Late June 2009

Brindabella's Web Diary
Simon Williams
Thu 3 Sep 2009 18:37

 We are taking part in the 2009 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) – an organised rally/cruise/race from Las Palmas in the Canaries, to St Lucia in Windward Islands.  We are expecting about 200 boats to participate in the ARC this year.  The ARC provides a ready group of like-minded cruisers and has organised social events at both ends, as well as daily position reporting and a “safety net” for the actual crossing.  You can check out the ARC website, part of the World Cruising Club, at www.worldcruisingclub.com.The crossing to St Lucia in the Windward Islands is approximately 2,500 nautical miles and should take between 2 ½ and 3 weeks.

 

Downwind sails are critical for the Trade Wind crossing from the Canaries to St Lucia and we’ll soon be taking delivery of our special new spinnaker, a revolutionary ParaSailor2.  The ParaSailor2 looks like an ordinary spinnaker apart from the fact that it has a huge self-inflating airfoil wing 2/3 of the way up.  Unlike an ordinary spinnaker which requires a pole, lots of control lines and an expert crew to fly, the ParaSailor2 can easily be flown by a short-handed crew.  It provides stability to the boat in the rolling North Atlantic ocean swell and can be flown in higher winds than an ordinary spinnaker.  Hopefully it will be well worth the considerable investment!   If interested, you can check out information and photos of the ParaSailor2 at: http://www.seateach.com/Parasailor2.asp.

 

Over the next few weeks we will also be installing our “third crew member”, a Hydrovane wind vane self-steering unit:  http://www.hydrovane.com.  After years of extensive research I have determined that the Hydrovane unit is the best suited for Brindabella with her centre-cockpit configuration.  The Hydrovane will comfortably steer the boat for weeks on end without human intervention and without consuming a single amp of electricity.  We plan to give the Hydrovane a name – all suggestions gratefully received!

 

We will also be mounting a wind generator onto the stern of the boat to supplement our fixed and mobile solar panels.  Keeping a boat’s batteries charged while on passage is a perennial problem.  The aim is to reduce the amount of time each day that we have to run the boat’s main engine for battery charging.  As it is, we will probably have to run the main engine at least one hour/day in order to top the batteries up, make fresh water via our water-maker and power the SSB radio.  Already I have “souped up” the engine by adding a second high-capacity alternator, giving us a nominal 140 Ah of engine charging capacity. I’ve also just bought a fuel cell.

 

Lini has been very busy trying out “at sea” recipes for everything from bread to yoghurt.  She has cornered the worldwide market in plastic storage boxes and has mapped out every cubic centimetre of storage space.  As fast as she buys extra plastic boxes I pinch them for engine spares.   She is also planning her “garden” of live herbs.

 

We plan to lift Brindabella out of the water for a week before departure to give her a final clean, anti-foul, service the folding propeller and replace the sacrificial anodes.  Apart from the planned maintenance and check programme for the period before our departure, we have a programme of sail training to practice everything from Man-Over-Board recovery to setting storm sails and heaving-to.  Our new ParaSailor2 will also take some getting used to.

 

Route Planning to The Canaries

We plan to take a relatively leisurely cruise down to the Canaries, time permitting.  The intention would be to sail along the UK South Coast as far as Falmouth with Christopher, then bring him home on the train.  From Falmouth we hope to call into the Scilly Isles before heading across the notorious Bay of Biscay to North West Spain.  A serious of day sails will take us south through the Spanish Rias down to Bayonna, one of our favourite ports  - the marina sits underneath an old castle, now a Parador hotel.  From Bayonna we will hop down the coast of Portugal as far as Lagos on the Algarve.   We then head out to Madeira, then south to the Canaries.  Time permitting we will cruise around some of the other islands in the Canaries archipelago before reaching Las Palmas.                                                                ---Simon---