The End

ARC 2007

There it is then - 10.30 UK time 11 December we crossed the line - in the darkness as the sun set some 45 minutes earlier. So that was 16 days 9 and a half hours for a trip which turned out to be 3034 nautical miles (even though the direct route from Las Palmas is supposed to be about 2,700 miles). It has been a frustrating day with lousy wet weather, changes and drops in wind and all sorts of rearrangements of the sail plan. The worst was about midday today when we found ourselves under a 12 mile diameter black cloud with torrential rain - and not a breath of wind. As we went around and around in circles we had jealous visions of all the other boats nearby powering forward in 20 knots of breeze to the finish line ahead of us. Fortunately we got out of there after about 40 minutes and were on our way once more. The afternoon was a little better but we continued to scan the horizon for any trace of rival Into the Blue. Not a trace but plenty of other boats as the fleet converged on one small spot at the north tip of St Lucia.

The finish line is at the back of Rodney Bay and heading towards it the wind comes almost head on so our last ten minutes was beating upwind into 20 knots of wind and a 25 degree heel - a suitably dramatic ending to the trip.

Even more dramatic was the rapid approach of a pair of white lights from starboard - it definitely looked like a high speed collision until we realised it was the ARC official photographer storming up for boat pictures on the line. We were sufficiently under control to be able to offer full smiles and waves as he went by. We are not sure exactly our position crossing the line but think it was somewhere in the low 50's.

We have also found subsequently that quite a number of boats ahead of us had been using their engines in the quiet spells - obviously we think their positions should be expunged from the records.

Arriving at the dock we were presented with a tray of very strong rum punches and a basket full of fruit. We still have the fruit though the rum punches disappeared almost instantly. The rest of the evening you can probably guess. Suffice to say the rum punches are large and strong, the local Piton beer is similarly plentiful and this morning the number of pints of iced water being consumed is reaching epic proportions.

Tree Frogs Part 2

ARC 2007

Well the reign of Don't Panic - the multi talented and highly attractive Magrathea cruising spinnaker had to come to a temporary end last night as the wind speeds rose and the wind moved almost directly behind our intended track. As it turned out we brought it down just in time before a series of big squalls and gusts running up to 28 knots for the first half of the night came up from behind. With the trusty opposite poled out genoa and Stormin Norman back on display we remained confident of our continuing speed -and our ability to control the boat. During the night we did manage averages of 9 knots towards our destination but with plenty of exhilarating swoops down waves that got us into the 11's. This morning as another lump of black cloud brought more gusts we clocked 16.8knots as we ran down a wave. Yet another record for old faithful Ray.(with admirable assistance provided by skipper).

We had our regular morning chat with arch rivals on the Oyster 56 Into the Blue and were delighted to find that in the last 24 hours we've caught up from a mile behind them to about 9 in front. We now hope that we can protect this lead over the last few miles of the course. We put this speed down to Don't Panic of course. Apparently they saw us with it flying during the afternoon yesterday (though we did not see them) but did not call us to avoid us making extra efforts to get past them. They were confident in their rig and speed but turns out that Don't Panic is a real winner.

At the 1200 reporting time we were 71 miles from the northern tip of St Lucia (the finish line is three miles around the corner from there) the wind is still strong though a little wayward. We have gybed the boat twice in the last hour and half to maintain our course and we are now down to 57 miles left to run. I will not tempt fate or the weather gods by any estimate of our arrival time - but I'm sure you can work out what we are thinking. Dawn has broken to a rather grey and wet scene out here. Everyone is also a bit jaded since the return of the poled out genoa plan has brought us back to our favourite rockin' and rollin'. Re-adopting the stance of a tree frog whilst in our bunks overnight was the requirement but despite days of practice none of us seems very good at it. Sleep was in short supply during the night. Nothing however will dampen the spirits of the crew now (apart perhaps from a sudden absence of wind) and morale has been further improved by a big breakfast of scrambled egg and bacon. Apart from the celebratory aspects of such a start to the day skipper advises we should all load up with as much fat as possible from now on in anticipation of it being washed away by obscene quantities of alcohol in the not too distant future.

And Now The End is Near

ARC 2007

..its not actually time to face the Final curtain but it looks like we are getting to the end of this particular chapter.(Whatever you do though whisper it quietly- we do not want the weather gods to hear and mess us around again just for the heck of it). We have had another pretty good day (and we had the highest distance run yesterday for all the similar Oysters) - wind unchanged and the spinnaker flying all day. Tonight we still have it up with the pole dragged right out to the beam so that we are running virtually straight downwind with Don't Panic acting as a symmetric spinnaker. We may have to do some radical changes in the night if the wind goes east as forecast (but when did it do what was forecast in the last two weeks) but otherwise we want to keep this up as it is noticeably quicker than flying the genoa. We are still trying to catch the last few miles on an oyster 56 just in front of us.

Otherwise its been another very quiet day - plenty of wind and sunshine and not too many waves so progress has been good again. (I've just noticed on the radar that we are being surrounded by five squalls so maybe the night is set to get exciting soon) We have only seen one boat today which we managed to catch and overtake about 6 this evening. Since it does look as though we will finish tomorrow we have been debating what we will miss once the trip is over. Strangely Chef is adamant that there is nothing at all but we think she is just kidding until she comes up with a killer idea. Nobody has really offered much else to be honest and in fact the only suggestion to date has been "not having any sense of guilt" You can sit around all day doing virtually nothing or just reading and sleeping and there is no need to feel at all guilty since there is absolutely nothing else you can do. Not a very frequent feeling back in the day to day real world. Perhaps that would be enough to entice some of you readers out there to try this some time in the future. In the meantime I've got to dash off and read a few pages of my novel - and I won't be feeling the slightest bit guilty about it.

Lets Go Fly a Kite

ARC 2007

It’s been a very good twelve hours for us with our decision to keep the spinnaker flying throughout the night. Remarkably (for the first time that we can remember on this trip) the wind stayed in virtually the same direction (SSE) and at almost constant strength (14 knots) for almost 24 hours since yesterday morning at 9 when we first put the kite up. During the night we did catch and overtake three boats - although it may well be that these were merely ones that overtook us during our Black Saturday.

This morning the wind has moved a little to the east so it has become harder for the spinnaker to work as we point further away from the wind. We have though just finished poling it out on the windward side and now we find that our excellent asymmetric spinnaker is in fact also a symmetric one in disguise. We may yet be able to fly it all the way to the finish - even if we do eventually get the promised easterly trade wind.

The forecast suggested that a move to E-NE would occur late yesterday and strengthen to 20 knots. Like all of the forecasts we have received this trip the forecast seems little better than guess work and we are still waiting for the decisive shift. One of the other yachts we spoke to yesterday lunchtime was anticipating this shift and had put on sails accordingly - it looks as though they will have been flying the wrong sailplan for the last 20 hours but we are not going to get terribly upset about it for them!

We have been checking up on the other Oysters around us this morning and still find we are all pretty close to each other. If things stay reasonably windy for the next 36 hours then we should all end up arriving at St Lucia in the early evening tomorrow - though almost certainly in the dark.. Our skipper knows the finish area (Rodney Bay) well from earlier trips and points out it can be quite tricky to enter in the dark. He has therefore kindly suggested that he will happily act as guide to any of the other Oysters interested. They just have to hang around outside the entrance (and the finish line) and we will lead them all across the finish line and into the bay. We all thought it was a very generous gesture.

A Grand Day Out

ARC 2007

...or what a difference a day makes. We have had a lovely day - the wind has blown an almost constant 13 knots all day from the south east. We have been able to fly Don't Panic since first thing this morning and the wind has been such that we have been able to point straight towards St Lucia without any problem and average about 8 miles per hour in that direction the whole time. The sun shone throughout in an almost cloudless sky while the breeze kept us cool despite the 32 degree temperature. Lovely sky, fluffy white clouds, deep blue sea and our sky blue spinnaker and white mainsail have made for a collage of white and blue all day. We are feeling very confident once more so we are planning to carry our spinnaker through the night - it gives us about an extra 25 miles over any other sail plan. As the skipper points out this is a difference of 3 hours in the total passage time - which could be the difference between getting to the first arrival party on Tuesday or not.

We have also had some of the big Atlantic rollers that we have experienced on and off on this trip. It takes about 10 seconds for each successive crest to arrive - you see them building in size astern and then they march towards us until the stern of the boat is picked up and the bow rushes down into the trough of the wave in front picking up speed all the time. In these gentle conditions of 13 knot winds the whole affair is a languid up and down motion with the added zest of the speed gain as we go down hill and the big white rush of foam as our bow wave overtakes us once the wave goes past. We have spoken to a number of boats around us in the fleet and they have all been suffering from the same problems as us so we don't feel quite as fed up as we did. We were chased all day by a smaller but quicker boat (Xenia) but we managed to hold them off and this evening they gave up the chase and settled down for some dinner. (They even called us on the radio to admit defeat and offer to buy us a beer in St Lucia -very generous since they have beaten us substantially on handicap.)

Strange things have been going on via the radio waves -which of course we listen to avidly. A lady on one boat has taken a shine to a gentleman on another one not far away. We have to listen to the flirtatious banter most of the day. Problem is that as far as we can tell the attraction only stems from hearing each other's voices -they've never seen each other and an attempt to send an email photo between the boats today failed. Could be a tricky situation in St Lucia in a few days time. We were also puzzled to hear another crew well into their sundowners at three in the afternoon. We guessed correctly that they have not bothered changing their clocks which seems strange. This means their 7 o'clock morning starts 3 hours before dawn, sundowner drinks occur in the middle of the afternoon and dinner must be about three hours before sundown. At least it gives them plenty of drinking time - very evident from the nature of their radio conversations that we heard. We were also very distressed to hear that one of the other Oysters has run out of beer, white wine and rum.(We thought we had a drinks problem but we have yet to drink our way through any of the stores we brought aboard- or maybe we just provisioned more realistically). They are ok for a while since they still have some red wine. They have confirmed that they are not yet desperate enough to break into the rose.

P.S. The chocolate brownies were excellent.

Sailing is all about Improvisation

ARC 2007

Entirely as expected our run to 1200 today was our worst ever - and quite possibly the worst in the whole history of yachting.- 122 miles. We were though relieved to hear one other oyster like us which only managed 130 miles yesterday for the same reasons. The wind did pick up a little late in the evening yesterday so that we had a very gentle night sail - 9 knots of wind, 6 knots of boat speed and almost flat seas so everyone got a good night's sleep. Today the wind has picked up a little to 12 knots but we have been able to get Don't Panic out once more and are managing almost 9 knots in the direction of St Lucia. The forecast suggests that the wind will further strengthen today and blow quite strongly until Tuesday - which may be enough to get us to St Lucia. On the other hand virtually nothing of the earlier forecasts has turned out to be very accurate so we are not holding our breath. We checked one of our earlier forecasts and there is no mention of the 100 mile wide hole of nil wind that we ran into yesterday. Still the sun is out again now (31degrees) so everyone is feeling on top of th world once more.

As mentioned yesterday we have a broken electric jib furler - and the manual alternative takes an enormous amount of time and energy to operate. This was going to be a significant hindrance to us as we tried to manoeuvre the boat to follow the wind shifts over the next few days. However the skipper has put all his ingenuity into a cunning plan, after all improvisation in the face of all manner of crises is the mark of a competent sailor. He's sawn the end off one of our spare winch handles and attached it to an electric drill. Now you just take the drill up to the bow, insert into the socket and pull the trigger - it works a treat and has the sail furled away in a couple of minutes (it's rather like the technique used in the old days of winding a car mileometer backwards prior to a secondhand sale!).

Further ingenuity is at work in the galley where Chef has decided to make chocolate brownies. (The crew for its part has promised to demolish them all as soon as they are available - they won't keep in this 31 degree heat anyway). No particular reason or celebration apparently - she just felt it seemed like a good idea. So after the delights of sausage with mustard mash last night (courtesy of the bosun), sausages (surplus from last night) and scrambled egg on toast this morning, dorado, tomato, onion and bacon bake for lunch and something equally tasty this evening we cannot really complain about the culinary arrangements here on Magrathea.

Black Saturday

ARC 2007

A very bad day overall. We had a good morning but about mid day we were hit by a big squall - very wet but worse was that the wind came from due north so all sorts of gybing and reorganisation of the sails only to find that all the wind died leaving us well and truly becalmed. Of course the seas remain big so we rolled around noisily for some hours. Sometime in the mid afternoon a little wind came back (from due south!) but we gybed around again and actually managed to put up Don't Panic and had .. ooh 20 minutes of good sailing in 12 knots of wind until (guess what) it all died again. We have now had three hours sitting in what the instruments claim is 3-4 knots of wind but since this rotates through 360 degrees every 2-3 minutes we don't believe the wind exists at all. Actually we think it is only the big rollers pushing us towards St Lucia and nothing to do with sails or wind. Skipper is confident this is just a phase and the wind will be back by midnight. In the meantime various crew members on watch are vying with each other for the minimum distance travelled in an hour. Currently two members hold the joint record of just 2 miles per hour. This makes the idea of a Tuesday landfall a complete nonsense. We have therefore had wind ranging from 4 to 32 knots today from due north and due south and some large dollops of rain in between.

As if that were not enough the electric roller reefing motor for our genoa packed up this afternoon and appears not to be fixable. Despite this severe mechanical problem we are determined not to give up so we will be carrying onto St Lucia and not turning back. Some of you may think what's the big deal - most yachts only have manual furlers on their headsails. We do have a manual option on our kit but since it was never intended to be used it is very impractical. It involves going right to the bow, inserting a winch handle (and not dropping it over board) and rotating it 15 times for each single rotation of the luff (i.e. we need about 300 handle rotations to get the sail in or out). Not very practical but we will have to make the best of it for the next few days.

In the circumstances therefore sundowners started early this afternoon and were rather more self indulgent than they have been this week. We need to fill the time between now and midnight when the wind is due back. Conversation this evening veered to whether or not elephants can (or even wish to) swim and whether the cloud really does look like a rather excited teddy bear? Truly sad individuals on this boat.

Southern Ocean Style

ARC 2007

It’s been a very exciting night with strong winds, big seas and plenty of rain. The wind moved back and forth through 40 degrees during the first half of the night so we had to gybe the boat twice. This is quite a palaver with all sorts of control lines to be swapped from each side of the boat and the genoa pole to be lowered and then raised on the opposite side of the boat and of course the boom to be transferred from one side of the boat to the other. We end up using all six winches around the cockpit to control everything. At times the wind was gusting up to 30 knots with big seas generated by the wind running down behind us. All this work is therefore done in almost complete darkness in howling wind, plenty of rain and with the boat rolling constantly. Definitely an occasion for clipping lifelines onto the boat (that said all this detailed information is provided to you second hand since your faithful correspondent managed to sleep all the way through the second and more dramatic gybe at 0230).

Once complete the boat settles down to peace and tranquillity once more. At one point the wind dropped to 4 knots - and we actually started going backwards away from St Lucia but within minutes it had gone back up to 32 knots and we were off once more. At its height the wind was gusting to 35 knots and the boat was surfing down waves at 11knots. Our bosun, a very experienced sea dog, took one look at the huge rollers coming up behind us covered in the white foam streaks of our wash and reckoned it looked far to much like the pictures one sees of the Southern Ocean and decided to remain safely ensconced in the cockpit until everything got a little more calm. All in all we have been able to make up for a rather slow afternoon yesterday and finish with 168 miles run towards St Lucia in the last 24 hours.

In the circumstances we expected to hear about quite a few yachts being damaged - as indeed was the case when we checked this morning. Sadly on one boat their boom swung freely during a gybe and hit a crewman giving him a serious head injury. We have heard that he has been evacuated onto a passing cruise ship and is now en route to Barbados. While we wish him a speedy recovery it has caused mutterings among the crew here about managing to fake some sort of serious injury and hitch a luxurious ride to the Caribbean - provided of course the vessel will divert to St Lucia. This morning we have woken to more sun (30 degrees) and less rain but with the wind still blowing at a reasonable15 knots. We are now catching a yacht only a couple of miles in front of us and we are all intrigued to see who it is. We have had another bird come to visit which really did try to land - but unsuccessfully and he seems to have shot off to check out one of the other yachts near us. Some time later today we will break the 500 miles to go barrier and there is talk of extravagant celebrations -such as putting on a clean T-shirt. The only trouble with all this speed towards our destination is that it seems unlikely we are going to get our dip in the 4000m deep Atlantic. Suggestions that this be replaced by some wake-boarding off the back of the boat have been poo pooed. This is on the grounds that the water is a little too lumpy to allow perfect execution of the slalom turns and wake jumps for which the skipper is rightly renowned. Ho hum - back to books then.

ArryAdTwo

ARC 2007

Well he didn't have any in fact - it was Priscilla which caught two fish today but I could not resist the new name.

It's been a fairly good day with some variety to it. After what looked like a good run to 12 today (courtesy of all those rain squalls) we continued in fairly strong winds until mid afternoon our time (we are now 3 hours behind you) when it all went a bit sloppy for awhile. Still we had the excitement of catching some more dorado. They seem to move around in groups so when you catch one - or in our case today three, you find a whole crowd of them milling around the stern of the boat. We decided to take only enough for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow - we look forward to a culinary extravaganza with mahe mahe from our bosun tomorrow.

This evening the wind comes and goes. We have a yacht 5 miles ahead we are trying to catch and another 10 miles behind us we are trying to lose. We do seem to be doing rather better in the latter stages of this crossing than at the beginning and this has exercised our minds as to the cause. We solved it this afternoon when we realised that we have now drunk our way through a considerable portion of the beer and bottled water rations so Magrathea is now considerably lighter and able to surf through the water much more quickly.

We were also buzzed by a solitary white bird today. At 700 miles from the closest piece of land you do wonder what he was up to out here. He circled us quite a few times as though he was contemplating landing but eventually he gave up and disappeared to the west. This prompted further discussions at the evening sundowner: Can birds fly upside down? Our conclusion was by a majority verdict yes - but that they've probably never tried it since it does not seem to have any point. We are most grateful to all the responses on yesterday's whale question and would be intrigued to hear any views on upside down bird flying.

We heard that Matelot arrived in St Lucia about lunchtime today. We've got some way to go yet and with all this variable wind we are not yet sure if we will even get there by Tuesday. We are not complaining though - it was 28 degrees today, our wrinkly hands have recovered from all that rain last night and chef continues to regale us with things like an outstanding lemon drizzle cake and delicate hollandaise sauce with dinner tonight. I bet you all wish you were here.

Cracking Wind Gromit

ARC 2007

Well we still have our direct line to the weather gods - and we don't even have to use the internet. Yesterday afternoon the Bosun commented that this was the driest Atlantic crossing he could remember and hey presto last night we had plenty of weather. We had a succession of big squalls march across our track bringing with them torrential rain, wind going up to 28kts and wind shifts of 30-40 degrees. It all made for some speedy sailing which was particularly eerie as the thick dark clouds plus rain meant that visibility was almost nil. There we were all 32 tonnes of us flying along at up to 11 knots unable to see more than about fifty feet in front of us. Very exhilarating. On the radar these appear from miles out as big sandy yellow amorphous blobs fringed with pretty sky blue edges (the water that the radar sees) and then rather like something from a 50's sci fi film they move to the middle of the screen (right over the top of us) and down comes the rain and round goes the wind.

This means that in the last 24 hours we have gone back to covering a decent distance which is very pleasing and skipper is also very pleased that the boat has had a good wash down without his having to do it. This morning the rain has persisted intermittently so the whole crew is below deck reading and exchanging pleasantries. In the conversation a conundrum emerged for no obvious reason: do whales sneeze? Not having access to Wikipedia at the moment we are stumped so any helpful answers would be most welcome.

It looks as though it will be a quiet day of backgammon and scrabble. Chef is busy preparing a celebratory Lemon Drizzle Cake in honour of the rain (geddit?), while last night she produced an excellent chicken curry. It was though rather hotter than planned with the new jar of chilli paste being somewhat more portent than the old one. The wise among us put a toilet roll in the fridge last night. We shall see what the day brings.

A Nondescript Day (though some might call it a Perfect One)

ARC 2007

Despite our best efforts over evening drinks we have been unable to think of anything very much to say to you all about today. It’s been very hot (32 Deg) with plenty of blue sky so it has been back to sunbathing and books. The wind continues not to do what was forecast so we have had to endure a day of moderate wind 14-18 knots which leaves us going rather slowly and doing plenty of rolling around. In these conditions we cannot fly our spinnaker and our goosewinged approach is not as good as a proper symmetric spinnaker would be so we see tonight that Into the Blue has caught us up again.

We heard by special email today that some yachts about 300 miles behind us are being subject to a localised storm with winds averaging 40 knots with gusts up to 50. I don't think anyone particularly wants to be out in that (apart from chef who thought it might be cool to try and presumably thought it would get us to our destination quicker) but it is rather unfair that the bigger boats like us who need stronger wind and might be able to handle it better are not getting it. Obviously it’s the smaller slower boats that are further back and being battered by this stuff so we wish them well. We suspect there will be lots of reports of minor boat damage appearing on the emails tomorrow. We cannot help but have a sneaky hope that a bit of the weather will reach out to us and give us an extra push to the destination.

The sweep stake calculations are all looking a bit optimistic at the moment though the fact that we still have to go through two more clock changes before landfall have considerably added to the confusion among some of the crew. We had thought we might get away with just five more sleeps until we get there but it may yet spill into a sixth. We had our delicious fish supper last night (lightly floured and fried with lemon juice and capers - though sadly no chips) but skipper decided that the crew should not have too much of a good thing on consecutive nights. All the fishing lines therefore remained stowed today. 'Arry 'ad one thus remains just that today but skipper is definitely aiming for him to get the hat-trick before this trip is over.

Sailor's Lament

ARC 2007

I just don't know how we can keep going.(sob) We're all so tired but we just know (sob, sob) that one of us will have to tighten the genoa (whimper) on the electric winch later today and no one has got the energy to face it (sob. whimper sob). At least two of the crew have still got some smalls to rinse out (whimper , whimper) and if we have to gybe the carbon spinnaker pole I don't know how any one will be able to manage.(Sob,sob sob) We are all so desperately tired after being kept awake by the banging of the mainsail - I don't how we can stand this much longer (lots of sobs)..

With apologies to Ellen MacArthur who obviously had it rather tougher than we are experiencing but here we are again in our least favourite position of rolling down the waves with poled out genoa. It certainly is difficult to sleep whilst simultaneously clinging on to the mattress and hiding under the pillow to drown the noise of the mainsail. (pointless anyway since once the full size battens turn inside out the shock wave echoes all around the mast, rigging and hull).One crew member is complaining of lower back ache today allegedly from the twisted position he adopted in his bunk to counter the motion. Other crew members have suggested it is merely normal old age.

We would not mind so much if the forecast strong winds had come and we were really flying along but it is still in this infuriating 12-18 knots range which is not quite enough to get us cutting through the waves with this sailplan and direction thus leaving us wallowing at regular intervals.

Yesterday's run was therefore a rather disappointing 164 miles towards St Lucia- some 15l less than we would like as our average. There has been a frantic series of detailed recalculations by the crew for the arrival sweepstake. The experts (!!) here on board are all bullish expecting an arrival some time on Tuesday 11th Dec.

The wind has actually now moved around to slightly north of east and we have been able to gybe onto starboard which has actually let us speed up a bit and to run directly with the waves rather than slightly across them. Comfort, peace and speed now reign supreme.(and no we couldn't do it last night because the wind was in the wrong place). So it's back to books, catching up on zzz's missed last night and sunbathing (31 degrees and rising). Ellen you numpty - you entered the wrong race.

Just like a number 9 bus...

ARC 2007

You know how it is - you wait ages for one and then finally 3 turn up at once. In our case it was the absence of fish for many days which was upsetting the skipper and then this afternoon we had four around the boat. We only kept one - a large dorado which is on the dinner menu tonight.

It all made for a hectic hour just after lunch. The wind had started to move towards the east which had been forecast for some time so we decided to take down Don't Panic (not the right angle for it) and fly our poled out genoa. Having just got the spinnaker down and packed away pandemonium broke out at the stern as both our lines went zooming astern with catches on the end. There was some confusion until the skipper could take control - apparently chef "doesn't do fish" but eventually it was sorted. We threw the other one back and we could see two others in the water at the stern chasing around the lures that they could still see in the water.

Bosun was never a classicist so was not overly impressed with Ariadne as a name for the successful fishing line. He has therefore renamed it after today's success: 'arry-'ad-one.

After that it was back to sail trimming getting the big genoa poled out and also adding our fluorescent orange storm jib (Stormin' Norman) on the inner stay. We think it may add half a knot to our speed. The forecast suggests that this easterly wind will strengthen to 20-25 knots now and persist for the next days to take us all the way to St Lucia. We certainly hope so - even if we are now back to that rockin' and rollin' I've mentioned before.

Can't Get No Satisfaction

ARC 2007

Not a reference to the fact that we all spend time on our watches with our Ipods and I have been reviewing my 60's back catalogue more the realisation that in sailing nothing is ever quite perfect. The boat resounds with mutterings of "if only..." the wind was a little stronger/weaker , came from further forward/behind the beam, we had a smaller heavyweight spinnaker, we had a symmetric spinnaker, the seas were not quite so bumpy, those big swells could be more frequent to help push us along, the boat would stop rolling so we could serve the dinner in safety, the boat would stay flatter so I could stand my toothbrush up to get it recharged. There's simply no satisfying sailing types.

Yesterday the no satisfaction index went up a bit as the wind was not quite strong enough and not quite in the right direction. (Oh we watched Cold Mountain last night and thoroughly enjoyed our night off). Our distance travelled to St Lucia was therefore down a bit on some of our good days recently. Today we have woken to a decent wind (after some dull patches in the early dawn) which has finally swung to the east as predicted some days ago - but which means we have to aim a bit further south than we would ideally like. Still we have got Don't Panic out of the bag once more and this gives such an increase in speed its worth pointing in slightly the wrong direction. We have been very pleased with this big sail - it is easy to fly, and seems remarkably stable up to about 20 knots of wind.We actually found that using a pole on it as had been recommended by some was pointless as it did not then fly as well nor recover if it collapsed. It looks as though this is preferable to some of the clever Twizzle rigs and Parasailor spinnakers designed specially for this kind of sailing. We have just caught up with Into the Blue (another Oyster 56 which at one point was 100 miles ahead of us). They have been using a parasailor but it looks as though it does not work as well as they had hoped. We now estimate that about midnight tonight we will hit the "1000 miles to go mark" - apparently its all down hill from there.

We have had only minor events on the sight seeing front. The dolphins seem to be getting as blasé as us at this stage. Last night in the twilight a whole pod swam across our bow - obviously on the hunt for something but they didn't give us a second glance and just kept on going. I suppose that out in the Atlantic once you get on the trail of dinner its a good idea to grab it- you never now when another one will come along. We've still not seen any whales but Into the Blue reports they have seen some in this area recently so we have our fingers crossed. For those of you in England I don't want to rub it in but its 29 degrees this morning so looking to be a very hot one.

Everyone has taken the chance to wash out a few smalls so our guardrails now look like Mr Ching Lee's Chinese laundry. Our two fishing lines (Christened Priscilla and Ariadne -for no very obvious reasons) continue to be a disappointment but we are giving it a go again today. We were embarrassed to hear from Into the Blue that they have already caught 6 fish. We are though having trouble persuading chef to get the deep fat fryer out in readiness for our fish and chip supper tonight.

No Blog Tonight

ARC 2007

Sorry no time to write tonight - we've put our clocks back another hour today so we are now 2 behind you. We are using the extra hour we have to watch a film so further details of our adventures will have to follow tomorrow. (To be quite honest its been a quiet day again so not much to report. The resident photographer has though managed to get his camera going again so we have put him back on basic rations) .

Things to Consider When Crossing the Atlantic...

ARC 2007

We are now into our second day with the wind blowing from the south allowing us to fly all the sails on one side of the boat and thereby retain some pleasant sense of stability after so many days of running straight downwind. Things went very quiet overnight (7 knots of wind and the boat only moving at 3.5 knots) but fortunately it only lasted for about an hour after which it strengthened a little and we have Don't Panic on show once more. We are doing reasonable speed and the sun is back out (29 C at the moment) - the crew is back to sunbathing and book reading. We managed 180 miles towards St Lucia in the last 24 hours so not too bad.

We had more dolphins late last night -clearly there is something very attractive about our underwater hull shape. Sadly we have had a technology crash on the photography front. The in house photographer is unable to recover the dolphin pictures from yesterday to publish to you (yet another reason to dump him when we get to St Lucia) but he assures us he has some spare gear to be used for the remainder of the trip. In these placid conditions of boat stability it is worth reflecting on some of the difficulties of trans Atlantic crossings when running straight downwind and having the boat roll continuously 20 degrees either side of the vertical (with the occasional even larger lurch to one side or the other.) Dean Martin commented that you are not properly drunk until you cannot lie on the floor without hanging on. Sleeping on board is much the same. We commented yesterday that you need to adopt the splayed stance of the tree frog - as many knees and elbows at right angles to your body to act as stabilizers as you can manage.

Eating and drinking is a sequential activity rather than done in parallel. One hand to hold the bowl at all times, the other for the fork leaves no hands free for drinking until after the meal. Holding the drink between the legs is unsatisfactory as it warms cool beer and tends to leave unsightly wet marks on the shorts.

Gimballed cookers on the boat are an excellent idea -keeping the top of the hob horizontal no matter what angle the boat is at. However once a heavy pan is placed on the front or back of the hob it simply tips the whole thing down in one direction and the gimbal ceases to work. This leaves chef acting as the intelligent gimbal holding the pan handle throughout the cooking process - the alternative is that old favourite bilge stew.

Showering is perfectly ok until shampooing occurs. Once the crew man shuts his eyes he loses all sense of balance and is likely to be catapulted to and fro in the shower cubicle. One can jam oneself in one corner of the cubicle though this can be chilly on the skin and leaves body areas unsoaped -or else sit down in the tray. The latter is not recommended for older crew members as it can be virtually impossible to get out of this position once it has been adopted.

A final note of caution - gentlemen are requested only to use the lavatory in the sitting position. The accuracy of the more usual method is reduced to about 50/50 in these conditions - this can make Housekeeping very unhappy.

Shampoo Sailing

ARC 2007

We've had a frantic afternoon here - but all for the good. We managed to post another good distance at the midday reporting time and since then have continued with the spinnaker up and averaging about 9 knots - all in our intended direction. The sea is about as calm as I guess it ever gets in the Atlantic, the wind was a kindly 15-17 knots and the sun was out and shining strongly. (Top temperature today 31 degrees) At 1539 your time today we passed our 1400 miles to go marker.

Late this afternoon plenty of excitement as some very large squalls blew in. Turned out it was more rain than wind but the shift was about 60% and we found ourselves close hauled (in the mid Atlantic!) and bashing our way into torrential rain. The images are highly reminiscent of West coast Scotland in the summer. This rather put a damper on our intended celebration party so the champagne went back in the fridge - although we did manage a damp beer. The colossal amount of rain poured down our mainsail into our dish like boom and then ran out the end in a huge torrent. Our deckhand decided this was a good showering opportunity and so broke out the shampoo - looked pretty chilly to me.

Shortly thereafter we were surrounded by another big pod of dolphins. Who said they were coastal creatures? They hung around racing us and each other for about 15 minutes and at one stage we looked up to see what we think was a whale about 100 metres off the side of the boat. No pictures I'm afraid - and it may have been wishful thinking but it has gone down in the log as a probable.

After dinner the dolphins were back - this time though it was pitch dark so we had the torpedo dolphin routine once more. They like to race along just in front of the bow and then suddenly will veer away to the side for 50-100 metres and then come storming back to rejoin the bow wave a moment later. In the day time its difficult to see them but at night with this green pin prick lighting of their track you can see the whole manoeuvre from the boat out and back. Sadly the lighting is pretty weak so nothing gets picked up by cameras - so you will just have to take my word for it. We have been worried that there is a hole of weak wind in front of us that my stymie our plans for a fast time. We thought that the squalls were the beginning of this but we are pleased to see that for now at least the wind has gone back to its recent SE direction at 17 knots so we hope for a fairly decent run through the night. At least Ray continues his sterling work. A big yacht has just come down past our stern and told us that his auto pilot has packed up so they will be hand steering their boat the remaining 1400 miles to the finish. Don't envy them that.

Transatlantic Sailing: a young novices experiences so far...

ARC 2007

Just thought I’d give a heads up of how the youngest member of the crew is getting on and share my views on the experience so far. When preparing to sail the Atlantic you must be prepared to try new things. Even before we had set sail from Las Palmas I had achieved a number of firsts. On the second day I was sent up the mast by the rest of the crew to clean. Having reached the top of the mast, all 23 metres of it, and looked around I realised that there was very little up there and so very little to clean! To make matters worse as I slid down the backstay cleaning it, the buckles that held me to the backstay didn't run freely so I was forced to pull myself up reducing the weight on the buckles so it ran free as I was lowered down. This resulted in me cleaning the backstay with my hands and not with the cloth!

Whilst still on land I was able to try a number of new foods that I had not had before. This ranged from traditional Spanish food such as paella to more exotic foods such as sushi. These foods were also joined by octopus. It is not often that you get to eat something that still resembles the animal that it came from, suckers and everything! Before we set sail we also went to a number of lectures on ocean sailing where it appeared to me that the lecturers were either trying to sell us something or scare us into not going! Both topics were wasted on me. Now halfway through our journey across the Atlantic I thought it might be useful for me to provide a few hints and tips should you ever want to sail the Atlantic based on my experiences, things that people had neglected to warn me about. Be prepared to revert back to the way you walked as a toddler. Up until recently I have found that to move around the boat I have had to walk, arms out stretched as fast between the nearest solid objects in order to get to my destination. This has meant that I have often ended up sitting down in places that weren't my intended destination! Another thing to remember is to sleep like a tree frog. Limbs outstretched and wedged in so you can't fall out of bed! When pulling ropes you should also remember that your hands are not jammers so if the rope starts slipping through your hand you should let go. Failure to do this could leave you with numerous blisters on your hands. A side note to this is that if you bring sailing gloves ignore the skipper’s advice and wear them!

Finally be prepared for the conversation topics to dwindle rapidly when at sea with the same people for a long period of time. Yesterday over breakfast for example we were reduced to talking about how they say the marmite slogan in Swedish, riveting stuff! That’s the overall picture of my experiences so far, doubtless there will be more by the time we reach St Lucia!

Halfway Today

ARC 2007

We at least have decided that we will call today our half way point. Some time this afternoon the chart will show that we have 1400 miles left to go - assuming we take the most direct route. Overall the total distance is supposed to be 2800 so halfway at 1400 seems fair. We will probably have actually done about 1550 miles through the water by then but as you have seen there have been quite a lot of wiggly bits in our trip so far. We are hoping it will be much more direct sailing for the rest of the trip. The celebrations have already started with a sumptuous full English breakfast this morning - including a special treat for the skipper with a very large portion of baked beans. Despite his association with the sophisticated tastes of chef he still seems to hanker after the simpler things in the culinary lexicon. (No black pudding for the bosun - fell foul of the recent foot and mouth restrictions) Having heard some traffic among larger boats earlier this week involving 3 course dinner, champagne and dressing for dinner we will be following suit. Champagne is on ice, I shall be getting out my best set of flip flops, Skipper and chef have some fetching cowboy hats they have been dying to wear - and the rest of the crew will spend the rest of the afternoon creating some eye catching fashion lines using only old copies of the Times and the contents of the Bosun's sail repair bag.

On the sailing front we managed to run 183 miles towards St Lucia in the last twenty four hours which given some dead patches of wind during the night was quite a result. The whole crew managed the best night's sleep of the whole trip with the boat gliding along almost silently worth none of banging and flapping we have come to expect. After a very dark night with virtually no moon and too much cloud even to see the stars, this morning has dawned sunny and breezy so Don't Panic is back out of the bag and pulling us along at 9.5 kts in 17 kts of warm breeze. (Temp in the shade here is 28C and rising) We just had a small cargo vessel scrape past our bow about a mile away. Obviously it changed course to give the lookout something to do - and to capture forever on digital media the true magnificence of Don't Panic in full flow.

Now this Really is Paradise

ARC 2007

Today has been another reasonably good day for us. We posted an official mileage up to midday of 187 miles - not quite up to the 199 from yesterday but still quite pleasing. The wind has gone further to the south this afternoon so we flew Don't Panic once more(still nobody around to see it) In the big swell Ray does not do so well (perhaps his arms are not strong enough or maybe he just does not see the waves coming) so we have to do it by hand. The most work the crew has had to do all week. Its great fun but a bit too much of a handful through the night so we have now taken it down again and put up the genoa and storm jib (our version of being a cutter).

Behold for the first time this week we have all the sails on the same side of the boat and all that dreadful rolling from side to side has stopped for a while. Having spent almost the whole of the week rolling backwards and forwards about 20 degrees either side of vertical its difficult to convey what a joy it is to be gliding along at a fairly constant angle of heel to one side of the boat only. It cannot last of course - down wind sailing with the rolling is what this trip is all about so we'll be back to it soon I'm sure.

Some of our readers have been asking for photos containing people - not something I do much of, which will be evident when you see the ones we have sent. As I have pointed out in recent days it’s hardly a hectic schedule on Magrathea so we have had problems finding any exciting action shots. Instead for now you will have to manage with a selection of snaps of the crew in their typical poses. We did though manage to cajole chef into baking fresh bread today so the evidence of this outstanding piece of work has been sent to you. Any time some of the men do any real work we will capture the moment and forward it to you.

Another day in Paradise..

ARC 2007

....or the continuing quest to fill the day now that the wind has arrived. We've had a pretty good few days with the wind strong and from the east pushing us directly towards St Lucia. You may have seen that we did 199 miles in our 24 hour run to yesterday lunch time. Wind has stayed almost the same overnight so we have continued at almost the same rate since. Problems are looming in the next few days as weak winds appear in front of us and we will have to move further south to hunt for something stronger. In the circumstances there is very little to do on the boat. The sails, boom and pole are all in fixed positions and apart from an occasional lapse our trusty extra crew man Ray (marine) is happy to steer 24 hours per day. (We are all very impressed given he is blind and has no arms or legs). Thus in these champagne conditions of sunshine and warm breezes a typical crew day is something like this:

• Breakfast
• read - crossword
• day watch (read throughout provided Ray behaves)
• Lunch
• Read
• Crossword
• Evening drink and nibbles
• Dinner
• Night watch (listen to IPOD)
• Bed.

It’s not too taxing then! The biggest worry is whether we will run out of books before landfall. We did try a bit of I-spy but after exhausting sea, sky, cloud and wave we ran out of ideas. (No pictures either - nothing very photogenic out there at the moment) Some other excitement overnight as we saw the lights of three yachts - we have spent some days thinking we were the only people on this ocean. Fortunately none of them caught us up and we now seem to have pulled away from them. The ARC news may also have mentioned that a small yacht about 100 miles away from us was abandoned with some rig problems yesterday and the crew were picked up by one of the boats in the ARC. We are all debating here whether to divert to the last known location of Barbary Duck and try and recover her and claim the salvage. I guess we probably will not go though we do need to keep a slightly nervous eye out for this 36 foot yacht drifting and unmanned. Its lights are on - but the batteries will not last forever. That's all I have time for now - I've got to get back on the sundeck and complete my scheduled reading hours.

Yo Ho HO

ARC 2007

That's a pirate Father Christmas. It's the 1st of December so our Christmas decorations are up. We have stuck our advent calendar up and are drawing lots who gets to open the little doors. Fortunately it's not one with the chocolates in other wise there might be a real mutiny.

We have definitely been whizzing along for quite some time now and making some real distance towards our destination. It looks as though we will have to regard this event as a long distance marathon (don't know why we didn't think of that before) and wait until the very end before we can see if our gamble to go south has been successful or not.

Some excitement on the fauna front last night as the boat was surrounded by jelly fish. They were all green in the dark water courtesy of the phosphorescence and so we seemed to be surrounded by large luminous green mushrooms. We also had our largest flying fish to date - about 9 inches long which landed on deck but was so energetic he managed to fling himself back off without our intervention.

Otherwise news is pretty thin on the ground (or water) around here at the moment. We shall just have to redouble our whale spotting efforts and report back if we succeed.

Oh the Vastness of the Ocean

ARC 2007

The wind has stayed with us all day so we have been flying along the whole time in fairly gentle seas and heading (for once) directly towards St Lucia. The only trouble is that there is no-one around to witness our outstanding performance. No other boats to admire Don't Panic and nothing for us to chase and overtake.

Not much to see in the water either. We did see a turtle fly by (us not him) and there are more and more flying fish being frightened away by our bow wave sending them spiralling off in all sorts of directions. We have been told that we have entered whale territory so there has been concerted peering over the side but no luck yet.

We have now covered about 13 degrees of longitude out of the 46 in total that we need to do so we have done the first of the four clock changes on board that will be necessary as we go across. I suspect that the timing of this blog will get more confusing as these clock changes continue.

No piccys today. Our idiot resident photographer managed to leave the flashcard out of the camera while taking a series of breathtaking shots of us bowling along at ten knots with every stitch of sail hoisted. He also signally failed to retain some outstanding pictures of tonight's sunset. His union card is being withdrawn for gross incompetence bringing his profession into disrepute.

Blogger to the gods

ARC 2007

Well now we know. The wind gods have the internet and regularly read the Magrathea blog. After moaning all day yesterday about the lack of wind and calling for as many squalls as possible our pleas were duly answered. Plenty of both through the night and in fact we had to take the spinnaker down in the dark as everything got a little too exciting. We have made plenty of distance and all in the correct direction for once. This morning the wind direction is not quite as good so we have not been able to fly the spinnaker and get the right direction. We are back on poled out genoa with the added feature of our bright orange storm jib on an inner stay. We're not sure if it does anything much but it certainly looks striking.

I guess you probably get news of the fleet but if not we have had emails in the last two days describing an injury to a crew member on AA Big One necessitating a mid ocean rendezvous to evacuate and two illegal immigrants boarding another yacht in their attempts to get into the EU - poor choice of vessel really. We can happily report that we continue with our original crew complement only and injuries are restricted to the usual sailing bumps and scrapes. Everyone has even braved the dangers of a rolling shower cubicle on a number of occasions without incident and so maintaining outstanding levels of personal hygiene. No fishing today - the experts now tell us we are travelling too fast (having told us yesterday we were too slow).

For This Relief Much Thanks

ARC 2007

Yippee. At last the wind gods have come on side. We had a reasonable afternoon with the spinnaker up though it was a little difficult with the wind continuing weak and some confused seas knocking the boat about and spilling wind from the sails. By 6 though the seas had gone quieter and the wind strengthened a little so we decided to gybe before dinner and hey presto we are now whizzing along at up to 10 knots - virtually directly in the direction we wanted all along. We just hope this will keep up for a decent period but morale on Magrathea has now shot up. (This of course has nothing to do with the decision to break out a bottle of red to celebrate 1/4 of the trip done, good wind, Skipper volunteering to be Chef du Jour etc etc).

We did also see flying fish for the first time this afternoon -flying rather than lying dead on our decks. They leap out of the water at our bow wave, which apparently scares the willies out of them (doesn't really surprise me), and after one big kick with their tails they then glide on their wing like fins. We saw one disappear across the waves for something like one hundred yards from the boat. We are told though that they can be unlucky and take off just as the next wave rolls by and do a head plant 5 feet after they take off. Not good news if you have just taken off to avoid a marauding tuna.

Dinner is due shortly after which we think we should offer some sacrifice to the wind gods to maintain the current weather. Perhaps though, given the skipper's culinary skills, that issue has been taken care of already.

Come Friendly Bombs

ARC 2007

Well perhaps not bombs exactly but certainly squalls. We are all getting fed up with light winds which continue, leaving us crawling along with sails flapping and banging and not much sleep for anyone. Last night a few rain squalls appeared when of course the wind picks up and the boat starts to fly along. We've spent much time at the start being told how to avoid these and to reduce sail in anticipation - but we all want as many of them as possible to hit us and give us a push. Through the night we had a few and then again around dawn but now the weather has reverted to sunny sky, gentle wind but still with plenty of swell in the sea. Some of the crew members have been getting so fed up with it all that there are mutterings of "doing a Crowhurst".

Things have looked up in the last hour with our decision to fly the spinnaker once more. The boat flies along and is much more comfortable but we are not quite able to go in the precise direction we would like. All sailing is a compromise. We have now got our fingers crossed that the weather forecast is right and that some stronger winds in a better direction are imminently on their way.

Dismal Day

ARC 2007

It's been a really dismal day with weak and inconsistent wind all day. The boat has spent all the time rolling in the swell and going hardly any distance. Our big fully battened mainsail suffers badly as the wind is not enough to hold the sail in shape - which therefore turns inside out when ever a big roll starts. The sail then pops back with an almighty bang, and a huge shudder throughout the boat. These come in groups of 4 or 5 every 2-3 minutes. It's irritating and frustrating and in the long term damaging the boat and the sails. Apart from that we are having a great time! The sun did at least shine most of the day so plenty of book reading was done. We did also catch a small dorado but skipper decided it was not enough for a decent meal and threw it back. The first guest chef of the trip (your humble scribe) could not therefore duck out of culinary duty this evening. We await the next 6 hours with trepidation to see if the crew have been dreadfully poisoned.

Torpedo Dolphins

ARC 2007

Life is just not fair. The owner's wife travelled all the way over to Las Palmas to wave us off from the dock and wish us God's speed. She also endured ages waiting on the shoreline trying to identify us among the hundreds of yachts milling around to capture the ultimate startline photo. Despite all that she has not yet seen any dolphins nor any phosphorescence - and last night we saw both simultaneously! In the dark early evening yet another pod of them arrived and zoomed up both sides of us. In the dark we could see nothing in the water but the phosphorescence churned up by their bodies and air bubbles. It looked like a series of green torpedoes streaking down the side of the boat. Quite spectacular.

Nothing much else is spectacular. The wind has wobbled around 13 knots with a moderate swell. We cannot carry the spinnaker very well in these light winds - and in any case we cannot hold the course we want so we are back to main and poled out genoa. It can be quite pleasant for whole minutes at a time before the boat succumbs to a pendulum attack and we have to put up with five or six major swings with all the associated clashing and flapping of sails. We've talked to a few boats on the VHF and know that they have tried everything like us and are suffering in the same way. Apart from that the sky is clear blue, the sun is hot and the sea is relatively flat. Some might call it champagne sailing - but you would not keep your champagne inside the glass for long in these conditions. No pictures so far today. The crew have been streaming fishing lines again and managed to hook what they say was a big dorado - enough for about two evenings dinners. Chef was a little more sceptical -something along the lines of "I'll believe that when they have got it on board". Chicken it is tonight - the fish managed to escape and so no photographs of the triumphant fisherman with the catch. We are assured it is just a matter of time. Hmmmm!

Spinnaker time

ARC 2007

We have been able to carry the spinnaker throughout the day making good progress in fairly light winds 12-16 knots. During the fix of the generator impellor we actually had the boat surfing at 10 knots while the skipper was upside down in the engine compartment. We understand that we have done better in our positioning today. This is just the effect of our early decision to go south rather than west like most of the rest of the fleet. Today we have had to do quite a lot of south in search of the wind so we will give away distance to those deciding to persevere with west. It's all very early days and the routing decisions in the face of the wind forecasts are still finely balanced.

This evening we continue to carry the spinnaker which gives us better speed and less flapping around as the wind drops to 12 knots. Just before dusk we decided to gybe onto starboard for the night and with a wind shift at the time find ourselves making a good amount of west which we hope to keep over night. The crew would like to point out the gybe operation was carried out with the speed and precision of an America's Cup crew and not one of the numerous lines for sails or spinnaker pole was tangled in the wrong place. We've just had another visit from the dolphins - most unusual at this distance. Perhaps they have some special attraction to our pale blue spinnaker cloth. We tried some fishing this afternoon for the first time. Skipper got a bite but as he started to pull in it managed to get off the lure. Pulling the lure all the way into the stern of the boat afterwards it was stolen just feet away by some enormous shark like creature cruising past the back of the boat. (Well that's what Nic says anyway).

Champagne Sailing at Last

ARC 2007

There's not been much champagne sailing in the last few days with grey clouds, big swells and highly variable winds but this morning the sky has cleared, the sea has organised into a gentle regular swell so our spinnaker (Don't Panic) is out to celebrate. We've just managed to complete our first 10 nautical mile hour. Quite a relief since during the night the wind dropped away leaving us going nowhere but slopping around in the remains of the confused seas flapping sails and banging rigging. We've seen but now dropped a large yacht behind us and are now chasing something else large in front of us.

We have also been surprised this morning to be surrounded by a pod of about 30 dolphins since we are now about 230 miles off the coast. They seemed a little different from others we have seen-slightly pinkish white underside with some dark dots along the margin between back and underside. They did though do all the usual tricks of playing in the bow wave and hiding inside large rollers as they came up behind us (we could still see them though) with plenty of synchronised breathing in groups alongside. They only stayed for about 5 minutes but as someone pointed out with about 230 other boats to visit they are working on a tight schedule!

To date we have had little in the way of technical problems with the most serious being a broken reading light bulb in the crew quarters prompting one crew member threatening to jump ship if he couldn't see to read. Last night though it was a little more serious with the generator packing up. (We can still get power by running the engine out of gear but our watermaker needs the generator so we faced the prospect of seriously curtailed personal hygiene). Fortunately our highly skilled engineering staff identified the completely stripped impellor from the cooling system and have now replaced it. Water is back on tap and the hygiene police have been sent packing. We are though slightly worried about the Health and Safety Executive as we have a number of skinned knuckles and a few blisters and rope burns among the crew. Doubtless we will be grilled about it out in St Lucia but for now we will just enjoy the sunshine (with plenty of sun screen of course!).

Slowing Down

ARC 2007

It's been a much quieter afternoon as the wind has dropped towards 15 knots and swung back to the NE. At least the seas have got somewhat flatter - though it's all relative and there seem to be plenty of lumpy bits that keep hitting us from strange angles with dramatic heeling as a result. Chef has had a word with the skipper during meal preparation time but apparently he can do nothing about it. (and we all thought he was a god). We have slowed down somewhat. It's remarkable that at 12 knots of wind Magrathea gets really stuck in the water and the sails start to flap with every new wave but it only needs to get up to 15 for her to pick up her skirts and shoot off at 8 knots and above. We have been heading west for most of the afternoon since it gives us a better angle on this rather weak wind but aim to turn south once it fills in again. We've seen no other yachts at all today but have been passed by two thousand foot cargo ships. All the ocean to play with and they both managed to pass in front of our bow by just one mile. We were relieved though that we were not going to have to impose our duty to stand on in the face of these cumbersome monsters.

No dolphins this evening - we are now about 150 miles off the African coast so apparently it's probably too far for them to come out and play. We did see three sea birds during the afternoon - none of us is any good at bird recognition so they have all gone down in the log as Storm Petrels. Tonight it's partially cloudy and the moon has not yet come up so we have an excellent view of the stars and also of extensive phosphorescence. It appears among the white foam thrown from the bow as we move through the water and is strings of discrete little green pin pricks of light. Very delicate indeed. Our only other news of the day was a disaster on the provisioning front. Someone catapulted a full can of beer down the companionway as we heeled. Since the idiot was the owner there were not too many shouts of disapproval. This though eats into our store of this precious resource (fortunately augmented earlier this week as described in a previous column). After some debate among the crew the miscreant was granted a replacement can on pain of not doing it again. Pheww!

1st Night

ARC 2007

All passed without drama. A beautiful full moon and very little cloud lit up the sea for most of the night. Wind stayed strong with gusts up to 30kts although it did die away for a few hours in the early morning. We spotted a few dolphins along side for a while illuminated in the moonlight - but no chance of photography. We have been able to turn a little further west as the wind has moved to the north east although it does come and go both in direction and strength. We saw only a few vessels during the night - and no yachts at all and though we did not actually see it arrive we have this morning discovered our first flying fish on the deck. We have now realised that our brand new log fitted in Las Palmas has been rather optimistically calibrated so Ray's speed record from last night has been sent off to an International adjudication panel for verification. Meanwhile we await the noon day position reporting through ARC to see where everyone else has got to.

Journey Begins

ARC 2007

At last we are off. Start today was at 1300 and with 250 yachts and 25 knots of breeze we hung back at the start and crossed the line about a minute after the gun. Probably not an issue for a 3000 mile trip. The wind has stayed fresh between 25 and 30 knots all day so far coming almost from due north. We are carrying one reef in our main and two in our poled out genoa and averaging 9.5 knots. Max speed record held today by yours truly until we handed over to the computer (Ray) who bumped it up to 14.7 knots.

We've been lucky so far with no mishaps and only two rain squalls. About half a dozen others have had rig problems already including a bashed head from an accidental gybe on the start though the casualty remained conscious so not too bad. Another yacht has lines around the propeller and rudder and is currently drifting down wind at 3 knots in the dark and 3m seas awaiting search and rescue help! Otherwise no fish seen today - nor any Spandex. Perhaps we'll have better luck tomorrow.

(Position at 1900 27 19.305 N 15 17.155W)

Spandex

ARC 2007

Last night was the final big party at the Johnnie Walker bar. Free beer and nibbles for all -provided you were prepared to listen to various worthy speeches. We did survive but having succumbed to a number of days of excessive consumption and the prospect of regular night watches your correspondent retired gracefully to bed to make final preparations only to miss the high point of the evening. I understand a series of young ladies attended late in the evening clad only in shiny Spandex (the spray on type) and enticed gentlemen to buy as many JW tee shirts as possible. A lengthy and disorderly queue formed (headed apparently by our skipper - purely on a fact finding mission) Ribald and very ancient comments along the lines of "My goodness that looks tight how on earth do you get into that..." were widely heard throughout. Some time shortly before dawn the tee shirt supply apparently ran out and all returned for some shut eye - which persisted on and off throughout most of today. On the more serious preparatory front the wind has been blowing strongly throughout today and is forecast to continue in this mould for the next few days. Apart from a few diehards the mutterings on the pontoons are that "We cannot carry our spinnaker in 35 knot gusts so its going to have stay in the bag for now" A great disappointment for Magrathea since we intended to cut across the start line proudly showing our "Don't Panic" kite to the fleet. It will have to wait a day or two. Farewell fireworks are due at 12 tonight followed by a few hours rest and final preps and then we look forward to the mayhem of starting 250 yachts in a confined space tomorrow morning. Keep your fingers crossed for us all.

Relaxed Preparations

ARC 2007

Just two days to go until the big off and everything on Magrathea is calm and under control. She arrived here ten days ago so there has been plenty of time to fix various niggling little issues, plan for the major provisioning exercise and clean every square centimetre of the boat. In fact things are so much under control that we have been the first attendees at the daily happy hour every day this week. Admittedly though we cannot claim to have been the last to leave the bars in the early hours of the following morning. The night before last one gentlemen in a hurry to get back aboard after a long evening cycled down our pontoon ramp and up ended himself complete with bicycle into the murky waters of our marina. One or two nocturnal (and sober) good samaritans fished him and the bicycle out in the nick of time. Having seen what has discharged into the marina this week I reckon his first few days at sea are going to be fairly uncomfortable.

Provisioning has gone smoothly - though with a typical Mediterranean approach to delivery deadlines. Some concern was raised by crew members as the beverages delivery slipped by 24 hours but the situation was eventually saved. Of more concern was a temporary lapse by our seagoing Nigella in underestimating the beer ration required. Substantial additional supplies have now been rushed through. In fact the ends of pontoons housing ARC yachts this morning resemble those disaster relief distribution centres one sees: stacked high with plastic wrapped cases of drinks and boxes overflowing with vegetables as all the local traders make the most of this bonanza.

Cocktails tonight start much later. This may be to give the more disorganised crews a better chance to get there at the start or else it may be a calculated attempt to reduce total drinking time over the next few days when things begin to get serious. We shall see.

Genoa 2007

Magrathea at Genoa International Boat Show 2007

Magrathea is now in Genoa being prepared for the Genoa International Boat Show which runs from 6 to 14 October. She is a rose between many thorns - most of the other boats are large, expensive stinkpots to satisfy the Italian need for speed. Perhaps we will be able to convert a few of them to the joys of sail. We will also take the chance to have a few niggling problems sorted out - all part of the gathering preparations for the ARC Transat looming at the end of November.

Yacht Magrathea's photo blog

Flickr photo blog

Yacht Magrathea's Flickr photo blog launched.

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