03/12/2009 by admin.

“Day 12 started with a beautiful sunrise with hardly any cloud, and not much wind. We put the spinaker up just after dawn and have been running with it all day. The wind has been frustratingly light and flukey, so we have struggled to make 6 kts for most of the day. When a big wave comes along, it spills the wind out of the spinaker and slows us down, very annoying ! It has been a very hot day, the hottest so far , 39′C. The food has ben lasting out well and we have been baking fresh bread every day. I  suspect when we get to St Lucia we may be a little heavier than when we left Las Palmas. The lack of excercise has not helped. If the wind drops any further I am planning to instigate an hour of swimming for every crew member every day. That should get them fit. I am sure they will thank me for it, if they survive. Today has been a red letter day for Stu, he has done his own washing. He managed to wash some t shirts , underwear and shirts in the basin, and all was going well until he hung them out to dry on the guard rail. 10 minutes later, a rare gust of wind lifted the stbd spinaker sheet which in turn lifted his only smart shirt off the guard rail and into the sea. So now he hs an excuse to be scruffy when we get to St Lucia.
There are still a few rain squalls on the horizon, so we could still get a soaking during the night watches, particularly those that take over from Liz. Tonight is curry night, so if the wind does not pick up, we may be able to help things along ourselves ! More tomorrow. Chris”

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02/12/2009 by admin.

“Day 11. Today has been a quiet day, with little wind, and the swell has diminished, so we hqve had a more comfortable ride today. We had another rain squall last night which kept us on our toes. We have decded to name Liz the Queen of the Rain Squalls. For the second night running, Liz has come on watch to a clear moonlit sky with no clouds, and by the time she comes off watch and hands over to John, there is the mother of all rain squalls just about to hit the boat, with gale force winds and torrential rain. She woke John for his watch last night saying she had some good news and some bad news. Ever the optimist, John asked for the good news, to which Liz responded,” well it may just miss us”. Well guess what, it didn’t.
Today, we put the big pink spinaker up to take advantage of the light airs. It seemd to make a difference as we maintained  reasonable boat speed throughout the afternoon. At sunset, we brought it down on the snuffer which worked well, and we are now on the main and genoa. I am doing the dinner tonight, beef hotpot with rice. It has been another very hot day with temperatures up in the mid 30’s C. We had our regular pilates session on the afterdeck this evening, after a day iff yesterday due to rough weather. We didn’t want someone doing the plank and sliding through the guard rails off the boat. Well, better get the dinner ready. Till tomorrow, Chris.”

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01/12/2009 by admin.

“Day 10, and we have had a couple of soakings today. The first one was at daybreak when we went through a large rain squall with torrential monsoon rain and 30 kt winds. We had been monitoring the squall on the radar as it came our way so we were well prepared for it, with the sails all reefed down. After an hour of heavy rain the sun came out and within 10 minutes everything was dry. The second soaking came this afternoon when we were all sitting in the cockpit having a cup of tea. A massive wave hit us on the port side and we got a little wet. Thinking we had got off lightly, we were just drying off nicely when it’s big brother came along. This time we got absolutely soaked, as though someone had turned a fire hose on us. The whole cockpit was awash. Anyway we are now dried off from our second soaking, and keeping a wary eye on the sea. It is fairly rough today with winds up around 20kts and big seas, so it feels like we are in a washing machine on the spin cycle again. It’s meat pie for dinner tonight, so looking forward to that. We put our watches back by 1 hour today, so we are now 2 hours behind the UK. More tomorow. Chris

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