CoCo / ARC – Day 6

30/11/14 12:00 UTC

DIST SAILED: 1065 nm

DIST TOGO: 1621 nm

PRESENT SET: SPINNAKER

As per present routines the spinnaker went up at 0700 this morning and we’re now really making miles, directly along the course line to St Lucia. If the present conditions prevails we will be doing well today. A welcome change from the light winds and tricky conditions through the night. The little wind we came from behind, i.e. not enough angle to get stabilising pressure from the sails. Moreover, the swell has been much too large relative to the wind, meaning that we’ve had experienced some uncomfortable rolling. The rest of the fleet has probably experienced similar conditions so from a competitive point of view we believe we’re still in fairly good shape. As we have no real access to internet you guys at home have a much better view on our progress vs the fleet, than we have ourselves. The race committee sends us infrequent position reports, in a simple text file which is time consuming and wearisome to make sense of. The IT department has therefore made some scripts and graphs, to make the information visible in a meaningful form. Who knew that being able to program in Visual Basic is a useful skill on a cross-atlantic passage?

A while after lunch yesterday (scrambled eggs with beans, bacon and toast) we took down the spinnaker, as the wind temporarily increased to 23-25 knots. We are taking tender and loving care of our big sail after we tore our gennaker a few days ago. However, we are open to experimentation with other sail configurations, namely a boomed out cutter jib in combination with the genoa flying loose to leeward. This actually generated a decent airflow on all 3 sails, so we sailed with that set until nightfall, when we cleaned up and made watches a bit easier and thereby safer. Our system of ‘day/race mode’ and ‘night mode’ has worked well so far, thanks to fair wind and angles through the night. Last night was complicated and really needed more hands on deck (purely from a competitive point of view), so we will discuss with the deckhand union ‘Spirit‘ this afternoon and propose some changes.

Otherwise, on our flying fish friend, I am embarrassed to report that rather than being given a decent sea burial, he ended up as bait in Ola’s fishing exercises. It may actually have been a good thing altogether, as some fresh fish would be pleasing to us all. Although the yell for ‘fish ON’ came through very clearly from the aft, not much was displayed. It’s always the biggest fishes that jump off, so the fishermen on board continue to try their luck. Some comments from management on drag and speed has luckily reduced the length of the line from 250 to 100 meters…

The weather is, as you may understand, a determining factor in how this passage is done. Although we are in a very stable weather system with small chances of surprise, we continue to monitor several times a day, and make course decisions on what seems to be lying ahead. To help us with that we have a satellite internet link from where we can download weather charts and GRIB files, the latter can be displayed directly in our navigation software enabling us to see our plot, projected course and forecasted conditions in the same picture. The ARC race committee also sends out daily weather forecasts to the fleet via email. Additionally, we have a very kind volunteer ashore who monitors the weather and the fleet, and sends us daily reports and views. He is of great help and comfort to us, and will be credited in a more formal form at a later stage.

For those of you following the fleet and ranking at the ARC website, note that the preliminary ranking is determined from the the boat’s distance to go, and only that. In the final ranking there will be two more variables. Firstly, because the boats taking part is of different sizes and shapes, we all have an individual time correction factor (TCF) which will be applied to our final sailing time. A slower boat will get her time reduced, relative to a bigger and faster boat. Most of the boats in front of us are bigger boats that naturally have a higher speed potential than we have. So, simply said, we don’t have to be ahead of them to beat them. The same applies the other way around, meaning that we may have smaller competitors too close on our tail to beat them on corrected time. Secondly, the use of engine is actually allowed for certain periods, but it is punished fairly hard by a complicated formula. It’s not until arrival and submission of individual declarations that this factor can be counted in. We have not used the engine for other than charging batteries, making fresh water and keeping the fridge and freezer cold. Since the engine has never been in gear and has not contributed to any forward propulsion, we can do as much as we need without penalty. Finally, bear in mind that the fleet is divided into race and cruising divisions, and in the cruise division there are a number of sub-divisions.

Most importantly at the moment; we are having a great time, everyone and the boat is in good shape, and we have a good weather forecast for the next couple of days. Happy første søndag i advent and best regards from the Atlantic Ocean!

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If you have any questions or comments you are welcome to contact us via SMS on 0088 162 141 6610. We will then set up a tread for you on our text msg system, which has unlimited use included. Your eventual comments on the blog itself will not be visible to us before our arrival on the other side.