While off watch at 0300, I had a knock on the door as Ollie was concerned about an AIS indicator and enormous radar reflection apparently coming our way. He had rightly scrolled the data and established that the Sofia Express, bound for New York would pass us 1 mile away but its track was seemingly... Continue Reading →
Barry’s Bloated Bladder
The settled windless weather has resulted in the sea eventually losing its boisterous attitude and we continued to motor while the crew stirred themselves. Our first job was to decant the diesel bladder (loaned to Hejira by Barry) contents into our fuel tank and it was very heartening to see the starboard tank needle rise... Continue Reading →
Bill Shock
The drone of the engine greeted my watch with little wind and that from behind and AWOL trailing in our wake. The wind was due to veer to the NW and this duly happened at about 0600. The wind now just behind our beam meant that we began to accelerate the wind rather than diminish... Continue Reading →
Squids in
With the wind dropping and moving round to the west, it was not the best situation for sailing but we had to stick with it as our aggregate diesel stocks were still marginal with nearly 900 miles to Horta. So we sailed and periodically when the faster AWOL threatened to overhaul us, we jogged the... Continue Reading →
Freedom of the blog
What a great day under sail, beam/broad reaching in F4/5 all day long with the sun out. Our days run of 151 miles was suppressed by the wind moderating through the night and we are now only doing 5 – 6 knots, what a calamity! The decision taken with Cliff on AWOL to track north... Continue Reading →
Blogs like buses
After the big winds and seas we motored in very light conditions with a large but diminishing swell left over from the gale. I invested in a long term weather forecast and discussed the situation with my crew and AWOL. The dilemma is that, with their shortage of fuel, they need to ‘chase the wind’... Continue Reading →
Brrrrr
Ollie writes:- I’m writing this at 2:17am. It should be the penultimate hour of my watch. But I’m actually only seventeen minutes into it. That’s because, I’m ashamed to say, I overslept…massively. I ran out of my cabin to find Barry, staring contemplatively into the starry horizon. “Barry I’m so sorry, I must’ve slept through... Continue Reading →
Shepherding
The traditional advice for sailing east to the Azores is to take loads of extra diesel as you are likely to experience long periods of dead calm and flat sea. As I write, we are 4 days into the passage, broad reaching in 23 knots of wind with a lively sea having hardly used the... Continue Reading →
Internet dating
Well, it seems the Watermaker membrane is buggered. We ran the unit through the night and in the morning; the quality of the water was just as bad, if not worse. Email exchanges with the ever helpful Jim at Mactra confirmed the diagnosis and so Peter has another piece of equipment to add to his... Continue Reading →
Water, water everywhere.
Something over 25 years ago, I went through the sequence of RYA shore-based courses which culminated in Yachtmaster Ocean. This is way back when Morse was still part of the Yachtmaster Offshore syllabus! I completed them with the practical on all but the Ocean qualification. The Ocean practical is largely about celestial navigation and with... Continue Reading →