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The ocean is a mighty large space and, though 35 boats are heading towards the same destination, the fleet is spread over a wide area. The first night at sea we could see the lights of several rally boats, however … Continue reading
John Easteal
It’s a beautiful dawn; the sun isn’t due to rise for about 30 minutes but the eastern sky is suffused with a golden orange light which illuminates the gently rolling sea. Once the sun has risen the sea will appear … Continue reading
The weather forecast for Thursday proved remarkably accurate, that doesn’t stop me complaining though! During the morning the wind was 20-25 knots with gusts to about 30 which was the original forecast before we received an update suggesting gusts to … Continue reading
Wind is essential to a yacht but yachtsmen are a hard bunch to please; it’s either too little, too much, wrong direction, variable direction or just totally unpredictable. In the past 24 hours we have had the lot. In yesterday’s … Continue reading
The past 24 hours has been a mixture of good, challenging and frustrating thanks to the vagaries of the Wind Gods. We continued our forward charge with the sails out either side, rocking and rolling our way to the next … Continue reading
I like downwind sailing, which is lucky since a lot of the long passages on our circumnavigation were predominantly downwind, however it is not all plain sailing. Excuse the pun! In racing circles and well crewed yachts the defining sail … Continue reading
As the start had been brought forward to Saturday and was to be a passage start we made our way out of Portsmouth just before noon. In fact we were one of the last boats to leave the marina, however … Continue reading
We must have seriously annoyed the Norse God, Volvo! No sooner had I written that the engine was running well, it decided to cause us further grief. During Tuesday afternoon John decided to check the fresh water cooling reservoir and … Continue reading
Test 1 … Continue reading
When John came on dock soon after 0700 the wind and our speed had both dropped, it began to look as if we should have made best speed all night. We reset the sails, sailed a bit, gybed the mainsail, … Continue reading