The beginning
Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Wed 21 Sep 2011 11:17
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This is the
first entry in the blog of the crew of Anastasia. Anastasia is a 52 foot
Catana catamaran and she will, all being well, be carrying us around the
world. Exactly who "we" are is going to vary at different stages of the
trip, but the core crew is Phil May (skipper), Andrea Twigg (purser+medic) and
Bertie May (first mate). I (Phil) will leave it to the crew members to
introduce themselves individually when they write their first entry in this
blog.
In just two weeks time, at the start of
October, we will be casting off for the
start of our trip. Anastasia is currently having some work
done at the Catana boatyard in France (Canet en
Roussillon 42:42.3N 003:02E), and so our first leg will be along the Spanish
coast, through the straits of Gibraltar, into the trade winds and down to the Canaries. From there we join up with the World Cruising
Club and cross the Atlantic, at the
end of November, as a participant in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers
(ARC). From St Lucia we go
with the World ARC, and our route will take us through the Panama
canal, Galapagos, a multitude of Pacific islands, Australia, Bali,
Mauritius, South Africa and Brazil, returning to the Caribbean in spring
2013.
Whew.
Let me introduce Anastasia.
Anastasia is a cruising catamaran, which is a big advantage for this kind of trip. The
route we are taking is mostly downwind, which means you are travelling in the
same direction as the wind and waves. Catamarans are ideal for those
conditions, being less prone to rolling as the
waves pass under you and more stable when surfing down them. We
have a special sail, a "Parasailor" (a type of spinnaker), which is especially
good for downwind sailing. Anastasia is a pretty high performance cruising yacht,
with kevlar hull and carbon fibre rigging and sails, quite capable of surfing down waves
at over 16 knots (in ideal
conditions). As well as getting us to places quite quickly, and
making for some exciting sailing, speed is actually an additional safety
factor because it means that if a storm is
chasing us we stand a good chance of being able to sail away from the worst of
it.
One question people often ask is what happens if a
catamaran capsizes? Well, for those of you who have only
sailed beach catamarans, I can assure you that a big (20
tonne) cruising cat is very much harder to capsize. And all kinds of
yachts can capsize, the difference is that a capsized monohull may well sink
whereas a catamaran is perfectly happy (and livable-in) floating upside
down. Enough on capsizing.
These modern "blue
water" yachts are packed with technology (24V and 240V power systems, navigation systems,
watermakers, radios, satellite comms, not to mention the PCs, ipods,
TVs, Kindles, Wiis that the crew considers essential for a comfortable
lifestyle). You really need to
know more about electronics, diesel engines and plumbing than you do about
sailing. Our power consumption is rather high for a sailing
yacht, but Anastasia has a large bank of Lithium batteries for power
storage. The solar panels will need to be augmented by a daily run of the
diesel generator. Fortunately she can carry 1000 litres of diesel which
should be enough to feed all those laptops
for the couple of weeks that
it takes us to cross an
ocean.
A little bit about me. I am a software engineer
by profession. I am fortunate that I made the right career choice (purely
by chance) just before the advent of the PC and digital era and being the
co-founder of a technology company called Metaswitch (again mostly by chance)
has given me the freedom to take some time out to do this.
People often ask me why
sail around he world. Has it been a life's ambition? Well,
since I was a kid I have always liked sailing of some form. Not so much that I would dinghy sail on
a freezing lake in England
or struggle round the M25 for a weekend in the Solent, but I do love being at the helm
of a yacht in the middle of a warm ocean. And
there is definitely something addictive about the feeling of standing at the
helm of a yacht in total darkness with the surging of the boat down the waves
generating a warm breeze and the phosphorescence in the bow wave glowing
green against the backdrop of more stars than you could possibly
imagine.
Phil |