How are we doing

I am reporting at noon on Tuesday approximately 600nm east of St Lucia. It is day 16 in the Big Brother Boat and a number of boat mates are due for eviction on Friday. Who will you vote to stay and who to go?

Whilst you are thinking about it. Here are a few more facts and predictions, hopefully a little more accurate than the last Oops!!.

Me doing Blog Stuff.

The voyage is very much one of two halves BTW and ATW , that is “Before the Trade Winds” and “After the Trade Winds”. As you will see from the blog map, we travelled South West from Grand Canaria for the first thirteen days looking for the illusive Trade Winds which this year are further south, lighter, later and with a trough in their midst. Great!! Finally after  , three days ago we fund then and life on board suddenly changed.

During the first half of the journey we had travelled 2600 miles SW in almost every point of sail and all the normal sailing condition including 72 hours of motoring. Our average speed was 158 miles per day , about 6nm per hour .We only covered 2100 miles on the rhumb line (remember that’s as the crow flies) and we were headed a long way SW of St Lucia.

It can't be me. Don's hidden the Gin!

On Friday part two of the Journey began as we hit the trade winds at about 0500 on Reece’s watch. I would suggest that it is rather like driving for many days through country lanes, town centres and finally getting on the motorway and being able to put your foot down. In the last three days our average speed has gone up from 158nm to close to 200nm  . Not only that but or boat speed and “Vector Made Good” are almost exactly the same. I am just showing off with yachtie talk, VMG means we are going the right way i.e. almost directly west to St Lucia.  This also means that it is much easier to forecast our arrival. The maths here is now simple. We have just over 600nm to go and we are travelling at 200nm per day. Answer: Three days. All being well we will be their on Friday afternoon.

Atlantic Swells.

As I write there is a cheer from the cockpit we have just hit a speed of 12.6 nm ph. Whilst this is not Shaya Moya’s all time best it is pretty fast and exceeds the theoretical “Hull Speed” of the boat which is probably about 10 nm p.h.This is Shaya Moya having fun and surfing down the waves,  to me that’s like driving your  car on ice down hill at speeds that exceed the numbers on the speedometer dial. The bad news is that today we have a large Atlantic swell about 7meters through to peak. This makes Shaya Moya roll from side to side. There was no cheer from the galley where Jane is trying to prepare some lunch. What’s for lunch today Jane? Chicken Fajita Surprise she say’s. So what’s the surprise then? There is no chicken in it ,it’s sausages. We have got to get rid of the bl---y things some how she answers. She’s a genius. The other major activity of the day , every day is putting the Spinnaker/ cruising chute up and down, by the time we get to St Lucia we may actually get this right!! More of this later.

The Spinnaker Team. Shall we take it down again now?

So you have had time to think about it. All the Boatmates are up for eviction on Friday who are you going to vote for.

Prepared by Tony. Able Bodied Seaman.