SailBlog - ARC Prize giving

Graham

22/12/2008, Gaiety Gros Islet, Saint Lucia Club

Having taken 25 days to reach Saint Lucia, we were clearly not expecting to win any prizes at the ARC Prize giving Party for arriving first! However, much to our surprise, QUASAR IV was awarded the Philip Hitchcock Trophy for being the safest boat as assessed by the 8 ARC Safety Inspectors that conducted safety checks across the entire fleet of 225 ARC boats. We were very pleased with this award and received a tankard and a free meal at the Coal Pot Restaurant in Castries, a top quality restaurant, right by the water's edge. The awards are all given in Saint Lucia rather than Las Palmas; it would be somewhat embarrassing if the voted 'safest boat' sunk on the way to Saint Lucia....

SailBlog - We made it!

Graham

17/12/2008, Rodney Bay Marina, Saint Lucia, Caribbean

Just arrived in Rodney Bay Marina, Saint Lucia, Caribbean. It's not sunk in yet. What a place; so friendly and welcoming. Many thanks to our family and friends for welcoming us on the pontoon when we arrived. Well endured! We really appreciated it. We had no sleep last night, and we have parties at 6pm, 7pm and 8pm tonight, so it's not looking too good for tonight either! Booked in for a few weeks so once we have worked out which we is up, we'll be back on the blog. Thank you all for your support to this epic journey so far.

             

       

                

SailBlog - Land almost within sight

Graham

17/12/2008, North Atlantic

We are almost there! With 88 Nm to go, everyone is desperately looking for our landfall, although I think we may have a few hours to go yet. Our arrival time looks to be in the early hours of tomorrow morning, or midnight Saint Lucia time (GMT-4 hours). Everyone is really looking forward to setting foot on land for the first time in 25 days, and no doubt there will be a few hours of land sickness which normally hits us after some time at sea. Still, nothing a few glasses of local rum will not resolve I suspect! Bongo is contemplating what he will cook for our final night at sea. One thing is for certain though, it won't be fresh fish until the fishing line is untangled from the Rutland wind generator blades..... Well, this may be our last blog entry from sea, all being well, so we hope you all enjoyed the read over the past 25 days or so, and look out to see what we are up to in Saint Lucia. And....thanks for all of your comments on the blog; once we get to an internet cafe in Saint Lucia, we will be able to sit down and read them all for some good entertainment I suspect! Bye for now.

SailBlog - Good news and bad news!

Graham

15/12/2008, North Atlantic 

After a forecast for very little wind, we have been happily sailing along in 20 knots of wind for the past 20 hours. So much for the weather report. This has been really good news for 2 reasons: the first, we get to more ARC parties in Saint Lucia of course, and second, when we tried to stop the engine yesterday after charging our batteries, the STOP lever "...came off in me 'and Guv..." said the helmswoman, AND, wait for it...the fuel filter developed a blockage, so the engine stopped itself anyway! As per usual with engine problems on QUASAR IV, it was just getting dark and the sea state was degrading, not too badly, but too badly to have your head buried in a hot engine compartment for 2 hours sorting out the problem. We know this from the 'Gib to Porto Santo experience'. So, sails out, and sail for the rest of the night, and...as if by magic...the wind started up immediately and we have averaged 6.25 knots for the past 14 hours! Sadly (for me), it was my turn to repair the engine, so as I finished my watch at 10am this morning as the sun rose, a new fuel filter was installed, engine bled, and an intricate pulley, paracord string, and toggle arrangement has now been installed to operate the stop lever on the engine from the cockpit, bypassing the broken cable. Sailing....it's all good fun! Oh, and we are now a mere 322 Nm from Saint Lucia, even better!

SailBlog - Oh no...where's the wind gone again?

Graham

14/12/2008, North Atlantic

Last night, it was time to sit down with the calculator and do some serious navigation sums based around how much fuel we had left, our distance to go, and the time we needed to arrive by. The conclusion we rapidly came to was that we now had enough fuel for 200 Nm, with 470 Nm to go. No problem if the wind blows, but a cross check of the forecast that we download from the US did not bode well. Three more days of light winds, albeit from the right direction. So, we have now worked out our minimum mileage and speed we must maintain each day in order to arrive by the 18th December, and must balance use of the sails and the engine accordingly. Battery charging using the engine is now out completely, unless the engine is on anyway, but our solar panel is doing a fine job...when it isn't raining that is, or dark, of course (about 14 hours a day!). So, basically, we are at the mercy of the Gods at the moment as to whether we make it by the 18th, but we are certain we can. Besides which, we just cannot miss out on any more ARC parties in St Lucia under any circumstances, so we have an alternate plan for the engine fuel based on sunflower oil, olive oil, and oil. We read about it somewhere...we think! The temperature has been scorching the past 2 days and seems to be increasing by the day now. Another 30 Deg C today, and we are all melting. Still, beats freezing to death back in Blighty, eh?!!

SailBlog - Another Marlin gets away...

Graham

13/12/2008, North Atlantic

Mark T's marlin got away the other day with hook, line and sinker, so it came as no surprise to me that whatever was on the end of my line pulling it out at lightning speed was also big. It also got my hook, line and sinker! Today will need to be a muppet production day from the remaining rubber glove fingers as we seem to now be totally out of lures. The muppet looks like a squid (apparently) and has the hook hidden inside with a weight. We tow them along behind us about 20 metres behind the boat and wait for a bite. Some days there is nothing, other days, the whole shebang is destroyed! Well, a small bit of lightning last night, a fairly steady wind, if not a bit on the light side, and we are still making our way to the Island of Rum....

SailBlog - The wind continues...

Graham

12/12/2008, North Atlantic

The good news is that the wind continues and we managed another day of 137 Nm over the past 24 hours. The sea has been interesting; a steady rocky motion, overlaid with a large Atlantic swell from the NE which, at times, has appeared to be at least 15 feet high. Most of the time though, it has been around the 10 feet mark. It is certainly impressive. We have had a few light showers, but nothing too dramatic which is also good news. Given that today is Day 19 of our journey, we had hoped to be in Saint Lucia by now, but the complete failure of this year's trade winds to arrive in time for the ARC has added a significant time onto our route. We now have about 680 Nm to go, and we are all looking forward to arriving after what will probably be about 24 days at sea, our longest ever passage for any of us. We had 2 egrets cadge a lift with us the other night and managed to sit on our genoa sheet (rope, for the non-nautical) all night, asleep, without falling off, which was very impressive! They then took off at sunrise, circled the boat a few times before departing towards South America as far as we could tell. Obviously looking for some warmer weather than Europe has to offer at the moment. Mark T inadvertently donated a winch handle to the deep last night, but other than that, no incidents to report.... 

SailBlog - Wind great, swell not so good...

Graham

11/12/2008, Mid North Atlantic

It was a great relief to have the return of the wind after a week of very little. Now we have the wind of course, the swell on the sea ('motion of the ocean' as we say) has built up quite a bit, a lot in fact. Last night it was between 10 and 12 feet with a few 'monsters' appearing from the dark. Luckily, they are not as bad as they may sound as they are not breaking waves, but it does make for a very bumpy ride, so no one got a very good night's sleep last night. The wind was up to 31 knots again last night at times, so sails were reefed in again back to the size of pocket handkerchiefs, but the good news is that we have covered just under 150 Nm in the last 24 hours which is the furthest QUASAR IV has ever managed in a 24 hour period, so we are very happy. It's 820 Nm to go now to Saint Lucia so we are quite certain now that if the wind keeps up, we will get to at least one ARC party before the event closes! Fishing has taken a back step at the moment as a number (ie all) of our lures and many hooks have now been eaten/stolen by creatures of the ocean, and given the size of the lures and hooks, we are glad we have not met with our contenders! It has also put us off swimming in the sea next time the wind stops! Anyway, time for our daily radio net to see how far we are behind everyone else again and have a chat with a few boats near to us.

Diary - Night Skies

What can I recall of the previous few nights – and days – as we sail across the Atlantic?  There is a repetitiveness to your activity and yet there is no boredom; the sea and sky are a constant – the constant – of your journey.  Each day and night they bring their own attractions or challenges to distract you.  Nature is capricious; she can be calm or wild, your friend or your rival.  Some days you relax in her wonder while on others you must wrestle your will upon her.  Against nature’s unpredictability our small boat floats along, a tiny bubble of organisation in the expanse: our ordered shifts, our regular checking of the boat and its structure, our periodic weather checks, radio watches and meals, all are planned and predictable as a counter to the changeability of all that surrounds us. 

I take over shift from Mark Thorpe, then spend my time alone before Graham takes over from me. These shift timings and our slow, steady progress westwards have seen my changeover with Graham move from taking place under starlit, night skies to taking place under the purple, blue of early morning and the beginnings of golden, orange sunrises on the horizon behind us.    

I am content at night alone in the cockpit, clipped onto the boat by a safety line and protected from the cold of the night by my foul weather clothing.  The sound of the wind, such as it is, the hollow lapping of the water against the hull and the metallic clink of halyards and the boom as they move, affected by the breeze and rolling of the boat, are the only sounds that accompany you at night.

I recall standing alone behind the wheel staring up at the clear, dark skies where everything is sharper, brighter, richer - and there are more stars to see - than anywhere back home because nothing is lost to light pollution.  The moon waxes and wanes as the days go by and there is the ever-present but rare occurrence of a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, two bright lights high above the mast; I watch the navigation lights atop the mast as they draw lazy circles around the area where the planets sit in the sky above me.  I see shooting stars – brighter, more colourful and longer lived than those back home.  I recall one particularly spectacular one, large and green and trailing what appeared to be a blazing green tail as it arced across the sky to my right, so low it appeared to almost come down in the sea.  And I recall sitting in the cockpit with Graham, laptop open as the red glow of the screen showed us a star map allowing us to pinpoint planets, stars and new constellations.  Occasionally too there is a light show below as a fleeting, blurry trail of green light shows the path of a fish under the boat, the result of the agitation of luminescent plankton in the water.  You can only wonder at the story it might tell: what and how big, whether pursued or pursuing?  Each night so little changes and yet each night there is so much to engage you.

By day there is less solitude and reflection but more warmth.  The days are hot and the sea is a deep and transfixing blue.  Other crew members are up and about; there is fishing and conversation and cooking.  Mostly it seems to be sun and blue sky but on grey days of bad weather and overcast skies we watch for lines of squalls moving across the water and then debate over how quickly they are moving, whether towards us and when the sails should be reduced to prevent us being caught out by the sudden strong winds they bring. 

 
This 41 foot of boat currently contains the totality of our existence; there is no escape.  Maybe that is why, for me, the seclusion of the night shifts and the wide expanse of dark skies above has such a hold and attraction.

SailBlog - 18 knots of wind and sailing at last

Graham

09/12/2008, Mid North Atlantic

The last few days have been tiresome and frustrating due to the total lack of wind, especially when we still had 1200 Nm to go and are on a deadline now to get to the ARC finish line by the 18th December. Yesterday afternoon, the wind finally re-emerged and we have been making steady progress in 18 knots of north easterlies and now only have 938 Nm to go! The sea is now quite bouncy, but the fact that we are speeding along towards our destination offsets the slight discomfort. The sun is out, the fishing rods are deployed, and there are no squalls in sight...yet. No more medical emergencies although my dreaded crown that broke in Portugal has broken again, this time by crunching into some chorizo. A temporary repair is planned on board using 5 minute epoxy resin. That should do the trick and is much cheaper than a dentist! 

SailBlog - Squalls Galore!

Graham

08/12/2008, Mid North Atlantic

Last night was different. Over an hour's period, we were hit by 6 squalls. Wind speeds varied between 25 and 40 knots, the latter giving us a severe battering with torrential rain as well as the wind. Visibility at this point was about as far as the bow, but with no shipping having been seen for 10 days, we thought we were reasonably safe. The lightning show was unbelievable; with bright flashes occurring sometimes 4 or 5 per SECOND (!), it was like being in broad daylight, and gave me recollections of watching 'The Perfect Storm', although the sea was almost flat in our case which was a major bonus. Sailing last night proved very difficult, and we used the engine to assist us. No sooner had some reasonable amount of sail been deployed, another squall would hit (you can't see them coming because it was pitch black, no moon visible), and nearly all of the sail would need to be wound in as fast as possible. To put this into some perspective, during the worst squall, the wind speed increased from 10 to 40 knots in under 15 seconds. We had only the mainsail out at this point, with an area of about 2 x 1 metres (tiny!) and we were hitting 8 knots of boat speed... The view of the lightning was indeed spectacular - I have never seen anything like this in my life, although we were all becoming increasing worried about the amount of fork lightning beginning to develop as the evening went on. When you are a sailing boat in the middle of nowhere with a 17 metre high 'lightning conductor' sticking up in the air, the worst thoughts begin to cross your mind. To add to our events of the evening, Mark T had a nasty incident with a can of tomatoes en route into a chilli con carne, the sharp edge on which caused a nasty incision in his right hand. This is now all bandaged up and contained in a glove (to keep all of the pieces together!) and he is recovering OK. Still, great chilli, although it did appear slightly redder than usual...! So, apart from all that, it was a fairly quiet night. The sun is out today, there is barely 10 knots of wind maximum, and we have had to put the engine on again in order to ensure a timely arrival in Saint Lucia. The safety lines are covered with clothing that we are drying out and it is now the start of another day in our quest for clear Caribbean waters.

Diary - Storms...

The sky is blue and clear, the weather is peaceful and my soaked foul weather gear is hanging to dry on the boat's guard rails, the only evidence that last night was in any way different.

But last night was very different when we found ourselves in the centre of a massive storm system.  Behind our starboard quarter and probably twenty miles distant was a storm, forked lightning regularly lighting the clouds and making its short lived, erratic path to the sea. Another storm lay ahead in the distance twenty miles to port, sheet lightning like an irregular torch illuminating the clouds in that direction. Two other storms lay to port, again some miles off, but the jewel in the crown was the one that now lay directly above us. The rain was torrential, beating on the sea and the boat and the hoods of Graham's and my foul weather clothing; an incessant drumming drowning out all other noise.  By varying degrees our immediate surroundings were lit up then plunged into darkness as a result of the sheet lightning: for one fleeting moment it was bright as daylight with the boat and our immediate surroundings standing sharp and clear and lightning lit rain drops suspended in the air and then we were in total blackout as our light accustomed eyes proved unable to adjust to the darkness. Daylight, darkness, daylight, darkness, flashing like a strobe sometimes a few times in quick succession. I couldn’t help but wonder as to the amount of power there was above us, building up and being released, let alone in all five storms in the miles around us. 

We battled the weather and managed the boat, shouting above the noise and generally grateful that we had sheet lightning in the clouds high above and not forked lightning shooting down to earth towards the highest point in an otherwise flat sea. And the flatness of the sea was something else to be thankful for as it was one less challenge to cope with; I couldn’t help but think it was flat through having been beaten down by the power of the rain.

It is now calmer, the rain has abated and the storms have moved on or are dying out, their power diminished, their lighting show fading. What I am struck by though is that throughout, with nature at her most tempestuous and despite our small boat isolated in this wide expanse of ocean, I never felt any hint of concern during the course of the evening.  The last few weeks on the boat have given me a significant level of faith in her resilience and a sense of comfort in her cocoon despite our remoteness from dry land and what previously I might have termed safety. 

SailBlog - We are finally Half Way!

Graham

06/12/2008, North Atlantic Ocean

With a smooth sea, and very little wind, we cast our mind back to how the Atlantic crossing should have been; 15 to 25 knot trade winds, zooming the boat along at 7 to 8 knots, with an estimated time to Saint Lucia of between 18 and 21 days. Ho ho ho! How wrong could anyone have been! We have seen no sign whatsoever of any trade winds at all. During the last 2 days, the wind has not increased above 12 knots, and even more depressing, the forecast for tomorrow and the following day is no wind at all! So, the engine is likely to be on for the next 2 days as we must make an average of 120 Nm per day now to get to Saint Lucia before the ARC closing ceremony. There are many other boats 'in the same boat' so to speak and we are in regular contact with many of them via our HF SSB radio. So, today, we passed the halfway marker and cracked open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. The sun has been out all day and it has been a sweltering 30 Deg C. Mark A has baked up some homemade bread which was very tasty, and I have been instructing Mark T in the use of the sextant to work out our longitude and latitude. Time tonight for a 'special meal', a meal that each crew member makes just once on the crossing and the menu is unknown to the remaining crew. Tonight it's my turn, only in this case, the menu also remains a mystery to me, so I had better get on with it....!

SailBlog - Wipeout!

Graham

05/12/2008, North Atlantic Ocean

This morning's excitement was the 35 knot squall which hit us at no notice just after sunrise. Despite a desperate attempt to get the entire genoa furled in less than 5 seconds, it was too late. The wind rocketed up and we ended up with the genoa triple wrapped around the forestay. With the wind building even more, the flapping of the sail was phenomenally loud and getting quite worrying, as was the noise of the forestay trying to shake itself off the boat. Needless to say, we were not impressed or happy. With the main furled in to a pocket handkerchief size, and the genoa finally wrapped around the forestay, but packed away, we waited for the wind to die down to 20 knots before attempting to unwrap the mess up front. It took over an hour, but we finally got the ball of sail unwrapped, checked it was OK (it was, just) and we are now sailing along again in the direction of Saint Lucia. Life is back to normal and I'm off to bed!

SailBlog - More Dorade!

Graham
04/12/2008, North Atlantic Ocean

Just finished an excellent Thai dorade fish curry with coconut rice courtesy of Mark T. Today has been somewhat uneventful; overcast, spots of rain, and a crossed sea making for a slightly uncomfortable ride for all. Still, that makes up for last night's excitement....Enthralled with watching the GPS read 10.6 knots over ground, it would have been far more sensible to have reefed in the sails rather than enjoying the high speed downwind experience of 2am this morning. Those below noted a couple of loud bangs, then the boat stopping practically dead in the water. Bongo and I were far more aware of the situation which was not good. The wind had been steadily increasing to 24 knots, and we were skimming along nicely at about 8 knots, enjoying some speed at last. Whilst contemplating reefing in the sails, the wind speed hit 28 knots twice, by which time it was all over! The boom, despite being held to one side of the boat with a gybe preventer, moved across the boat somewhat 'positively', or incredibly fast, in English, and the boat came to an abrupt stop from 10 knots. It seemed a really good idea to reef in at this point which we duly did and continued on our way at a more miserly 6 knots. Still, it was good fun while it lasted, and no damage done...we think...

SailBlog - Day ?? - Who cares what day it is anyway?!!!

Graham

03/12/2008, Heading West at last

The last few days have been lost in the midst of time. Get up, eat, fish, prepare fish for dinner/lunch/breakfast/, eat, etc.... It has been quite cloudy for the past 2 days which has somewhat put pay to our astro navigation work at the moment as we haven't seen the sun recently. Tracey and I have now both caught our first Dorade fish using my 39 pound special, all inclusive fishing rod/reel/line/lure package from Brixham. None of our expensive factory made lures seem to be that effective, however....chop the finger off a pink marigold rubber glove, slice the ends so it looks like a squid, draw a couple of eyes on with a permanent marker, trail it along behind the boat about 30 metres away, and 5 minutes later you have a fish on the end big enough for dinner for 4! A few chopping up and gutting lessons on board, and we are now all trained in the art of fish catching, gutting, preparing and cooking. We are all still alive, so no poisonous varieties have obviously been caught yet! With only 1760 Nm to go now, the excitement is building....well, perhaps not quite yet! But the miles are decreasing to Saint Lucia and we hope to still make it before the ARC closing ceremony if we are really lucky and these apparent 'trade winds' actually fire up over the next few days! Still, we know we are making some progress west as the sun now rises at 0830 hrs and sets at about 1915 hrs, so the evenings are longer. We could change our clocks back 2 hours which is the local time difference here, but that will really confuse everyone!