5th to 11th Dec - The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers
Posted at 11:01 AM, Friday, December 14, 2007
Swagman Log – Day 10 – We’ve Found the Trade Winds
Sue here. After yesterday’s slow ride and the good showing of Anteater Blues where she nudged 2 miles ahead of us (if you take the distance to St Lucia) , we have finally had a day we’re pleased with. We are now into the trade winds proper, getting steady 20 knot, gusting 25’s up our bum. We have the spinnaker up and we are flying, getting 9.5 – 10’s. Trouble is while I can handle the kite most of the time, I’m nervous of the squalls and gusts that are coming through and therefore will not let John leave the cockpit. It’s going to be a long day for him. At nights we will now drop the kite and sail with a poled out genoa the same as we did last night. Even with that reduced rig, we were getting 7 /8 knots of boat speed, which is fine. It’s safe. We can just take in some headsail if we get prolonged squalls, and still keep trucking on.
Had a problem with our faithful auto pilot in the middle of last night. The alarm went off, and the autohelm switched itself off. It is now working again, but showing our reciprocal heading, i.e. the boat is going forward backwards on the plotter screen, and while we are sailing about 260/270 degrees the digital compass shows a heading of 75 degrees. Very strange, but at least the autohelm is still working and can take over when we get tired. We love sailing, but do not want to hand steer for the next week until
It’s getting very warm now. It’s boiling down below on the boat and sleep is becoming very difficult. We do not have the bimini (up as we need to see the spinnaker to rim it continually) so we are all lathered up with sunscreen and frying up like sausages.
That apart, all is well. Feel as if we are on the home run now.
Sue
Swagman Log – Day 11 – Gear Failure (Sort Of)
Had our first major failure today – the outfall from the back dunny (toilet) holding tank is completely blocked. I won’t go into too many details, but a mighty plunge on the toilet pump with the deck level holding tank port opened, saw a chocolate fountain erupt like Vesuvius down the starboard side of the aft deck. Poor Gerry who was standing close by got a shock. He went very grey and quiet. John came up took one look and got the giggles (not surprising knowing his level of toilet humour). It was a major clean up operation with the spinnaker still flying, the autohelm taking control, before 20 knots of breeze, It took copious buckets, plus the deck wash pump, to remove the mess - all the while and rocking and rolling downwind. FYI the holding tank outlet is still blocked, and I am refusing all male rights to use ‘My Toilet ‘ at the front of the boat. They have buckets they can use - or they can snap on the marigolds - and get it fixed up.
It’s getting very hot and sticky, and a special treat last might was a shower in the cockpit at the end of the day when the spinnaker came down. Followed by a STIFF gin and tonic.
We are now running low on fruit and veg, it has all ripened at the same time, and everyday I have to go through it and throw the rotten stuff away. We’ve thrown more than we’ve eaten. And we’ve eaten lots.
Love to all – Sue
John here. Our
Swagman Log – Day 12 – What a beautiful dawn (but a bad one for sailing)
John’s back. After a super run yesterday where we bowled along before 20 knot NNE’lies and collapsed at dusk feeling we’d done our bit to stay ahead of Anteater, this morning early (circa 0200) the winds all died away. Overnight the guys have decided man (and woman)fully to share the night watches between them allowing me virtually uninterrupted slumber so I can resume solo helming in what were promised to be even fresher conditions on Friday.
So when I awoke just before dawn, and found we were down to only just over 4 knots boat speed under our night rig of reefed main and poled out genoa, I knew our advantage may have been forfeit.
Immediately dawn broke – and it was absolutely beautiful – all pinks, blues, white and grey colours overlaid with the golden sun coming up over the horizon behind us – we scrambled to get our spinnaker out and working. It did help. We teased Swagman up to around 6 knots and managed to keep her around that pace until our midday schedule for position reporting – eagerly awaited so we could see if we’d done enough yesterday to retain our lead. We were not hopeful, but did have fingers crossed. We were right. Anteater had enjoyed (???) 30 knots of breeze for some 14 hours yesterday evening and last night. It allowed them to gain and now actually lead us by 4 or 5 miles, albeit they are still 100 miles north.
We spoke on the radio, and it seems they were just entering a softer patch - so who knows? Maybe this arvo we’ll get some stronger winds and leapfrog back in front? Maybe Sue will go mad and kill me so she can put the bimini back up and get some shade from this roasting sun? Maybe Garry will mutiny if he does not get proper toilet rights? Maybe we’ll keep going and get back in front. But now only 690 odd miles to
Our
Love and kisses to all
John, Sue and Gerry
Including us. Had a frustrating afternoon yesterday where we had to work really hard to even achieve 6 knots. It was hot (no bimini up due to spinnaker trimming needs), we are all getting tired, and the finish line albeit now 500+ miles over the horizon – seems a long way off.
As the winds were light until dusk and the autohelm easily handled the steering most of the day, it was agreed I’d re-enter the night watch pattern this day. I went for a snooze after supper and as I tucked down, we sere slipping along nicely under full main and poled out genoa making just over 6 knots in a gentle but freshening breeze.
When I awoke to change over with Gerry at
.The genoa had already been furled away and the pole left on the mast, so we ran around with our little head torches like mini miners, swiftly turned the boat to windward, tucked in a single reef, turned away downwind and rolling out a portion of the genoa with the pole – creamed off on our course to St Lucia in the pitch black night. Squalls rolling through from behind were obvious as the blocked the stars – but what we could never guess was the increase in wind that accompanied each one.
Sheet lightening illuminated a glassy looking sea with big swells sort of grumbling though. Swagman lifted her tail to the gusts, and sometime early hours she topped 11.7 knots rattling along across this strange oily sea. We learnt later that the rest of the fleet north of us were hammered by even stronger winds – and this mornings email bulletins showed a list of damage to both people and craft.
Dawn for us saw a spectacular rainbow from horizon to horizon like a big arch we sailed under. Awesome. The colours were so vivid they could have come from a paint pallet.
Anyway. Ended up by
Anteater herself has used the wind angels to slowly close the north / south devide between us. At
Blisters.
JOHN
Our
Swagman Log – Day 14 – Our Fat Lady is Singing
Afraid to say our unfair advantage (ie we in the cruiser division are allowed to use the engine) has led to us declaring Anteater Blues (in the racing division so unable to use theirs) the winner in our impromptu ‘race’ twix our two Hanse 461s. Silly thing is – they probably don’t even know we were trying to beat them in!
But as at
We're possibly the most southerly yacht out here, and today struggled all morning with winds as low as 4 knots from behind. It's not been bad when it gusted to 7 +, as we then flew our code 0 - which still stuns us all by giving us 7 knots of boatspeed in 7 knots of true wind! But code 0 up then down, spinnaker up then down, code 0 etc finally wore us out and by late arvo it was back down at times to 3 or 4 knots and sailing around in donuts trying to get some speed. It was about then that the lure of rum punches on the dockside seemed slightly more interesting than out-sailing a fellow Hanse owner - who is after all in another division.
So on went the engine for 4.5 hours to help us move further along our line and hopefully towards some stronger breezes. It would have been great o lead them in if we had not used our engine, but because we have we can't think about claiming any form of win against Ants.
However, if you discount the catamaran, racing and big boat invitation divisions, we are in 15th place on the water. Not bad as most in front at much bigger yachts, and who knows, maybe some of those used their engines also for more than we have.
We're got back into some breeze albeit only 7 knots before dawn broke, so engine went off and we slipped smoothly down the rhumb line for the final 400 miles.
Our
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Swagman Log – Day 15 – We Can Almost
Sue
Today is our final full day at sea, we should arrive
Love to all Sue xx
Gerry
From my perspective the trip has had all the aspects I thought it might have, with some 150 miles to go we are being a bit reflective on the trip and without doubt my highlights (apart from the amount learned) include charging downhill with full main and poled out headsail sitting on top of the sizeable swells and looking down into the holes…..really amazing ! Then to top that John taught me how to dive into the holes and across the wave for more speed – what a feeling J The other main highlight was at the helm whilst sailing under spinnaker and surfing along at 10.8kts……Sue has limited time left to get 10.9+.
Another aspect that ha been interesting to observe and experience are the squalls that come through, in fact we were this morning sailing along in really hot sunshine and blue skies with the Code Zero giving us good speed with the breeze at around 8 kts.
We saw the squall coming in and no sooner had we dropped the Code Zero and got out some rolled up genny (we had full main still up) , that we found ourselves in torrential rain and 30 kts of breeze charging downhill with the combined efforts of the wind and rain flattening the seas.
I could go on for long enough about the trip – but one observation I would make is when people refer to the ARC or indeed anyone crossing the
Around 6-8 boats with damaged booms.
Two people evacuated onto a freighter and cruise liner respectively
One MOB – successfully recovered
Two boats abandoned.
One boat sunk and crew rescued from their liferaft.
And probably more incidents that we are unaware of…..Soe “milk run !”.
All this without having recourse to any rescue facilities, such as calling on the RNLI or medics whether sailing in the
John’s offshore race experience has obviously stood him in good staid, and it has been interesting for me to understand his strategy and see it all falling into place.
One more night of watches and then we should arrive tomorrow around
Love to Family and Friends back home.
Gerry
At
Swagman Log – Day 16 – A Real Gale on to the finish line.
The afternoon saw us sailing in loose company with two larger yachts – Northern Child (Swan 51) and One Too Many (a 66 footer) – and we surprised ourselves by sticking with them until dusk. At times we were within 500 metres of one another as we struggled to keep up.
As night fell the winds eased and we decided to remain competitive by continuing with a full main and a fully poled out genoa. As a general rule – the longer the boat the faster they go – but during this, our last night, we managed to stick with them.
The winds were almost due east, with lots of squalls coming through at around 25 knots, but as we’d left our bimini up from the day sailing, we did not get too wet when the rain pattered down. The boat was moving along nicely, but with a slight amount of north in the wind we found our line was taking us towards the lowest point of Martinique, 50 miles north of our target
We did gybe several times to see if we could lay the top of St Lucia on the other board, but going that way the best we could do was line up with the bottom of St Lucia – so we ended up settled onto starboard gybe and all stayed up as we watched the loom of the lights on Martinique begin to glow on the horizon.
It was a special moment.
Dawn saw us still moving along nicely – mainly due to our full main zipping us along before the squalls. Funny. When we started, you might recall we always reefed down at night for safety sake. Now on this last night – we just wanted to get there quickly so carried every bit of canvas we could.
Anyway. It worked to keep us level with our two temporary sparring partners – and as dawn broke and we could begin to see the size of the squalls coming up behind us – we decided the extra pressure of wind might let us lay St Lucia on the port board – s we gybed over. By then we’d left Northern Child behind in the rain. All I wanted to do was stick with the 66 footer right to the line.
Our gybe was completed only just in time – as the huge squall that then enveloped us from behind had some real sustained pressure in it. As Swagman took off – still with full main but this time with only a scrap of genoa unfurled – those winds howled in at close to 40 knots. Our 66 foot competitor was not so lucky. As we shot off towards
Within 10 minutes we’d lost them too in the rain behind us – and we hand steered the next five hours through that big squall to arrive off the top of
Sue steered as we creamed up towards the finish boat with its big orange ARC flag – and a photographer zoomed around us in his rib with camera clicking. Not sure what they thought about the bimini!
Our finish time was just after 1000 – making us 37 over the line - out of 250 boats. And again, it you recall a majority of the 36 in front were either full race boats, or big cats, or invitation race boats – I think we’d done real well.
Mixed emotions dropping sails and entering
For me, this was the single longest passage I’ve ever completed. The crew have been more than superb. They have both been fantastic. The boat has exceeded everything we asked of her. And we beat not just Anteater Blues – but all the other 50 foot Hanses over the line also. Fabulous.
Want to mention also all our family and pals who’ve kept supporting us on the trip with emails and messages. Its been additionally nice knowing others have been able to share our adventure and without that support, I doubt we’d have pushed so hard.
So thanks, and bon boyage.
Swagman maintains it’s own blog at www.yotblog.com/swagman. If you want to read on about our past and ongoing sailing – check it out.