The adventure resumes with our return to Marigot Bay in St. Lucia where Hejira has been moored over Christmas. The marina staff have been excellent, even mailing the necessary paperwork to clear in the quantity of equipment sourced for the improvement of Hejira for the challenges ahead. More of this and photos to follow in... Continue Reading →

The day dawned with sunshine for a change and the breeze holding up sufficiently to sail quite fast for most of the day. As the afternoon progressed, our timings suggested that we might be able to arrive in time to have a celebratory drink in the evening and this became a manic obsession but the... Continue Reading →

Light winds persisted through the day which did nothing for our progress and when I turned in we were still struggling to make 5 knots. It was therefore a welcome surprise to rise to a fresh breeze and 8.4 knots on the log. This has brought our predicted arrival time forward, if not into daylight,... Continue Reading →

We experienced a somewhat frustrating day under sail with the wind variable in strength and direction but at least the sea state was diminishing. We maintained our sailplan but resorted to the engine on two occasions, once for an hour and then for a quarter of an hour, it’s difficult to accept speeds of less... Continue Reading →

The high winds and big swells continued through the day and with the main and poled out jib, Hejira seemed to relish the conditions and continued to bowl along. The conditions cannot have been to the liking of our similarly handicapped fellow participants because we apparently gained ground on nearly all of them, albeit that... Continue Reading →

Standing on the bathing platform yesterday, changing the hydrogenerator propeller, my feet were regularly swamped as the breaking swells swept through and I was struck by how warm the water was, 25.2 degrees. We all receive Emails from home and it is hard to imagine the cold weather and the shops full of Christmas tat.... Continue Reading →

With seemingly no squalls in the vicinity we maintained the balanced full main and poled out jib sailplan. The auto performed brilliantly, grateful no doubt, for the extra grip afforded by the additional third rudder. Although the wind gusted to 30+ knots at times, she stayed relatively straight despite the building seas and the dyneema... Continue Reading →

After a rather downbeat missive yesterday, the new day brought a more positive outlook with sunshine, and no sign of squalls after some early scares. A full main (with preventer) and poled out Yankee proved to be an adequate sailplan and the auto steered to a steady wind angle with aplomb. A notable milestone was... Continue Reading →

The discovery today of bent brackets on the bow sprit has put a real dampener on the passage and our ability to make speed downwind. The assembly was definitely straight when replaced after the earlier repair, it must just have been excessive loads since then, probably with the second yankee in some squalls. The pictures... Continue Reading →

What a day! We became surrounded by black clouds and the radar confirmed that it was impossible to avoid a soaking at best so we dropped the twin Yankees in plenty of time and set a reefed main and waited. The deluge was of absolutely biblical proportions and we could only put the washboards in,... Continue Reading →