September 8th, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today:127 NM
Total distance sailed: 1696 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 21.27 W045.56
Wind: NE Wind Force 1-2
Sea state: Calm
Generator hours: 16.4hr
Silky smooth motoring today on the calmest sea we have experienced so far on this trip. The wind is still very light, with clear skies exposing a rather ruthless sun.The wind meter below shows 1.8 knots of wind speed. We need at least 8 knots to make it worth while putting the sails up, and last week we were getting a consistent 18 knots or more. We are now 100% pushed along by the propellers, which are powered by electric engines which get their power from batteries which are charged by a diesel generator.
About twice a week now I am taking salt water showers. Lather up with soap, then rinse it off with the salt water. Afterwards, rinse the salt water off with 1.5 litres of fresh water.
We are almost past the 1,000 miles to go point. By tomorrow we will be into three digits!
WEATHER FAXES FOR TODAY
All clear for our position. Nothing untoward on the text forecast, and the tropical cyclone that we are trailing by about 600 miles is well out of our way.
September 7th, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today:101 NM
Total distance sailed: 1579 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 21.48 W043.39
Wind: NE Wind Force 1-2
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 1.9hr
Walking casually around the deck this morning, I was met by some very friendly and inquisitive marine life. A pod of dolphins.
It was difficult to count, but I figure there must have been about ten individual pairs of dolphins darting left and right in front of the boat playfully.
They hung around for about an hour before tiring of the great beast that slowly trudged through the water. No fun, they must have thought. Just staring straight ahead and not bothering to play!
Today was our first hint of Carribean weather. Massive blue skies and a burning sun. It was 27 degrees celcius in the shade, and much much more in the direct sun. My back got rather red, and is still smarting.
We also lost most of the wind that we have enjoyed for the last two weeks. Steve and Ellie are amazed that we have had such steady and strong trade winds so far on this trip. They have hardly falterd. However today they dropped to below ten knots, at times only managing 5 knots.
Eager to keep moving, and to see just how much fuel we need to conserve, Steve decided to start using the engines to power us through the water. This way, we maintained a boat speed of around six knots. According to Steve’s calculations, we still need about two days of pure sailing before we can rely only on diesel to get us to our destination.
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WEATHER FAXES FOR TODAY
The 72 hour wind and wave forcast has predicted only Wind Force 3-4 for our general position over the next few days, which accounts for our distinct lack of wind today. Perhaps it will pick up later on next week. The surface forecast still looks good, with no major distubances or fronts that might disrupt things.
September 6th, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today: 95 NM
Total distance sailed: 1478 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 21.43 W041.49
Wind: NE Wind Force 3-4
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 3.5hr
A dope on a rope. That’s what I was today.
I dangled in a climbing harness off the side of the boat washing the side of the boat. Apart from the dead legs, starved of blood from the tight harness, it was comfortable enough.
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WEATHER FAXES FOR TODAY
Once again, nothing to be concerned about.
September 5th, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today: 126 NM
Total distance sailed: 1383 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 21.56 W040.10
Wind: ENE Wind Force 3-4
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 2.9hr
Ahhhhh, another day bobbing along in the ocean.
First Mate Ellie checks our position on our highly sophisticated and detailed marine charts.
Skipper Steve is on dinner duty and cooks up a couscous and Mexican fried tortilla delight.
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WEATHER FAXES FOR TODAY
Clear as a bell, guv’ner!
September 4th, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today: 126 NM
Total distance sailed: 1257 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 22.14 W038.19
Wind: NNE Wind Force 4-5
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 1.8hr
I woke up today confronted with the happiest Skipper in the world. Steve was on cloud nine. I’m sure this had something to do with a number of factors.
One: It was a clear blue sky. Steve and Ellie like their blue skies.
Two: Our position and the weather faxes confirmed that Steve had outsmarted the weather, and we were comfortably north of anything nasty brewing further south.
Three: We are trailing a tropical storm by about 600 miles, which means that there is very little likelyhood of another one catching up behind us before we reach out destination.
The sea was fairly big today however. We were on a starboard tack, taking the wind just behind the beam. This means that the wind was hitting us from the back right hand corner of the boat (looking ahead). This also means that we were taking the 12 foot swell on the side of the boat too. This causes the boat to rock violently side to side, rather than the nice pitching motion of when we are running with the wind and the swell.
My body has well and truely adjusted to the motion of the boat however, and my stomach has not been getting upset for the last week or so.
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WEATHER FAXES FOR TODAY
Didn’t manage to save any of them today, but there is nothing to be concerned about for the next few days. We’re in the clear for today.
September 3rd, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today: 105 NM
Total distance sailed: 1131 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 21.59 W036.06
Wind: NNE Wind Force 4
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 3.1hr
So with such a limted amount of fresh water on the boat, how do you wash the dishes? Washing them in fresh water all the time wil deplete the fresh water too much.
That’s where First Mate Ellie’s ingenious comes in.
A normal spray bottle is filled with a quater dishwashing liqud and the rest fresh water. Then all you do is spray this mix onto your dishes one by one as you wash them. You then rinse them in salt water hauled up on board by bucket. Great idea. Might save on washing up liquid back home too perhaps…
Well after a week at sea without seeing any other sea vessels, we saw three today. One on my watch, two on Ellie’s. The ship I saw was at night, about 3am. It had two white anchor lights, one higher than the other. This means that the vessel was longer than 50 feet in length. Bright lights fom the bridge could be seen, indicating that it was probably a large ship. Usually the rule is that you pass another oncoming vessel on the port side, however this ship did a big arc around us on the starboard side. A little strange…
In general, I am much less awe inspired by being out here in the middle of the ocean than I had anticipated. Here, I am not surrounded by 2,000 kilometers of ocean on each side of me. I am surrounded by only 15km at best. A big circle where we are the center. We are in endless forward motion, but are rewarded with no visual result.
However, I do often think of how I will feel once on the other side. All forward motion rewarded in that instant of seeing land. Of touching land on the other side of the Atlantic. I look forward to it.
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WEATHER FAXES FOR TODAY
I have marked our position on these weather maps with a big X. You can see that there is a possible tropcial cyclone and a tropical wave directly south of our position. With this information, Skipper Steve decided to head a little more to the north than we had planned, to avoid any confrontations.
September 2nd, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today: 115 NM
Total distance sailed: 1024 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 21.41 W034.09
Wind: ENE Wind Force 3-5
Sea state: Medium
Generator hours: 2.5hr
Generally overcast today with some light showers. Steve and Ellie enjoy their Sundays at sea. Weather permitting, there is always a Sunday roast, and today was no exception. Pork roast with potatoes, yorkshire pudding, peas, and gravy. Very nice.
Sunday is also washing day. Washing the bodies and clothes. This boat carries up to 300 litres of fresh water, so showers are a luxury on such a long trip. Salt water showers you can get away with, but a good fresh water shower is a once a week deal.
There is a bit of a story behind this boat. It is brand new, and we are delivering it to the owners in the British Virigin Islands. The boat left France about three months ago, and had been sitting in Tenerife in the Canary Islands for over a month before we arrived to take it across the Atlantic.
The original crew who took it from France to Tenerife were supposed to have taken it across the Atlantic, however due to crew members running out of time (apparantly they didn’t count on it taking so long), the boat had to be left in Tenerife. In reality it takes a boat up to 8 weeks or more to be delivered from France across the Atlantic, when time waiting for favourable winds and re-stocking is taken into account.
Therefore, there are many things on the boat that have been left here by the previous crew. Some great books on sailing passages around the world, hundreds of litres of mineral water, and some food. in addition to all this, they left a medical kit with all sorts of medication in it.
Unfortunately the skipper of the previous crew was French, and all the medication labels are in French. This did however make for an afternoon of fun sorting through the medical kit, trying to guess what was what. We considered drawing straws to see who would be the guinea pig to test our assumptions, but decided against it in the end…
———————————————————————-WEATHER FAXES FOR TODAY
The quality of these faxes should increase over the coming days as we get closer to the US, but this text forecast lets us know that the tropical cyclone that we had been observing in previous faxes and weather maps has developed into hurricane Felix.
September 1st, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today: 135 NM
Total distance sailed: 909 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 22.21 W032.13
Wind: ENE Wind Force 3-5
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 1.2hr
I was awoken with a shout last night at about 3:30am. Ellie was on watch and the wind had just suddenly shifted, causing the main sail to back on itself in a gust of wind.
Steve also heard the shout and raced up out of his cabin.
Naked.
“Don’t be surprised if you see me naked at the helm in the middle of the night,” Steve had told me a few days earlier. “When things are happening fast, there’s no time to get dressed!”
After a few minutes Steve had things under control and set up for the new wind direction. Satisfied, he wandered back down to bed.
Unfazed, Ellie went on with her watch. I too, surprised at how normal it all seemed to have a grown man naked wrestling with the steering wheel of a yacht in the middle of the night in the middle of the Atlantic, went on with getting ready for my watch.
“Off the coast of France it’s a different story though,” Steve had said. “At least here it’s warm. Being naked and rained cold rain on and hit by cold wind is no fun.”
In the morning we saw what the gust had done to the sail. It had popped a supporting baton out of its housing on the main sail. Nothing major to worry about, and if all else fails, we can just take the whole baton out all together. Unfortunately we don’t have the tools on board to fix it at this time.
The morning turned into a grey sort of day, with blue patches every now and then. Generally very nice sailing.
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WEATHER FAXES FOR TODAY
Our position is right on the edge of these maps, at about 30degrees West, and 22 degrees North. The one on the left shows a tropical wave about 200 miles west of us, so we should have no troubles with that one. Tropical waves cause unsettled weather with heavy rain and gusty winds up to 30 knots. The one on the right shows tropical cyclone danger zones, and of course we are about 2000 miles away from the one indicated.
August 31st, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today: 129 NM
Total distance sailed: 776 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 23.05 W030.09
Wind: ENE Wind Force 4-6
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 2.4hr
I was just finishing my 4am to 8am watch this morning, when I noticed that the batteries were getting low on the boat. So I started the generator. It kicked into life with a shudder and got into its rhythm.
Then it stopped.
I tried starting it again, and once more it stopped, flashing a yellow light seven times. The short error list to the right of the button indicated that seve flashes meant that there was ‘no raw water flow’. Something was stopping sea water being pumped through the cooling system of the generator – essensially just a big diesel engine.
The generator is essential for charging the batteries that power all the electrics on board the boat. Lights, computer, GPS, navigation equipment, auto pilot, auto steering, freezer, fridge, etc etc, not to mention the electric motors that give the boat drive when there is not enough wind.
Steve heard the generator start and stop two times, and was up before I had a chance to wake him. “I bet you it’s the darn impeller,” he mumbled, still half asleep.
From previous experiences, Steve always carries a spare impeller with him on long trips. This is a rubber paddle wheel of sorts that pumps water through the cooling system of the generator. With continual contact with salt water, the rubber inevitably becomes hard and brittle, eventually breaking away.
With a large spanner and some long nosed pliers to get at the small bolts to remove the water pump cover, Steve managed to get the old impeller out. It was long gone. Below is the new impeller on the left and the old one on the right.
With the help of some dishwashing liquid to lubricate the new impeller, we finally managed to get the new one into the tight fitting water pump housing.
An easy job, but I am glad that Steve always carries a spare impeller. If not, things could have been much worse.
Ellie was on lunch today and made some delicious quesidillas, a Mexican delight with cheese, onion, salami, and tomato sauce sandwiched between tortillas and then toasted on a hot fry pan.
August 30th, 2007 | categorizilation: all categories,The Atlantic
Distance sailed today: 110 NM
Total distance sailed: 647 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 23.57 W027.59
Wind: NE Wind Force 4-5
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 40 mins
Whether you like it or not, weather is a big deciding factor which way you go in the Atlantic. Today the Atlantic trade winds really started to kick in, giving us a steady five to seven knots of speed.
The weather can however go pear shaped out here. This is offically the Atlantic hurricane season, and this year there have already been four named storms, all originating from around the area that we are sailing in. To be caught unawares of the development of a big storm is courting death.
That’s where a certain bit of 40 year-old marine technology comes in. The weather fax.
This great piece of kit receives a fax signal sent over a VHF radio band. At present we can pick up weather faxes from England very clearly, and ones from New Orleans and Boston in the US when the conditions are right. As we move closer to the US, we should begin to pick up the US faxes more clearly.
The VHF radio has a sound lead that goes from the radio into the microphone port on the laptop computer. The weather fax software then detects the sound from the microphone and decodes the signal into a weather map image. These weather map images are then saved onto the computer for futre reference. It takes about 10 minutes for a full weather map to be downloaded.
The image above is a rather rough image from the New Orleans station. It shows possible tropical cyclone formation areas. Thankfully none of these are anywhere near us at present, and all storms will be heading away from us towards the west.
The weather map below is from Northwood, England, that covers the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean. There is a small tropical wave about 200 miles west of us, towards the bottom center of the map. We will need to keep our eyes on that one.
Ah yes, how can I forget, today I made my first loaf of bread on the boat. 500g worth of flour – made two big loaves in the gas oven on board.
