Back to Balance

After consulting in the training industry for a year I finally accepted that the Balance Learning www.balancelearning.co.uk elearning products were still amongst the best available and that Balance had a real future so I approached the current owner and after two months of negotiation bought it back. Another five months of reprogramming, re-writing and re-branding followed before I launched back onto the market with some new products and lots of new ideas. Not surprisingly many of my ideas come from the time I have spent sailing which led me back here. I learned a lot of good lessons on this crossing and I am hoping that I can now share them with other managers. This reads best as a story so if you get the chance read the October post below and then read from oldest to newest. I know many bloggers would like Google to add a reverse order feature for story blogs like this and I'd like to add my plea!

Chris' transatlantic challenge

A high stakes practical exercise in training and team management

Background to the story:
Over the past 20 years I have run companies in the UK and US training industry. I had a success with Xebec but in 2008 with Balance Learning I ran straight into the credit crunch and that was that.

So like many others I hit age 50 with the prospect of starting over again with a new business or a job and my confidence dented.

In the end I took a gamble that house prices would fall in 2008/9, sold my house, bought Hakuna Matata a 42ft Lagoon Catamaran and took my family on a trip halfway around the world and back. I have never made a better decision in my life.

After a summer and Autumn sailing from Southampton to Corfu, round the Greek Islands, to Italy and then back across the Med and to Gran Canaria via Madeira it was time to cross the big and scary Atlantic!

Kim and my two kids Jamie (11) and Alex (8) decided to go back to the UK and then fly out to meet me in St. Lucia. With limited Ocean Skipper experience I took the "easy" option and sailed with the ARC rally for the company and security of over 200 boats on the same route. I was joined by four friends with sailing experience and we had a fantastic time as you can see from my frind Ken's blog at http://www.atlanticrallyforcruisers.blogspot.com/

This blog is the story of the return transatlantic crossing as a lone boat in a big Ocean well North of the calm seas and gentle breezes we'd experienced on the ARC. By the time I reached St. Augustine in Florida I had completed over 11,000 miles as skipper, felt able to maintain and repair all the boat systems and parts and had encountered significant weather and sea conditions along the way.

So I was (I believed) ready to take on the challenge of the return crossing but with my family bound for Yellowstone and France before meeting me in Gibraltar there was the small matter of finding a crew.

Using a sailing website I offered three free places on a transatlantic sailing trip with no specific experience required. From the hundred or so volunteers I decided to select people who were looking to get personal growth or spiritual development from the trip rather than doing it for fun, experience or money.

My three crew members were:

• Jim - a French Canadian cameraman in his 50's with some experience as a skipper who wanted to try an Ocean crossing and see if a life of cruising was for him.
• Justin an engineer in his early 30's from Chicago who had experience as crew in races on the Great Lakes and who had just lost his job to the economy.
• Louise a Canadian teacher turned Oil industry project manager going for a summer sabatical working in France, she had only experienced lake sailing in a dinghy! - Brave girl.

I conducted interviews by phone and decided that these three would be good companions and crew for the trip. I knew it was a risk as we would be together for a long time in a small space in (possibly) high stress conditions - But what an interesting challenge in building a team.

These people are all very different, they know nothing about one another and all they know about me is from readng Ken's blog and a few phone conversations.

I will be spending the next four or five weeks with them crossing 3,800 miles of open Ocean in a small boat in Hurricane season (well technically).

To them I am captain Chris and whether we succeed and maintain harmony, disolve into anarchy or simply don't arrive is a high stakes practical exercise in training and team management - reality TV eat your heart out!

Day 33 Arrival in Gibraltar Winds F2-4W 105nm (part day)

Dawn, Orange light is breaking over the windmill dotted hills of Tarifa Point the southernmost tip of Spain 8 miles ahead. The lights of Africa, or more precisely Tangier are still visible but getting dimmer to starboard. It’s hard to distinguish the straights themselves yet as from this angle there is only a very small gap visible between Europe and Africa. I love times like this, I woke up early (not that with one thing and another I’d had much sleep) and relieved Louise. Now I get to enjoy this last dawn of the voyage on my own.

The night before last I spent 5 hours threading us through the freighters in the traffic separation scheme and since then except for fishing vessels all the traffic has been safely off to our right. To our complete amazement our fishy friends caught us up sometime yesterday (Honestly it was the same group, one has a distinctive white spot on his back) but they’ve gone now.

I read the crews blog yesterday: I know Jim has enjoyed aspects of the journey but it hasn’t been easy as he likes to be captain of his own ship. After a career as a freelancer he is not only used to being his own boss but probably has never been anything else. Justin and Louise on the other hand have clearly enjoyed the whole adventure and made good friends of one another – I understand they are now going on their travels together at least for a couple of weeks following Justin’s amazingly well researched and meticulous plan and I think they will carry good memories of this time for the rest of their lives.

We’ve just hit the current in the straights, it has got very choppy and we are doing 10 knots helped by a 2.5 knot current. Jim and Justin just got up complaining someone was having a party in the basement.




















We’re through the straights like a rocket and playing dodge the ferry as we come into Gibraltar Harbour. A few minutes later with fenders and lines attached we dock at Queensway Marina tie up and suddenly realise - that’s it, we’ve done it – we succeeded. We completed the equivalent of an eight hour flight in 33days. The things some people will do to avoid airports!

Jim found that he had to leave by 1:30pm to get his bus to Malaga so after getting the marina staff to take a picture of us together Jim got into a cab and with final goodbyes left us. Justin and Louise have gone up in the cable car to see the apes and the caves. We plan to go out for dinner tonight and they will leave in the morning.

I want to thank my fantastic crew Justin, Jim and Louise for their help, good humour and company. I’d happily travel with any of them again.

My personal journey has been different from the others and although arriving always leaves one a little flat I have enjoyed the voyage immensely. I must admit though I am pleased to have a short break from the responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of others.

I have also learned to write on this journey – not necessarily in terms of quality but certainly in terms of discipline and continuity. Thanks so much to those who wrote to me or the crew saying they liked and looked forward to their daily dose of life aboard.

For me it is time for a short nap then lots and lots of cleaning and polishing ready for my family on Tuesday.

Oh, and would I do this again? Well I have got some pretty huge commitments to live up to at home before I can even think about it – quite a challenge but then what’s life about if it isn’t facing challenges and if you can safely skipper a small boat with an unknown crew across the Atlantic then – well what can’t you do?

Anyone like to come?

Love to all for the last time

Captain Chris Horseman
Hakuna Matata moored Queensway Marina Gibraltar.

Day 32 36:32N 7:05W Winds F4-5 160nm

Tomorrow afternoon we will reach our ultimate destination - Gibraltar where we will part company, journey over and hopefuly mission accomplished. I decided that todays blog would be owned by my valued crew members and this is their account of their own journey's:

Louise

"Louise, ten minute warning". Uggh, eyes fly open and then I groan, heave myself out of bed, crawl unsteadily into my foulies and my way up to the cockpit where Jim will fill me in on the latest sail tactics for the 24, 3 or 6 hour watch. Sometimes a bugle call like they did in camp would be nice to wake you up 100% but espresso or our dream-inducing tea work well too - although I haven't been able to sleep properly at all since taking the tea last - had to start counting fish.

The days all seem to merge in together - Chris missed a log entry one day and no one could remember anything about that day except that something funny happened. So I'm just going to give a big old ramble about what's made an impression on me during this Transat trip.

For a prairie girl from Canada just used to sailing lasers on a lake, I'm beginning to love La Mer in all its attitudes: calm as milling glass, rippling with anger as a "storm's a brewin'" and monstrous with heaving
aqua-topped waves during higher winds. I also love how the sea's so
pregnant with tonnes of life: shy (with us) but magnificent whales covering their vast territories, dolphins, the cheerful and fun loving dogs of the sea, seabirds moguling over the waves in search of "hopping" flying fish, floating turtles on solo epic journeys, small but mighty man-o-war jellyfish, their sails bobbing willy-nilly across the huge ocean and schools of teeming fish, one of which has escorted us (and fed us) for days. This huge indomitable school has stayed with us through thick and thin, turning into the wind with us when changing sails, reversing with us as we practiced our man-over-board manoeuvre to save suicidal petrol can and even speeding up with us during higher winds.

Then at night you can see the fish streaming through the water in a luminous wake among the sparkly plankton which get agitated by our wave. You really get to know the night sky well after doing a whole month of night watches, whether or not you're going to have the comforting moon glow or at least Mars' smaller beam on the water and trying to pick out "city" constellations from a deep myriad of smaller or more distant stars.

Other memories I'll have will be of trying to make sense of celestial navigation, repeating French phrases after Michelle Thomas, reading Master and Commander and being glad flogging is on the way out, seeing Spanish Galleon wrecks on Azores charts, appreciating meals as major daily events, watching resourceful boat repair (a soldering operation, Chris completely buried in the engine a few times, reattaching mast cars during huge heaving waves, emptying a sulky head with an improvised pump), seeing surprising culinary creations come out of the galley (pot bread, apple pie and flan), and being amazed that two trolley-fulls of groceries can get ferreted away so well. I'll remember that Jim likes to be very thorough in what he does, have everything really well done, even pancakes and toast.... J And Justin likes to educate everyone with surprise man-overboard manoeuvres late at night. Chris talks like characters in my old Enid Blyton books, "I'm looking for the grottiest rag to change the filter..." or "We can't get any more wind worth a sausage out of that sail...."

I haven't told Chris yet, especially as he was recently congratulating himself on not losing a single crew member at port, that in the dry heaves of seasickness during the first leg to Bermuda I was entertaining thoughts of bailing out on the small island. These thoughts were very brief though and now I'm sad that the trip is almost over as we're sailing past the south of Spain towards Gibraltar. Time to get back to real life as a landlubber yet again.

Jim

Chris wants to get this out ASAP, which is good, because then I don't have to write so much.

This trip was different for me than my two crewmates, as I had already done passages , but just not for so long at a time. For me it was fulfilling part of my "bucket list" something that I have wanted to do for a long while now, and it is done.

There were wonders of the sea to see along the way. Dolphins at least every other day. I even saw some at night, their wake disturbing the phytoplankton, and creating a green luminescence in the water. There were also sea turtles Portugese Man O'War as well as trash seen on a daily basis. We even spotted a couple of bottles with messages in them.

What I will miss most however ,will be sitting in the "chair" during my watches. I was amazed at how thoughts were lucid and freeflowing. There I had the chance to think how my golden years might play out (I have my work cut out) as well as to think about my family and friends that I missed very much along with the most wonderful wife in the world, whom I love dearly.



Justin

The first thing that comes to my mind with the thought of returning to the real world is, 'Will my feet be able to accept going back to hiding in shoes?'. This is the longest my feet have ever gone without being in shoes
and they were happy to have the freedom. They are calloused, dry, and
peeling skin, but they are happy. This trip has also given my mind and soul a similar sense of freedom and contentment. What I had hoped to gain from this trip was a chance to take a break from the real world by going on a short adventure. I have achieved that goal and more. This trip gave me a chance to look at my life backwards and forwards. I looked at where I have been, what I have done, and who I was as well as where I want to go, what I want to do, and who I want to be. I feel a sense of renewed energy to finally embark on job searching to replace the job I lost in April and going back to school for my masters degree.

What I have learned and seen on this trip have been vast and exciting. I
have seen two 'moonbows', leaping squid, dozens of dolphins, fish, and jellyfish, and a number of satellites pass through the night sky. This was the first time I have seen the phosphorescence of plankton in the wake of a boat and it is mesmerizing. We could also see it off of the fish that had
followed us for two days as we approached Spain. The contrails off of the
fish looked like a dim version of the fireworks that stream gold light and whistle as they descend. It was very beautiful. These 'fire-fly' like plankton would change in density from night to night and, because the boat's toilets use sea water, on night's of high density if one turned out the bathroom lights while flushing the head one would see sparkles of light swirling around the bowl.

In the end, my feet are happy, I am happy, and my memories are happy.
_________________________________
Tomorrow the big finish?
Penultimately yours Chris.

Day 31 36:37N 09:53W Winds F1-3 132nm (23hrs)

Run since noon 130nm Pos'n 36:37N 09:53W.

It was "film night" last night, "The Sentinel" with Keiffer Southerland and Michael Douglass. Watched by Justin and Louise in the saloon and listened to by Jim from the helm station as he was on watch. I went to bed early as I have done something painful to my hip and felt sleep might be the cure.



For two nights and two days we have been surrounded by our fishy friends swimming along at between 5 and 6 knots. Today they seem to be even more numerous and where we had just silver grey we also now have silver blue. It was quite disconcerting when during lunch we started hearing a muted thump every few minutes and when we looked behind the boat each one was accompanied by a patch of blood in the water. Much to the delight of the many seabirds now following us some of our fish flock are being hit by the propellers because they are running out of space under the boat! Shortly after this I saw a very large form in the water of six feet or more in length, also blue silver slowly heading away from us having I suspect also just had his lunch. When it had gone the impacts stopped so I guess the fish were all crowded in between our hulls hiding.



We are still motoring, although with the Genoa up so we are making about 6.5knots but getting through a lot of fuel. Today as we were adding yet more a 20litre diesel can fell overboard and gave us a chance to practice our man-overboard (no one had the instant whit to yell "Can overboard") drill which we had not done since I lost and recovered my hat off Bermuda.



Louise wanted to try out my Pan bread recipe and as a change added parmesan and olives which was very nice with tinned sardines and salmon. We are getting to the end of our lunchtime food stocks although have enough for the next and last couple of dinners.



I have changed tonight's watch rota so I will be on from midnight to cross the traffic separation scheme of Cabo St. Vincent at right angles to the large commercial traffic. This is about 20 miles wide so will take about four hours and at the end of it we will only be about 13 miles from land and easily able to see the lights of Europe for the first time. We will then head direct towards the straights keeping North East of the main shipping routes and trying to reach the entrance a couple of hours before high tide in Gibraltar so we can go in with the tide. The straights can in places have a current of more than 6 knots going East and 4 West so you need to time it right or you can end up going backwards although at the right time going East you can fly through. If we can't make the morning tide on the 5th then we will go in on the 11pm tide and Jim will have a mad dash to Malaga for his flight in the morning where if we make the morning tide he is planning to get there the night before. At the moment we don't have a marina berth but I am hoping Kim can arrange one tomorrow from the UK otherwise we will have to anchor at the head of the bay up towards La Linea once we have checked in, fuelled up and dropped off Jim.



I find the current in the Straights of Gibraltar quite interesting, as I remember it occurs aside from the tide because evaporation from the Mediterranean occurs three times faster than water enters the sea from its rivers so it is constantly being topped up by the Atlantic.



Right now it is 8pm and we are starting to see on our radar shipping traffic up ahead in the TSS. We will be using our bright navigation and steaming lights tonight instead of our normal masthead tricolour as we want to be seen more than we want to conserve power. We will also have white hand flares and our 5 million candlepower light to hand in case we need to attract someone's attention or for some reason come to an inglorious stop in the wrong place. As usual this will probably be lots of preparation for something that doesn't happen.



Tomorrow will be our last but one blog.



Night all

Day 29 & 30 37:06N 13:19W Winds F2-3NW 298nm (2 days)

Ralph made us an excellent lunch today and I think he is going to make a good supper too! I haven't mentioned Ralph before because he was the fish we ate rather than the cook which was me. Early this morning we realised we were absolutely surrounded by good sized fish. When I put my underwater camera in the water we could see they were baby Tunny and if we slowed down they slowed, if we turned they turned. The working hypothesis was that they had decided we were the great mother Tunny and the central tenet of their fish religion was that we would protect them. Boy were they wrong, we had lures over the side lickety spit and hauled in a 20 pound fish straight away. Justin noticing that the fish hadn't been put off by this and were still with us said perhaps they hadn't noticed or had just said, "Where's Ralph, anybody seen him?" from which point our catch became Ralph. Our fishing policy is that we only catch enough to eat but it was very tempting to keep a rod over the side for fun.

Louise despatched Ralph with my fish club which has on it "Welcome to Gran Canaria" which for some reason I find hilarious. Justin did the euchy bit with the filet knife and a finger and I bread crumbed and fried him (Ralph, not Justin).



Lunch was a strange mix as I had already prepared fruit bread and Louise had made Apple coleslaw. For once my pan bread worked out and I now know why I've had trouble with it on this trip. It's an easy recipe, 4 cups flour, 1tsp salt, 1tsp sugar, 1tsp yeast, handful of dried fruit. Mix in water to make a soft dough in a medium non-stick saucepan, let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes, cook on low heat for 20 minutes, turn over and brown the top. Easy except that I've been too clever and used a cup measure for the flour whereas previously we had estimated 2 cups to the mug which it turns out means I had been using too much flour and 3 real world cups is enough. Anyway it was a strange but nonetheless a very good lunch.

Just before our fishing excitement we had two freighters in view and I called everyone up for a recognition lesson. In just over a day we will be entering one of the busiest seaways in the world and it is important that day or night the person on watch can tell what they are seeing, which way it is going and what to do about it. I have been over the principles before with everyone but up to now one ship at 2 miles every 4 or 5 days has been news and in 24 to 48 hours these guys are going to have to get used to seeing up to 100 ships at a time (Gibraltar itself) on the radar some of which will be anchored, some passing safely and some an actual hazard. Also, as once we get into waters where high speed ferries (35-40knots) operate decisions have to be made very fast.



First question, "Justin which way is that ship going?", "East". "Ah, I mean which way is it going relative to us?", "Away". "Ah, see the white hi-rise bit at the back, is that turned towards us or away". "Sort of towards us, so it is crossing". "Correct, what would you see at night - Louise?". "A red light", "No, you would see its green starboard light and two white ones, low at the front and high at the back, who has right of way?". "We do because we are sailing", "No, I'm afraid that's the wrong answer, he does because a) he is bigger, b) he won't suffer any damage whatsoever if he hits us and c) the watch officer is having a bacon sandwich in the dining room and hoping he can hear the radar alarm from there if he hasn't actually fallen asleep". "Finally, what is happening if you can see a red light on the right, a green light on the left, a white light in the middle and it is maintaining a constant bearing to you - and what do you do?" Everyone, "It is coming straight for you and you get out of the way". "Correct, change course 30 degrees and if it is within 2 miles call me".



Either tonight or tomorrow night depending on where we are I am going to take myself out of the watch rota so I can do some of each watch with everyone until they are really switched on, then get them to call me so there are two pairs of eyes when the target numbers get bigger than four or five.



Crossing over the traffic separation schemes of Cabo Trafalgar and if necessary in the straights I will definitely be up, as with a slow boat like ours you often have to go quite close to the stern of crossing ships in order to have enough time to cross the scheme at right angles before the next one comes the other way. This is my third transit of the area but my first without AIS which does the identification of speed and distance for you - so four eyes and lots of Red Bull.



I'm sorry I missed the blog yesterday, other than the fact it was Canada day and Louise insisted we hoisted a flag to celebrate (Jim fortunately persuaded her out of the "distress" code flag and we spent the day with "Answer" hoisted) no-one can remember anything about it. We have been motoring along for about 48 hours in a mirror calm sea and it is frankly boring. Justin and I did try Juggling and Louise has a photo of us with 6 Oranges simultaneously in the air between us. Other than that we all read lots.

We just had a pod of Risso's dolphins (Black with no pointed nose) pass about 400 yards away, shame as they are interesting to see up close - I bet if they knew we were surrounded by their dinner (now dozens if not hundreds of fish) they'd have paid us a closer visit.

A mirror sea, a cloudless sky - must be time for some sunbathing.

Day 28 to 37:32N 19:30W Wind F2-3 142nm

There have been times when I thought if it was all over right now it's been a wonderful life. So many things that as an underachieving (Dyslexic) school kid I never thought possible - great marriage, brilliant kids, amazing career, raced cars, flown planes, had a whole year sailing the boat of my dreams and diving with my family in places as close to Paradise as you can get. But inevitably between these times you forget what a lucky person you are and coming towards the end of both our journey across the Atlantic and of my sabbatical with the dawning reality of traffic congestion, grey winter days, a new job or business and selling the boat in the middle of a recession my mental barometer is forecasting a low - so what I need is a plan.

With five days to go (Justin says he considers the 700 miles a short hop where before it would have been huge) we're all starting to plan. Jim will be jumping straight on a plane to see his wife, Louise is going to work in a vineyard, Justin is doing the Bull Run in Pamplona and I'm planning a last glorious five weeks around Southern Spain, the Balearics and France before leaving Haku in Port Napoleon for sale and going back to real life. I like Justin's plan, sounds like the ultimate adrenaline rush, what a great way to top off his break - (or to break his top off?). I just hope he already told his mother (as otherwise I just did).

It was a clear tonight and as I came on watch at 3am Louise who had been studying the star charts was able to point out Deneb, Vega, Polaris, Cassiopeia and the very clear Milky Way. The wind was rising so I put up the sails, cut the engine power to 50amps and shut off the generator. Sailing again, blessed silence.

I like to believe that in the event the US turns off the GPS system I'd still get where I'm going

And I tried about 20 times just before dawn to get a good star sight on Polaris but first the horizon was too faint and then the star was. I like doing this because just reading the elevation off the sextant gives you a pretty reasonable Latitude fix without doing any calculation. For some reason on the West bound trip in December Polaris seemed brighter and this was easier - back to noon sights.

We were still getting the little hesitation when the generator started.
Pretty much the only thing I didn't change during the service was the fuel filter (not due) and as I had a spare I fitted it. Hey presto! No hesitation (so far).

Burgers a la Louise for dinner last night, complete with Bacon, Cheese, Coleslaw, Tomatoes, Curried roast Carrots and naturally in Justin's case Jerk Sauce. Turkey wraps and soup planned for lunch. Justin just said he had watermelon on the brain - when not much is happening you get a bit food fixated!

Day 26 and 27 37:37N 22:26W Wind from F2-7 over period 142nm

We reached Sao Miguel within a few minutes of the fuel dock closing. We have used 100 litres in just over a day so it is worth the overnight wait to fill up. The engine has been running fine over the last few hours and the oil filter is definitely correct so I think we'll just fuel and go.

Ponta Delgarda is very different to Horta and if we'd just come here we'd have missed the charm of the Azores and seen only a modern European city. There are two marinas, one of which is obviously the hip and happening place on the island with bars, clubs and live music and the other where we are moored at the reception dock is older and quieter. We'd just had dinner (the Flan worked out fine) so went in search of beer and internet access to update our weather information. We found a nice lively bar in the new marina with constant Michael Jackson videos on the TV and even some patrons in Jackson look-alike clothes presumably as a tribute.

Overnight with heavy rain, strong winds and surge we were glad to be comfortably moored rather than being battered at sea. On fuelling at 9am we discovered the local credit card/ATM system was down and had to have a whip-round to raise 100 Euros in cash as I'd used almost all mine on fuel in Horta. Chris our weather forecaster had suggested we might wait here for a day as quite strong winds were expected but the predicted levels were within our limits and as anyone who has sailed with me knows I like a good blow.

So we set off in 20knot winds and a fine grey drizzle, after a few hours the wind was getting towards 30knots and seas were increasing so we decided to put in another reef. Normal drill, set up the lines (and in this case furl the Genoa), turn into wind etc. However, with waves coming up to 10 feet and at an angle to the wind it was a struggle for Jim to hold the boat into wind and we discovered that after a bit of flapping about we were missing the two top "cars" from the main sail track (these hold the head of the sail to the mast) The pin had come out of the top one on the way from Horta and I'd forgotten to change it in Sao Miguel. With the sail fully hoisted this might still be OK as the tension from the halyard would keep the head of the sail in place but with two reefs and lots of wind I could see the potential for the sail to break further cars like a zipper coming undone. With winds now at 36 knots we turned and ran downwind under power to give Justin and me time to fit the two spare cars (I'd been carrying these since one failed in Malta a year ago). This involved sliding all the remaining cars out of the mast track and dropping the mainsail off the mast. This was a fight as they are under tension and because we have no outhaul it couldn't be made easier without unrigging the clew which would take more time and be a pig to re-rig. We were able to keep the bulk of the sail tied in the sail bag so we didn't have lots of flapping canvas to contend with as we slid in the two new cars, fitted the pins that were still attached to the sail into the cars and put back the rest of the sail.

This time I changed our positions so I had the helm, Jim the halyard, Louise would pay out the reef lines and Justin help the sail around the lazy jacks on the coach roof. Bit windy but no problem and we were back on track towards Gibraltar.

Good speeds the rest of the day, even once surfing at 13knots through the water with (2 reefs and 80% Genoa) which is the fastest I've been. We are in something of a cross sea and now running at 150 degrees to the apparent wind Gull winged (with the Genoa the opposite side to the main).

If any new 420 0wners haven't tried running like this with a preventer and an extra Genoa sheet I've put in how we do this at the bottom.

I cooked a traditional spaghetti carbonara tonight, or rather was the executive chef. The wind and sea were keeping me a bit busy so Louise and Justin did most of the work while provided the recipe and supervised then did the final mix with the raw-egg, Parmesan, onion, bacon and the spaghetti (the egg cooks from the residual heat as you toss it together). This is a dish I am quite proud of and was appalled when Justin poured Jerk barbecue sauce on it before tasting it - only one word for this and it was right on the bottle.

A large wave occasionally gives our stern a knock sideways and hand steering is required to keep the Genoa from collapsing when this happens. The Raymarine autopilot is very good particularly with the Giro fitted but it can't anticipate the boat turning and compensate like a helmsman can. I've swapped watches with Louise tonight so I can handle the worst of the winds.
By the time she comes on at midnight it should be all quiet and will probably stay that way until Wednesday or Thursday.

It has been a peaceful night and we're once again the "Motor Vessel" Hakuna Matata.

Gull winging
To sail downwind Gull winged I use an extra sheet on the Genoa rigged through a block on the centre cleat and back to the port (in this case) winch and a preventer (just a 12mm rope) attached to the shackle of the mainsheet block (the one at the end of the boom) which runs through a block on the starboard centre cleat and then outside the railings (but inside the
shroud) to be tied off on the back cleat. When we rig this we loosen the mainsheet right out so the preventer can be tied off easily and then tighten the mainsheet until no more than one batten is touching the shroud. This also has the benefit when working against the preventer of acting like a downhaul and tensioning the mainsail which can improve sailing speeds with the apparent wind anywhere behind the beam. I have been told that the Lagoon moratoria on running at more than 150 to the apparent is because a preventer is required for safety and this is considered too complex for the charter market. Running gull winged like this is effective right up to 170 but if you are using the autopilot it needs to be set relative to the wind (I usually use 150) and not having backstays I pay very strict attention to the loading on the shrouds and mast and am well reefed at anything over 15knots - this is in any case usually a light winds strategy.

Day 25 to 37:56N 26:37W 103nm (Part day)

Our plan yesterday afternoon was to leave at slack water and as expected the two boats rafted up to us (we tie to the dock and they tie to us) duly engaged their bow thrusters, pushed the fronts of their boats out and left.

Yippee for them, we don't have a bow thruster. Our plan was that Justin would tow our bow out with the dinghy and we'd pick him up in the harbour. In the event our 8hp Yamaha and non-rib inflatable against a 15kt side wind was about as effective as him swimming out in a rubber ring with the tow rope between his teeth.

After keeping lots of boats and people waiting the helpful marina staff found us a powerful tow boat that tied to our middle cleat and pulled us out sideways until we could engage our engines. Although there wasn't actually applause as we left I am sure we irritated at least a couple of Germans and a Scotsman.

Finally we were out in the bay when a little tug boat came right at us hooting a horn and gesticulating past the breakwater where we could just see the superstructure of a gas tanker heading our way. As there was nowhere else to stop we had to hang back and wait for half an hour until it had swung around and docked before we could anchor and hoist in the dinghy.

The crossing from Horta to Pico was charming with fantastic views of the mountains and both shores as well as yet another pod of very large dolphins. Louise laid in the sun on top of the bimini (roof at the back above where we steer from and eat) while the rest of us sat and watched the amazing volcano on Pico until sunset when we ate our supper of mushroom soup, crackers and cold cuts around the outside table.

As night approached the generator gave an odd little hesitation and when I checked felt hotter than I remember it around the oil filter and V-belt. I had already checked the oil level and belt tension after it had run for a couple of hours, but an instant feeling of guilt - what have I done wrong kicked in. I had switched to a theoretically correct STP S16 oil filter that was noticeably smaller than the previous one and set the V belt tension (10mm stretch at 10Kilo pressure between the pulleys) with the engine cold. Should I have rejected the filter? Could the belt pulleys have expanded? As we had a sailing wind for a while I let the generator cool and moved our indoor/outdoor thermometer so that the outside probe was against the side of the engine cabinet so we would be able to monitor at least its relative temperature. We have the option of either stopping at Pico tonight or San Miguel tomorrow night if there is any trouble.

I started the timer on my watch and we ran the generator a half hour on and half off for two hours. This seemed OK so we went back to constant running (there is no wind so we need the engines). The problem hasn't repeated and the maximum temperature no longer seems out of line but I have slightly loosened the V belt just in case. The prudent thing to do is stop at San Miguel overnight tomorrow, refuel and try to get a filter from the generator manufacturer or call them to OK the one I am using. This will also mean that we have enough fuel to motor all the way if necessary as we are expecting a lot of light wind days.

I woke up during the night, looked at my watch and seeing 5:50 got dressed and ready to relieve Louise at 6. On my way from the cabin I realised it was still dark out and looking again discovered that the 5:50 was the stopwatch time and it was in fact 3:20 - Duh, back to bed.

Lunch time, Jim made cinnamon rolls to go with Justin's Tuna and fruit salad. We also had our daily dolphin visit.

For dinner Justin is making sweet and sour chicken and Flan which Americans (or at least Justin) pronounce "flahn". The Flan is a bit of a risk as:
Justin has never made it before; the instructions are in Portuguese which none of us speak and we have no ramekins so he is using coffee mugs. I think the English equivalent is crème caramel.

We are one hour from San Miguel now and might just make the fuel dock before it shuts. Time for me to re-read the pilotage ready to take her in.

Day 24 Horta

Friday 26th June Oh, my god I’ve got to change the V belt on the generator! I was hoping the boat would be sold and gone before this devilish piece of contortion and knuckle scraping was required. Anyone who read my Marinating in Marin piece in January knows that even tightening the darned thing is nearly impossible without three hands and a dislocated shoulder. None the less with a 7am start I finished a full service and belt change by 3pm with only minor injuries and no-one actually harmed by the string of expletives emanating from somewhere behind the engine. Chris Tibbs’ forecast and the GRIB files shows we are OK to go today so Jim and Justin have refuelled and Louise has got us some last minute essentials (including 2kilos of caustic soda in case the holding tanks back up again). Jim and I are having a quick coke in Peters bar while I do this before we engage in trying to extricate the boat from the two people rafted outside us and the three each in front and behind. We are hoping to tow out the bow with the dinghy and then be on our way. Next blog underway tomorrow I hope. Last leg, 1016 miles with a mix of some high and some very light winds. We hope for 7 days but it could be 8. Wish us luck.

Day 23 Horta Marina Azores

Thursday 25th
There wasn’t much to report for Thursday, it was grey and rainy. I’d hoped to hike around the caldera but it was too wet so we re-provisioned at the local Hyper (by Azores standards) market then got a new winch handle.

Dinner at Peter’s bar was good though crowded, steaks all round except for Louise who had Tuna. The others all bought T-shirts from there and as they have some good ones I will be back tomorrow after I have serviced the generator and re-fuelled.

Thursday night sitting in the Marina Bar getting updated weather I was treated to a Monty Python-esque scene between a Scotsman and two Germans lambasting how loud and crass the English were in bars. Apparently some English people had come into a bar they frequented and ordered 28 Gin and Tonics and then complained when they didn’t arrive quickly, disturbing other patrons. This tirade was carried out at top of voice with at one point the Scot standing up and yelling “freedom” in a near scream which ended all speech in the bar for some minutes. Apparently this related to English tyranny over North Sea oil revenue (The equivalent of which has just been donated by our Scottish chancellor/Prime Minister to our banks so they don’t go bust maintaining their management bonus schemes). Fortunately the whole scene was so bizarre it wasn’t particularly annoying to me as the only Englishman present. I was never enlightened as to whether four tired Englishmen coming off a boat ordered 7 gin and tonics each or whether it was the other way around.

Day 22 Horta Marina

Wednesday dawned but I didn’t see it, in fact because of the Capirinas (and a few beers) the first thing I saw was Jim telling me it was nearly the afternoon and that he needed my help with emails to get his flights changed. Jim has decided to move his flight to the 6th and my first concern was that this was tight if we had any weather delays. A cup of coffee and internet access in Peter’s yielded the information that bad weather was expected to cross our path but a window was open to leave on Friday (not before) that should get us into Gibraltar in perhaps 8 days, the winds being first strong, then very light. This leaves 2 days spare so although still tight Jim decided to make his changes and with the help of my tablet PC on which you can write and sign things this was accomplished. Using some paints I bought yesterday Louise (with assistance from Justin) painted a superb Hakuna Matata logo on the dock next to the boat with me as Pumba (wearing sunglasses) and the others as Timones (Pictures of this and Horta on the blog site tomorrow www.horsemanhakunamatata.blogspot.com ). I’ve had done a few boat jobs, Jim had a walk and Louise and Justin have gone off for a hike - a lazy, easy day which is probably what we all needed ready for the next leg.

Day 21 to Horta Azores Wind F2-3NNW 110nm part day

On Monday afternoon we were accompanied for a while by the largest group of dolphins we have seen (at least 40). I expressed my amazement as I joined the crew on the bow that this group appeared to be making clicking and buzzing noises just like in Flipper. I couldn’t work out why this amused the others until I eventually realised these were coming from Justin. What a droll lad he is, apparently a favourite companion on trips to the zoo.

Before going to bed I gave Louise a very thorough briefing on the final part of our run to Horta as I knew she would be the one to sight land on her watch. We agreed that she would alter course as required to stay one mile off of Fail until 6am when I woke up to take us into harbour. In the end I woke up earlier and everyone wanted to get up and see our landfall.

Fail is very pretty even in the grey morning light. It looks a bit like Hobbiton in Lord of the Rings, a Crayolla green landscape with tiny fields divided by hedges all over the hills. As you approach the East end of the island there is a narrow isthmus across which you can see part of Horta before rounding the end of the island and approaching the harbour. As we passed an outgoing ferry and rounded the harbour wall Horta appeared fully and very quaint and pretty it is too set on the hillside with painted houses, a castle and marina.

In my mind’s eye Horta was a sleepy backwater visited by a few yachts and existing off fishing and tourism. I thought we’d pull up to the fuel or reception dock, fill the tanks and have a nice berth to ourselves. Our first problem was finding our way through the many yachts at anchor close enough to see that the reception dock was occupied by yachts rafted three deep as was every other scrap of space in sight. After a couple of false starts we anchored not far from the harbour entrance and took the dinghy in to clear customs and speak to the marina staff.

All the formalities were quick and simple, and as a large catamaran was leaving later it was suggested we should get some coffee on land then move the boat to the dock. We went and discovered Peter’s cafe like many thousands of yachtsmen before us and were pleased at getting 3 coffees and a juice for less than 3 Euros. Peters doubles as a scrimshaw museum and yachtie hangout and is covered with insignia, flags and artefacts from hundreds of yachts. In fact the need to make a mark of your being here seems to affect every yacht that visits and most choose to paint a picture on the dockside, buildings or walls around the harbour area. As old ones wear out new ones are painted on top of them. Many are works of art, some are works of too much alcohol.

A visit to the office of tourism set us up with information on tonight’s and tomorrow’s festival activities, so after cleaning the boat and arranging our laundry we set off in a hired car to see the Philharmonic, the illusionist and the folk dancing promised for 7pm. Apparently, times can be flexible on Horta and we had time for some dinner before things got going at 9pm. I don’t know what happened to the Philharmonic as the first thing we saw was the illusionist who hypnotised one person after another for about two incomprehensible hours only leavened by several very strong Capirinas for Jim, Justin and I (Louise was driving) and some nice cake. The next act was a band of people with very small guitars to which accompaniment many of the crowd got up and danced in a way not very different from our country dancing at home. The quality and scope of the entertainment left me believing that the missing act was more likely to be Phil with his harmonica than the orchestra we had expected but the local colour and charm of the event made for a surprisingly fun night and we got back to the boat at 1am.

Day 20 to 38:29N 30:47W Wind F2-3N 146nm

There are lots of things they don't teach you when you take your captain's license or equivalent. Working with a crew a bit of management psychology would be useful, this you have to pick up as you go along or take from your career in the real world. One thing I have learned is that you have to wake up well. In theory this is no problem, you spring lightly out of bed reaching simultaneously for wet weather gear, head-torch and lifejacket (or in one very obviously urgent case on the last trip absolutely nothing and appear at the helm mother naked) and ask what you can help the crewmember on watch with. This could be an unidentified radar contact coming towards you, a change in wind speed or direction a malfunction of equipment or pretty much anything else. Standing orders are to wake the captain for certain specific things or in any case where you are not sure what to do. I've never had a problem with this the first or second time it happens but just occasionally you get woken every single time that you fall fast asleep and the fifth time there is a strong tendency to yell "What the **** is it now!". If you do this then no one is going to wake you up until they are in real trouble and it's too late to do anything. Last night I had to really concentrate to wake up and deal with each situation as it came and not get grumpy (My dwarf name). We had ships, possible ships, squalls, wind up, wind down, wind moved, plotter rebooting every five minutes and as it got light Whales. Although I tried my best to be 'captain perfect' clearly by 3 the cracks were showing and Saint Louise, bless her didn't wake me up for my 3-6 watch until I woke up myself at 3:45. Having had 75 minutes of uninterrupted sleep was enough to get back to proper and cheerful function.

The whales were several hundred yards away, brown and with a vertical narrow spout. It wasn't easy to tell their size but my book says the spout is a Fin whale. These are really big and we look forward to seeing some closer. We see some form of marine mammal pretty much every day now and the cry of "dolphins" or "turtle" is not necessarily followed by everyone rushing to the bow, although most times we do and for whales I always will.

I gave a cloud class yesterday as we had an amazing sky with eight or more cloud types. As a kid I thought clouds were: fluffy, layered, wispy, rainy and mixtures of the above. Twenty years of Gliding, flying and now sailing education has taught me this was essentially correct but people are much more impressed if you know the names and what they foretell. Right now we can see stratus clouds above us which foretell rain (the clue being that just beyond them it's absolutely hissing down in dark grey sheets). So we are about to get a soaking.

A fantastic lunch from Jim, orange and apple pancakes with crispy bacon. Also, a very strange lunch time conversation about chocolate. Apparently, there is a new product in Canada about which people are raving, a chocolate and bacon bar!

93 miles to Horta, so Tuesday breakfast on land.

Day 19 to 38:23N 33:46W Wind F2-3SSE-NNE 123nm (23hrs as time zone changed)

123 logged today in 23 hrs which translates to 128 in 24 which is OK given the much lower winds.

A blog reader emailed yesterday to suggest that it might help Jim and Justin get more sleep when it was rough if I was to bungee them in or use a sheet tucked in tightly over both of them. I mentioned the sheet idea to Justin who thinks it would only be really effective if I also read them a bedtime story.

At some point we must not have been properly facing into wind when raising or lowering the sail as we have ripped the stitching on two of the webbing loops to which the lazy jacks attach. The lazy jacks are lines which catch the sail as it is lowered and make it easier to furl neatly into the lazy bag on the boom which can then be fastened with clips. Without these the sail will just plonk down on the coach roof and have to be tied to the boom. In high winds it is safer if we can reef or quickly put the sail into the lazy bag without having two people high up and exposed during the process. So, essentially this meant somebody was going to have to do some stitching. On questioning the crew to ascertain their experience I found that: Jim conveniently had not a clue what to do but his wife would be happy to help if here, Justin had experience sewing on a button and Louise had made an oven mitt in a home economics. It was clear that I was at least going to have to do enough to get Louise and Justin my ready volunteers up to speed.

With palm, needles and sail thread in hand we sat on the coach roof as I demonstrated my extremely untidy backstitch and how to use the leather palm to push the thick needles through the canvas. I did the first of three lines of stitching and handed over to Louise who completed hers so much faster I was really impressed but felt I should just check to see it was OK. "Louise, did you overlap the stitching at all?" "er, no, should I have?" "Well, this is more of a wavy line than stitching, so if you pull on the end it all just comes out." Thanks to my Mum for making sure I had some idea how to sew. Anyway, Louise is not slow at picking things up and she and Justin completed the remaining work in just the amount of time it took me to clean out under the cooker where a pizza tray had rusted after last night's water ingress and prepare dinner.

Over the course of today we have seen several fenders in the water and with the sails down this evening I motored up to one on which the words "Black Pearl" were clearly written. Spooky! I sincerely hope no one has recently sunk in a boat of this name.

My Midnight to 3 watch now and we are changing time zones again (a bit late) to UT-1 so I am going to go to 3:30 then wake Justin so we each get a 30 minute shorter watch.

An excellent lunch from Louise showed great originality given the paucity of our remaining stores. We had apple and orange salad with mayonnaise and grated coconut, Tuna salad with Smoked paprika and onion and Nachos with melted cheese and hot salsa.

The wind has just picked up and we are once again a sailing vessel rather than a motorboat. Although Louise found it pantie wettingly funny when I said we still were getting "not a sausage" out of the Genoa.

Now, what shall I read the boys at bedtime?

Day 18 to 38:19N 36:10W Wind F3-5S 152nm

A very wet night indeed particularly for Justin and I. After putting towels around the floors and doorway we decided we couldn't stop water coming in unless we shut the saloon door which I don't like to do with someone outside as they can't shout for assistance. During my watch I was reduced to staring out of a narrow slit in visibility close to zero. All I could see was the rain and the radar which showed there was rain all around me which I already knew. How I regret my AIS being out of action as it shows oncoming ships regardless of rain and visibility and how glad I am that no freighters showed up in our path last night.

After the rain and good run of the last few days the wind has dropped and backed so we are now close hauled and going into the swell. Since 4am our speed has been dropping and at 10:30 we were below my magic number of 5 knots. Although this is purely arbitrary I had decided that below this sailing speed we would run the engines and use them to maintain 6.5 knots. Louise and I are overjoyed, not just because we will get to Horta faster but because each of us has an engine underneath our berth and the heat from them dries out our cabins and means we have a nice warm comfortable bed to get into. The guys in front have to make do with shared body heat.

About this time on a passage you start to look forward to the delights of shore such as a laundry with a dryer and long hot marina showers. We have just over 370 miles to go and enough fuel to motor all the way if necessary so we hope to be there late Monday night or early Tuesday morning providing we don't get full Easterlies and a very big Easterly swell.

By the way, I'd like to stress here that I'm not whinging. Quite remarkablyin my experience there hasn't been a single whine or whinge from anybody during the whole of the trip. Even Justin and Jim who have at times been uncomfortable have just slept in the saloon or grinned and bore it. I wonder how everybody would have done if they had been surrounded by their nearest and dearest? Or, this might be quite an interesting set-up for a reality TV show. You take 8 of the kinds of people who like to go on these shows (with all the wonderful personality traits this implies) and one qualified (strict and demanding) captain, you give them minimum training and then put them under stress perhaps crossing the Pacific - fear, high wind, constant violent movement, cramped conditions, having to cook and be on night watches. You fill the boat with TV cameras linked to a satellite and convert one of the heads to a diary room. Each week one of the crew is ceremonially pushed off the boat in a lifejacket to be picked up and interviewed by a second craft. It could be called Captain Bligh, which strangely is what Jim calls me. I can't think why.

Entirely by luck we should be in Faial for their official national holiday, the feast of St. John on 24th June so will hopefully see some local colour (on the other hand you can bet the shops will be shut!). We all need a break from the movement and depending on the forecast may wait out the Easterly winds before setting off on the next and last leg of the voyage. My journal for July 2nd 2008 shows us passing Gibraltar, it seems an amazing coincidence that we are likely to arrive in Gibraltar on the same day one year and 14,000 miles later.

What an amazing year it's been.

Day 17 to 38:08N 39:09W Wind F5-6S 200nm

It's 9pm and we're doing 9 knots, we have 28 knots of apparent wind 60 degrees off the bow, 2 reefs in the main and 80% Genoa - it's cold, must be the windchill. The bow dips into a wave, big splash, no problem, tilt head forward and spray hood deflects water harmlessly away behind you. I don't know why I don't like wearing the spray hood; it's a combination of claustrophobia and concern that you can't keep a good watch through the little eye slit. I usually only use it when it rains. Anyway at 9 knots one packet of spray turns out to be enough to entirely fill two long rubber seaboots and soak a rather tasteless pair of flowery boxer shorts. I put the hood up and empty the boots. My head is now quite warm, other than that I might as well be sitting here in swimming trunks. No problem though, Justin is on in a minute, in fact here he comes. He hasn't got his spray hood up, should I say something? I don't know, after all personal experience is an important part of this trip. Justin should have an easier ride as I've turned back on to our earlier course after taking a few miles off the cross track error. I have been handsteering while it is light so I can head more into the swell and turn if necessary to minimise the impact if there is a particularly big wave coming. I am sure Jim and Justin will be able to do this but I haven't yet taught Louise how to hand steer with the compass. Anyway, none of us can do this in the dark and its important people get some rest.

On a regular map a straight line between two nearby places represents the most direct route. A 1,000 mile straight line on a large scale map is in fact a curve on the surface of the earth and not the most direct route. If you follow a single compass bearing from start to finish you will be tracing a curve on the map but travelling in a straight line across the globe. Regular maps are Mercator projections and the lines from top to bottom (Longitude) are straight when in reality they should be curved. The map I am using is a gnomic projection with curved longitude lines so I can draw a straight line from point to point knowing it is the shortest route. Anyway, this afternoon I plotted our actual position on the chart (from the GPS -too cloudy for a noon sight with the sextant, not to mention that I can be 50+ miles out in bouncy conditions) and drew a line from our position this morning to it. I then measured the direction of the line with a Portland plotter and discovered that we are averaging 75 degrees not the 82 we are aiming for because of the constant weather-cocking movement from the waves and high winds. We are off course 9 miles and if we keep this up we could miss Faial in the Azores by 45 miles to the North. Normally we would just alter our autopilot heading a few degrees to compensate but at the moment that few degrees is the difference between a quiet night's sleep and lots of loud bangs so it's going to be better to change course in the morning and hand steer if required. I just heard a most enormous splash from the helm station and I do hope that Justin remembered to put up his hood. Our weather forecast had no East in the wind until late on Friday but it has got here early. If it keeps coming around so it is a full Easterly we are going to have a very unpleasant few hundred miles.

We just had lunch which was Tuna melts with Clam Chowder which Jim "passed" on as he doesn't do shellfish. We turned 30 degrees Northwards during lunch so we could eat without souping the walls and have now turned back.

Our noon run today is a record for me 200 logged miles and 186 over ground. If any of the owners group has done better I'd like to know (Tito?). Also in aggregate our log for the last 2 days has been 357 over ground and 382 logged.

Well I suppose that's it for moral standards on this boat. Justin is sleeping in Louise's bed. Admittedly, only while she's not in it but "hotbunking" does have something of a racy sound. Louise took pity on Justin who is not getting any sleep through a combination of being bounced in the air half the time and having to share with Jim. I think Jim's sense of humour and particularly his recent description of Justin as his "Ocean wife" may have been the final straw. Louise's and my cabin being at the back of the boat are less prone to bangs and fast drops. The starboard holding tank is now fixed thanks to the digester so I won't have the scuba dive from hell under the boat with a roto rooter.

Day 16 to 37:32N 43:00W Wind F4-5SSW 182nm

Whenever I mention to another crew member or think to myself I'd like more wind I'm always careful how I phrase it - A little more wind or a few more knots. At the moment with 20knots or so it's about right or a little on the high side of right even with one reef in the main. In the 6 hours between my 3am watch and 9am we ran 51 miles through the water and 48 over land. 8.5knots is a good speed for us to run consistently and this is not flat water. Last night we could see a true Ocean swell beginning to form and now it is about 10ft peak to trough with about 40ft between peaks - about right for the current wind. So it's a wild ride with a loud thwack and spray flying 20ft into the air every so often as a wave breaks or we slap down between two waves. Things we had casually perched on shelves have begun to fall off(and be put away properly) and screws (or at least one screw) have started to come undone and need to be tightened. It is also harder to sleep particularly for Justin and Jim in the forward cabin. I had to wake Justin for his watch for the first time ever. At the moment the swell is on our starboard bow. If it gets too bumpy then we will turn downwind enough to bring it onto the starboard quarter where we ride waves particularly well and they will also be slower relative to boat speed. We can change course later when things calm a little as they are supposed to by Saturday. When you are at the helm station and also at the peak of a wave your eyeheight is about 20 feet above the wave troughs, quite vertiginous with the wind whistling past your ears and the constant waterfall noise of our wake. Louise described the noise in her cabin as like being in a war zone.

We have had a couple of broken transmissions in French on the radio, perhaps our friends of yesterday now left far behind, but not enough to understand. They are in a 36ft steel boat and had been at a similar speed to us until the winds picked up. Haku may not be a light airs boat but she is terrific in these conditions.

Last night was movie night (although I forgot to break out the popcorn) and we watched Defiance with Daniel Craig which was pretty good. I always find it surreal to be sitting in the "living room" watching a movie and then to look outside at the big swell, it's amazing how a movie takes you away from it all. I am a closet Chick Flick watcher and I have one called The Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Jack Black on my iPod that I have watched in the past when everything got too much and I had been battered around the boat for too long. It's a charming film set in LA and England at Christmas and completely removes me from my surroundings for two hours.

Over the last two days everyone has been eating well (seasickness gone despite the bumps) and today is a comfort food day, also a cook very carefully day as the contents of a pan held in one hand could easily end upon the ceiling or over the cook. I can see Italian sausages defrosting and I suspect Jim plans spaghetti with tomato and Sausage sauce for dinner.

Now 3pm and I have filled in our excellent noon run above. We had grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken soup for lunch. Our distance to waypoint (Horta) hit 666 and naturally something went wrong. Our starboard "black water" holding tank has obviously bunged up and when someone uses the heads we get an unpleasant smell and worse coming out of the overflow pipe. We've done everything we can think of to unblock this and are hoping that the chemicals we've put in will work in about 12 hours and in the mean time everyone gets to use mine (joy) which is in the other hull and not linked. I suppose this is fates way of compensating for the otherwise exhilarating sailing.

We've turned 10 degrees to Port to avoid hitting the swell and are hitting 10kts boat speed occasionally which makes the wholeboat gently vibrate, I assume as the hulls plane.

We had a turtle drift by us earlier and we just had a group of dolphins doing whole body leaps out of the water between the waves. They look like they are having enormous fun. Louise has at least one picture.

Yesterday we passed two half way marks, the one for this leg and the one for the whole journey. I offered to open a bottle of wine as a celebration but discovered I had no takers, even me. All high enough on the fast sailing.

Day 15 to 36:53N 46:30W Wind F3-4SSW 148nm

It's just after 1:00am and it's dark, at least that is to say the moon hasn't risen yet. In reality, there is light everywhere you look; our entire wake is alive with phosphorescence, tiny particles and larger glowing orbs about the size of ping pong balls - the brightest I've ever seen it. And the sky, it is quite impossibly full of stars, so full it's hard to identify the summer constellations because you can simply see too many stars.

Just after Louise handed over to me at midnight a freighter passed about a mile away, its two white lights one low at the front and the other high on the bridge showed it to be over 50metres long and its green starboard light visible just behind and well below bridge light showed it was headed past me going South East. She had also spotted the mast light of the French yacht about 6 miles to Port and running at a similar speed to us. Not on the radar yet so presumably not carrying good radar reflectors or a transponder like ours which makes us look bigger than we really are on other vessels radar screens - keep well clear, we like our space.

About half past 12 I thought I saw another ship just off the Starboard bow. Mars does this to me quite often, it looks very red as it comes up from the horizon and at about 15 degrees it becomes white, and noticeably bigger than the stars. I've seen one shooting star already tonight and Jim told me he saw a comet or a meteor yesterday with the longest tail he has ever seen.

Every few minutes I go up to the helm station, check the radar, let my eyes adjust and then check the horizon by eye and again with the binoculars. The freighter we saw earlier was doing 20knots, unusually fast - A small boats horizon is only a few miles (1.15*the square root of eye height in feet = miles to the horizon) for us about 3.6 miles. If the freighters light is at 30ft you'd see that at 7 miles and with a closing speed of 26knots you'd collide with it in 16 minutes - A good incentive to check every 5 or so at a minimum.

At 1:40 my check revealed a bright red light on the horizon directly in front of us that through the binoculars was clearly shaped like a flare. After a few minutes the light died entirely after appearing to illuminate smoke. I checked on the radio if there was a vessel in distress ahead but got no response. Again the flare shape gradually appeared very bright and slightly higher so presumably closer. I decided that I needed an extra pair of eyes and woke Jim but in fact got Justin and in due course Louise as well. I gave Jim the binoculars and asked him to keep an eye on the object while I started the motors so if necessary we could manoeuvre. Then about two minutes later the light disappeared entirely before re-emerging from behind cloud still red but now as an obvious part arc of the moon. If Jim hadn't also seen it looking like a flare I would feel even more of an idiot. I've done well over a hundred night watches and although the occasional star or planet on the horizon can briefly look like a light I have never seen anything like this and I'm not given to histrionics.

So, what do you do? If that had been a liferaft using its last flare then the only chance of saving lives would be to get a good bearing and range and get there fast - that needs two people, one to spot and the other to steer. If you waited until you were positive and the light went out you'd be too late. OK I feel a bit of a lemon but let's face it there is plenty of time to nap tomorrow and if we are ever in a raft at night and trying to signal for help I hope the person on watch does exactly what I did.

Great lunch from Louise today, freshly cooked Apple cinnamon muffins with crispy oat flakes on top, toast, fresh fruit and Tuna salad with spring onion. We have three oranges and five apples left with five days to go so we'll be on dried fruit and nuts fairly soon.

We've been in an informal race with the French this morning (whenever there is more than one sailboat going to the same place there's always a race between the skippers) so I have been regularly tweaking the sails. As the wind has risen we have been winning nicely with a speed over ground of 7-8knots aided by the now favourable current.

I have decided to send two days together while I can as emailing may become harder without the antenna.

Day 14 to 36:27N 49:06W Wind F3-4SSW-SW 134nm (23 hours as time zone changed)

Although not as good a run as the last few days still good given the wind, it actually works out to 140nm logged in 24 hrs although only 123nm run because of a counter current.

I've had many occasions in the past to curse Microsoft but this one was slightly different. At lunchtime today we had a call from some nice French people in a sail boat not far from ours asking if we had weather information. Apparently everything has broken on their boat and they can't get the wind speed let alone the weather. I was about to go online to get our weather information so Jim replied in French that we would call them back in a few minutes and share it with them. At that point my pc had a hard crash with the message "hardware failure contact vendor". It showed glimmers of life if left to cool for a while but clearly something was very wrong and it wouldn't work for more than a few minutes at a time. I spent some hours trying to bring my backup pc online but something in the operating system wouldn't let me create a dial up connection using the satellite modem that is clearly installed and running. Eventually I called Kim on the sat phone and she read me the weather which we were then able to pass onto the French. We expect them to buy us a beer in Horta. I don't give up on things easily (the word obsessive has been mentioned - quite often in fact) so eventually I went back to my original pc and really stripped it down with the intent of getting rid of any dust accumulation that might be causing it to overheat. This laptop has run pretty hot since it was new and I've never understood how the cooling works as it only has one vent where the air comes out and nowhere obvious for it get in. Anyway, in the course of trying to remove the base it became obvious that there was a hidden screw somewhere still holding it and it looked likely to be under the Microsoft Windows label. As we removed the label we found not only the screw but also the air intake for cooling the PC which had been covered as long as I've had it. 5 minutes of me blowing through a drinking straw making a noise like a flatulent duck (in lieu of a compressed air can) had at least some dust out of the system and it has now worked again since I reassembled it and for the first time with nice cool air coming out of the exit vent. So there you go, if Microsoft can't get you with the operating system or the software they'll do it with the label.

However, on day 13 of our voyage this wasn't enough for fate to throw at us. While reconnecting everything to the computer the plug fell off of the satellite antenna rendering it unusable. The sat phone does also have a little pull up aerial which works for voice but as you have to have 5 bars reception to get it to send or receive data this is not always a viable option for email. Justin and I have worked until full darkness with a soldering iron, a blowtorch and a cribbage board trying to repair this and have now decided to leave it until light. Finally, to cap it all we are in a 1.5knot counter current and despite going through the water at 6.3knots all day we are only going over the ground at 4.8 hence our less than stellar progress.

That said, the weather has been pleasant and we had a nice dinner of Satay pork and noodles (although my Microsoft spell checker doesn't agree and keeps insisting we had Satan pork). I am hoping we can send this tomorrow by hoisting someone up the mast with the satellite phone, otherwise I will dictate it to Kim and ask her to send it from the real world.

Frustratedly and thinking of buying an Apple.

Chris.

Day 13 to 35:52N 51:26W Wind F4-5SW 151nm

This morning we not only had four flying fish on the front deck (as is quite usual) we also had a large squid. Exactly how this got there I am not sure but presumably it was minding its own business and swam out of the side of a wave at just the wrong moment. We've also been seeing large numbers of Portuguese Men of War - I won't be going for a swim until we are well clear of these. Justin suggested that we should keep the calamari as fishing bait but I accidentally threw it over the side. A true "lapsus calami"*

We had a good run under plain sail until the wind dropped at noon and we decided to put the Spinnaker up again. Flushed with our success from the last time we decided to try an "improvement" suggested by Justin who has lots of Spinnaker experience. This involved running the sheet (rope on the corner of the sail that you use to control it) to the back of the boat instead of the middle. The sail went up fine but it was obviously not working very well and we needed to put it back as we had it before. The kerfuffle of getting the sail up is such that once you've just done it you don't want to go through doing it again. So we decided to try and move the sheet without dousing and dropping the sail. The first bit went fine as I managed to lasso the middle of the sheet so we could pull it in to arms reach. Tying another sheet on to the loop of the first one without flying off the boat was harder. We ran this through the block amidships then stood scratching our heads as to how to get the new sheet onto the only port winch when the old one was on there under load from the sail. Despite the obvious risk that we would end up flying Justin and Jim like kites from the back of the Spinnaker we decided they'd just heave on the old sheet while I freed it from the winch, put the new one on and took up the slack as rapidly as possible. Other than red faces, bulgy eyeballs and couple of hernias it went quite smoothly (actually no-one was hurt except that Jim needed a Band-Aid after impaling his thumb on a spring clip).

All of us are sleeping more than usual at the moment probably due to continually having to brace against the motion of the boat. I went back to bed after my 6 to 9am and woke up at 12 and the others are similarly affected. Jim apparently doesn't ever sleep after 6 and this morning wasn't up until after 9. We are only 5 days out of Bermuda and have another 7 or 8 to go so I am hoping we get used to this and build up core stability rather than continue to become more physically tired.

My PC went down today which was very scary as it is our link to email, weather and the backup plotter display in the event that the E80 fails. I removed everything that would disassemble wiped it all over in case I had salt on the contacts and reassembled it. I am very pleased to say it worked and I have now backed everything off onto a portable hard drive so I can if necessary install it onto my daughter's PC if there is a repeat performance. I am going to try and keep it as far as possible from the vibration of the boat and give it extra love and attention from now on.

Justin's homemade fish cakes for dinner - very nice.

We are setting our clocks forward one hour at midnight as we are well into the GMT - 3 time zone. This means Justin gets a short watch and the rest of us get an hour less sleep.

There's really not too much to report today which is probably better than the alternative. "May you live in interesting times" is allegedly a Chinese curse and probably a seaman's one as well.
My watch now. Night all.

Chrisus Navigium

*(Latin for slip of the pen, calamari in Latin is a pen fish - See, this is an educational blog)

Day 12 to 35:17N 54:28W Wind F4-5SW 152nm

If it wasn't for the meals and minor fluctuations in the wind it would sometimes be hard to tell one day from another out here. You'd certainly get bored quickly if you tried playing I Spy. However, on my 3 to 6am watch I did see a freighter and like all the traffic you meet when you are really far from anywhere it seemed to be heading right for us. With the AIS not working we don't know anything about the ships we see or their intentions so there can be a few tense moments until you are quite sure it is going to pass well clear, which in this case it did with half a mile to spare.

Jim decided to do brunch today and made biscuits from scratch along with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast - made it feel like Sunday.

Louise and Justin are now sharing my French course and Justin is supplementing this with the lonely planet French phrase book. This gives something of a quirky view on French life. In the section on love the following phrases are the only ones listed: "I love you", "Do you love me?", "Do you want to go out with me?", "Let's move in together", "Will you marry me?" Immediately below are listed some phrases for "problems" they are: "Are you seeing someone else?", "You're just using me for sex", "I don't think we'll work it out", "I never want to see you again". It's like life in 10 phrases or less. The section on sex is even stranger and includes such phrases as "Oh, Yeah", "Easy Tiger", "That was weird" and "Not if you were the last person on Earth". Finally, in the section on occupations there are instructions on only three, you can say "I'm a: Businessperson, Chef or Drag Queen (travelo) presumably you pick the closest.

We had Steak Hache (burgers) with pepper sauce, potatoes and corn for dinner. Still no one is touching the wine or beer but the day after tomorrow we will be half way through this leg of the journey and the day after that half way through the whole trip - sounds like an excuse for a celebration!

We had a really great run until about 7pm when the wind veered and dropped. We are now goose winged at just over 5knots and heading a bit to the North of our direct course. The sea has also dropped so we have ideal conditions for a good sleep. I hope to pick up more wind by morning.

Day 11 to 33:40N 57:25W Wind F4-5SSW 155nm run

I had a Red Bull to wake me up for my midnight to 3am watch, this worked fantastically well right to about 7am so I seemed very indolent today getting out of bed at 11am. Last night Justin saw the moonrise, Louise saw a shooting star, Jim saw a satellite and the dawn and I saw three episodes of 24 - that's the middle watch for you, absolutely nothing happens. The key thing is not to go to sleep because if you do you are pretty much guaranteed a very large freighter on a collision course - at least that's what keeps me awake - along with the Red Bull. By the way, when I say I watch TV on my iPod I am rigorous about still looking around and I really more listen to them than watch.

Just before lunch, Jim and I were going up to the foredeck to do our daily 100 push ups and 200 crunches when a very big group of common dolphins pulled us away and entertained us for a full hour. There must have been at least 30 of them and they seemed to be having a great time playing in our bow wave while we all sat, watched and took pictures. We must have been going at just the right speed in just the right direction for them to stay so long. Louise had prepared lunch and that just sat untouched until they finally left us. It is strange but that's the 10th day in a row that something has stopped us doing our exercise. We are expecting the weather to get a little worse over the next few days so we took advantage of the calm to top up the fuel tank. It took about 190 litres so we have just under 500 left and only ran the generator today to top up our batteries. We also topped up the water using our watermaker. This rather clever device takes in sea water, filters it and puts it under great pressure through a membrane that removes the salt. It then spits the concentrated left over brine back into the sea. Without this we wouldn't be able to consider showers and the whole passage would have quite a different aroma.

Louise wants to learn French for her travels so I have lent her the Michel Thomas course which I used and enjoyed. As we have Jim a native French speaker aboard Louise should have lots of opportunity to practise - except that the lessons are Parisian French and Jim speaks Quebecois. I haven't heard this before and as he mixes it with English I initially thought he was doing an inspector Clouseau impression. Justin has been diligently planning his travels using my "1,000 places to see before you die" alongside his guide books. He has between 7 and 15 days depending on when we arrive and mentioned that he hoped to have time to explore Spain, France and Italy. I think perhaps Justin is suffering fromhaving gone to Epcot and it being easy walking distance from Paris to Rome and Madrid. Jim, Louise and I suggested that he might have a more pleasant trip exploring the sights of Gibraltar (worth 30 minutes of anyone's time) and Spain.

Louise cooked spaghetti tonight. She is adjusting to cooking for four and we have to give her a little latitude. Last time she asked me how much spaghetti to use and didn't realise I meant per person so we were a little short. This time it somehow ended up as a single lump and we actually have pictures of Justin cutting off his portion with a pair of scissors. Fortunately the sauce effectively lubricated it and the whole thing settled out into quite a nice meal - liquid engineering from Buitoni! (For non-Brits, Liquid engineering is the Castrol oil slogan and Buitoni makes spaghetti sauce - and that's it for jokes I have to explain).

Clouds on the horizon now so perhaps not such a perfect day tomorrow.

Day 10 to 33:53N 60:24W Wind F3-4SW 143nm

The last 24 hours have been idyllic. On the 9pm to Midnight watch last night (Thursday) I got to see a fiery red moon rising through the clouds like an enormous Mars or an inverted sunset and just now at the end of today we had a “Green Flash” the first Jim had ever seen and only about my fourth (the final part of the disk of the setting sun goes green just before it disappears – I have no idea why but it is beautiful) and everything else about the day has been perfect including the fact we are at last under sail going at a pleasant 7knots on an almost flat sea. Also, I am pleased to say that our Stugeron has finally put pay to Louise's and Justin's seasickness but at the cost of them both feeling a bit tired which should wear off soon.

Everyone agrees our watch rota is working very well. Each day in a cycle of four you have a different set of watches and duties, from 9pm to 9am we have four three hour watches and from 9am to 9pm we have six 2 hour watches. For example, today I have galley duty which means that last night I got to sleep from midnight until 9am then was on watch to 11am after which I have no more watches until midnight but have to cook lunch and dinner and clean up the inside of the boat. Louise is my galley help (as I was for Justin yesterday) and assists with the washing up. Tomorrow I am on midnight to 3am then 11am to 1pm, and 5 to 7pm.The 12-3am watch is the quietest and you get neither sunset nor dawn but all the others have their own particular pleasant aspect.

We had been motor-sailing at cruise power until 9am and making just under 6knots with about 7knots of apparent wind. The latest forecast showed we had at least the remainder of the day to go before the wind picked up so I reduced power to 30% and our speed dropped to about 4.3knots. This effectively doubled our remaining motor-sailing range from 700 to 1400 miles and we had about 1560 to go. At this speed the passage would take about 3 days longer so we’d prefer a bit more wind.

Buying the spinners in Bermuda meant we could try out one of our new lures and we rigged our “Pink Willie” which is about 7 inches long and as its name suggests fluorescent pink. It is supposed to vibrate enticingly and dive much deeper than our others which almost float. When I read the advertising tag line on the packet I had to check carefully it was in fact a lure.

Chicken salad wraps with apple coleslaw for lunch and high hopes of fish for dinner.
Justin didn’t like the new lure as it was pulling too hard on the line and changed it for a pink squid on which we rapidly caught our first fish a flashing silver “baby Tunny” with an iridescent dark blue patch near its tail which under Justins direction I filleted ready for dinner.

The weather continued calm and pleasant and the wind picked up slightly bringing us back to 6knots. We had all been reading or writing this morning and for a change this afternoon Louise put on a movie. I carried out my daily rigging check and discovered why our last topping lift (holds up the boom when the sail is down) had chaffed through. Watching the new one at the masthead through binoculars when it was to Port of the sail I could see that it chaffs on the top block of our double purchase halyard (The pulley that gives a two to one ratio to the rope with which we raise the mainsail). There is a very easy fix, we just keep it to Starboard.

At that point a pod of large grey spotted dolphins arrived to play for a short while. Louise sat on one of the bow seats and tried waving and whistling in her secret dolphin language to get their attention (much like Dory in finding Nemo) and although I’m not sure if it worked one did some nice jumps up out of the water in front of her.

Everyone is getting along well, we are all readers and not “in your face” types so there is a gentle conviviality. (And no, I’m not like that anymore, a year off has made me much more laid back). No-one is yet fretting about the journey time or their duties which bodes well for the next few weeks.

At about 6pm the wind rose sufficiently that we could shut off the engines entirely and still make over 6 knots. For dinner I flash fried the Tuna in a spicy flour coating and served it with a green salad followed by a lemon cream pie on an Oreo base with Hagen Daz ice cream. There is something really special about eating a dinner you have caught and we sat around for an hour afterwards in a self satisfied daze listening to Paul Simon, watching the sun dip down and avoiding the washing up.

Finally the wind came up to 14knots, we started making 7 and we saw the green flash. It’s been a wonderful 24hrs and I just have time for a good nap before my midnight watch.

Day 9 to 33:12N 62:58W Wind F2-4WSW 108nm Part Day

We unfurled the Genoa at 03:03 this morning but it was another 12 hours before we had enough wind to hoist the Main. If anything technical bores you witless skip the next two paragraphs.


At best the wind has managed a low force 4 and we have been motor sailing down-wind Goose winged (with the wind at 150 degrees or more to starboard we have the Genoa to starboard and the Main to Port - we can use the autopilot but set it to steer to keep a consistent angle to the wind rather than a specific direction). Whilst not faster than motoring this improves our fuel consumption which with 680 litres on board and 12 days to go is a big priority. Hakuna Matata is an electric hybrid and works a bit like a Toyota Prius. The diesel generator produces 240 volts AC which is converted to 72 volts DC to charge the battery banks and power the 72 volt Leroy Somers engines. The maximum current the generator can produce is 210 amps and you can use this to power the engines, charge the batteries or both. You can even use the engines at 300 amps (maximum power) for a limited period as this uses all the generator can produce and gets the remaining 90 amps from the battery bank.


My usual cruise setting is 75 amps per engine which on a completely calm sea (with a clean bottom) gives me 6 knots. This leaves 60 amps to charge the batteries if they need it. Using the sails today gave us some forward propulsion but not enough to keep up the 5.7 to 6 knots we want to maintain so we use some power from the engine as well and we get this from the batteries. The batteries then run down over a period of time to about 50% which they can do without damage and the generator automatically comes on and recharges them. This allows us to maintain speed with the generator running about half the time and with a bit more wind as little as about one 6th of the time. Usually beyond that we have enough wind to sail with no motor and we just run the generator occasionally when we need mains electricity or to charge the house batteries that run the lights, instruments and charge all our iPods if they aren't getting enough from our solar panel. Finally, if there is lots of wind we can also use the engines as generators and at the cost of about half a knot charge up the batteries or power stuff directly in an entirely green and sustainable manor - cool eh!


Other than another sailing boat heading North we haven't seen a soul and the only wildlife has been the damned fruit flies that came in with the broccoli and are breeding like; well flies. Gregor Mendel must have been driven completely insane with the things buzzing around the monastery all the time and if he'd had a can of bug spray we'd have avoided all those tedious biology lessons and no-one could be sure who their fathers were. We do have bug spray aboard that Louise carefully selected to be as non toxic as possible (it only uses "botanical" pesticides) sadly the flies also consider it non-toxic but I have successfully swatted some with the container.


Sorry , it's been a bit of a surreal day today the only thing that actually happened was that a catch on one of our winch handles broke and we discovered that our Lewmar spare didn't fit our Harken winches (except one). We were all sure (except Louise who's never seen a winch in her life before) that these things were one size fits all. I footled around with a file and my micrometer callipers until I got bored and will have another go in the morning.


I'm finally going to have to give up the nightly beer as I am now certain it is affecting my sleep. For heaven knows what reason the following has been going round and round in my head and as I am scraping the bottom of the barrel for anything to blog today.... "My research on beer is over I fear, my solace now for many a year. But sweet repose I find so fine, still perhaps it doesn't apply to wine."


Good green curry from Justin tonight hopefully a bit more wind in the morning (I know I said this yesterday).