time has flown by. Last night we had a bit of a struggle getting the Cruising chute down at sunset with wind strength increasing. There were numerous finger burns as we fought to control the snuffer, but eventually got it down on the deck. Last night was very peaceful with light airs with the main and genoa up. We would have liked a bit more wind, but we still managed to get a reasonable daily average speed. Today we have had plenty of wind, over 20 knots on the stbd quarter so have been sailing well with main and genoa ,with our highest recorded speed today at 10.5 kts. We have seen a surprising number of sea birds in the last couple of days, and regularly pick up flying fish that have landed on the deck. Today I found 4 on the foredeck.  Everyone is missing their family and friends back home, but the satellite phone is proving to be very popular for emails and the ocasional phone call. Last night we saw a yacht about 1/2 a mile off our stbd side with no navigation lights on. As we overtook them, they shone a torch on their sails to indicate their presence. It looked very spooky.As it’s Saturday , we have been given special dispensation to miss out on the pilates class, big sighs of relief all round. We are eating very healthily at the moment, plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit. However, we are now running out of fresh veg so will have to start on the tinned veg. More to follow. Chris “

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27/11/2009 by admin.

“Day 6 and all going well here. After a peaceful night of night watches with the main and genoa, we put the big shouty sail, the cruising chute, up this morning at 8, and Fizz has been galloping along at 7.5 kts + ever since. Our daqily run for the last 24 hours was 165 miles, not bad, but we can improve on this. Today is our (Pam and I) wedding anniversary, the first time we have not been together for our anniversay for a very long time,  aaaaaah. But I suppose this is as good an excuse as any.
David has been spending a few hours every day doing his A Level course work (he is in the m iddle of his second year A levels). Stu has been perfecting his fishing technique after his successful first catch yesterday. Liz is threatening to shave “Fizz” on John’s chest hair, so John has been keeping his shirt on ever since.
The weather forecast looks good with consistent NE trrade winds forecast for the next few days, so hopefully they will continue. We are getting plenty of sunshine, and the temperatures are getting hotter every day. The food is lasting well, tonight is one of Pam’s Shepherd’s pies. Just before sunset we get the cruising chute down and set the main and genoa for the night watches. Bringing the cruising chute down can be fairly hairy, particularly when we are getting 20-25 kts gusts. We need 2, sometimes 3 crew up forward to bring the chute down, as it can easily lift 2 people off the deck. So that is our excitement for the evening befor dinner. Well, Liz’s Pilates class starts in a few minutes, so I had better get going with the warm up excercises. Till tomorrow, Chris “

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26/11/2009 by admin.

Ode to Stu
It’s Thursday today,
Hip hip houray
Stuart’s cooking tea
He’s the man of the match,
The one with the catch,
He fills us all with glee

He’s caught a fish,
cooked a curry dish,
made croque monsieur for our lunch
he’s been up the mast,
we’ve had a blast,
we’re rivalling the brady bunch.
Liz.

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26/11/2009 by admin.

“Today has been a busy day on Fizz. We put the cruising chute up this
morning and have been averaging over 7 kts all day. Stu found a flying fish
on deck which was an omen. 2 hours later he caught his first fish, a small
yellow bonito, too small to eat so we threw it back in. Stu and David also
took a turn up the mast with the video camera while we were flying the
cruising chute, so we have some fantastic video footage of Fizz from aloft.
This was followed by Liz’s pilates class on the after deck, with full crew
participation. Tonight Stu is treating us to one of Pam’s special chicken
balti curries. We brought the cruising chute down just before sunset,
everything went OK, and we are now running under main and genoa. We are all
sleeping better so are feeling more relaxed and settling well into the
routine. Tomorrow we will have less than 2,000 miles to go, we can almost
taste the rum punches. Curry is nearly ready, so better go. Chris “

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25/11/2009 by admin.

“Here we are on day 4, we have just passed the first 500 miles, and all is going well.    We had a bit of excitement last night trying to get the cruising chute down in winds gusting up to 30 kts. The cruising chute got a little damp but we got it back on board eventually, after much hard work in extreme conditions by the highly capable and hard-working crew (they told me to say that). We are making good boat speed, 7+kts  and the sun is shining, so we can’t complain. Liz is educating us in healthy eating, with lots of fresh vegetables. She is also runing a pilates class on the afterdeck every afternoon. John is now expecting to loose 3 stones in weight by the end of the trip. Ever the optimist !!  Stu had 2 good bites on his fishing line earlier today, but the first managed to get off the hook, and the second decided to take the hook and much of the line, so we are still to catch our first fish. We have one other yacht for company today, Circus of Southampton, she is about 3 miles to stbd of us. Otherwise the fleet seems to be well spread out. We are currently heading WSW, but tomorrow we start heading west direct for St Lucia. Very exciting. Well, that’s it for now. Will report further tomorrow. Chris”

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24/11/2009 by admin.

500 miles across the sea
we’ve got bangers and mash for our tea
the weather’s improving, it’s getting quite hot
but David’s not happy, he’s got gut-rot
the 4 metre swell that was making us tip
has flattened out nicely, cold beer John now sips
Stu has tried his luck catching the fishes
but is having more luck doing the dishes
thank goodness now Fizz is making good speed
Chris’s start line tantrums we no longer heed
Liz has tried her hand at steering the boat
and just about managed to keep it afloat
we are all missing family and friends back at home
but are consoling ourselves with Taffy the gnome

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24/11/2009 by admin.

“Well, we have just completed our second 24 hour run and we are doing OK,
averaging just over 7 kts. It has been fairly cool the last 2 days, but the
sun is out now, and it is very hot. We put the cruising chute up again this
morning and will hope to run with this at least until sunset, depending on
the wind strength. Stu, Dave and John have been fishing, nothing caught yet,
but hopes are high. Tonight we have bangers and mash on the menu, yum yum.
Looking forward to that. As the swell has moderated and the boat movement is
a little smoother,  we all had a shower this morning, so are all smelling a
lot more sociable.
More to follow….
Chris”

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23/11/2009 by admin.

After a pretty poor start where we were unable to get clear air for about 30
minutes, we managed to start building up speed with the cruising chute up
and within an hour of the start we had started overhauling  many of the
other boats. We kept the cruising chute up throughout the rest of the day,
with a couple of hairy moments in the acceleration zone off Las Palmas
airport. Our highest logged boat speed in the last 24 hours is 11.3 kts. We
had a number of broaches in the late evening so had to bring the cruising
chute down at 23;30, all hands on deck in strengthening 30 kts+ of wind. A
bit hairy but the crew did a great job.We have since been sailing with just
the main sail up and have been averaging 7.5 kts. We are now 70 miles off
the north African coast heading WSW. It is very lumpy with 3-4 m swells so
we are not getting much sleep. It’s a bit like trying to sleep in a washing
machine on the spin cycle. Anyway the sun is out and we are making good boat
speed in the right direction. More to follow…. Chris

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