Caribbean Christmas

With temperatures well above freezing, and with a lack of snow, it was difficult to get into the christmas spirit for the crew of S/Y CoCo. In a brave Norwegian manner and with positive spirit, we managed to enjoy ourselves nevertheless!

The last couple of days have seen the arrival of Elise Møvik, a die-hard fan of the guys from Norway, who just had to be there for the ARC price-giving ceremony. If you didn’t catch the latest episode of our internet TV programme, we are proud to announce, yet again, that S/Y CoCo won cruising class A of the ARC. Out newfound fame has also brought us some coverage in the media, namely and article in the Norwegian sailing magazine Seilas.

After a thorough victory celebration, it was time to settle into the holiday spirit. Christmas Eve was spent on Bequia, a somewhat larger island in the Grenadines. It is tradition for Norwegians who are cruising the Caribbean to gather here for Christmas. We had our Christmas dinner on the beach, with our feet in the sand, together with some 30-odd Norwegian sailors.

On Christmas Day we set sail for Tobago Cays, an archipelago comprising five small uninhabited Islands. One of the Islands, Petit Tabac, is where Jack Sparrow and Elisabeth swan is stranded in Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl. Boxing Day was spent snorkelling amongst fish, corals and sea turtles – a truly amazing experience! In the evening Captain Peter Jr. cooked up a delicious surf and turf dinner comprising freshly caught lobster and some lamb we had left over from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

As I am writing this we are anchored outside Canouan, on our way back to Saint Lucia to pick up another guest for New Years!

Christmas Eve. So many dinghies and ropes, so few fastening points.

Christmas Dinner. From left: Sebastian, Peter, Elise and Henrik

Tobago Cays in sight!

Snorkelling time!

Assorted fish.

Lobster killing, before grilling

VLOG Episode 04: The Atlantic Crossing

The Cross-Atlantic Picture Show

Canned and dry foodstuffs for the passage.

Thorough cleaning of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Minutes before the start!

Spinnaker trimming.

Full steam ahead!

Rough weather fisherman Ola Røthe.

Who needs a fishing rod when these guys voluntarily fly onto the deck?

Eggs, bacon and tomato beans for breakfast. Notice the tilted stove.

Fish on!

One of many glorious sunsets.

 

Evening dinner below deck in rough seas. The boat was rolling more than the camera gives away.

Henrik and the spinnaker enjoying some time off in the sun.

Heavy thought processing when repairing the spinnaker.

Powering through a squall.

The spinnaker is flying again in wonderful weather.

Notice the stitching in top and the right side.

Land ho!

Sail trimming in the dead of night minutes before crossing the finish line.

CoCo / ARC – Day 15

09/12/14 17:00 UTC

DIST SAILED: 2446 nm

DIST TOGO: 58 nm

PRESENT SET: GEONOA BOOMED OUT

Flat downwind sailing in 17 kn wind and boomed out genoa. It’s a hot and beautiful day, for many reasons. All our efforts over the last two days on the spinnaker has prevented us from falling totally behind, so we’re feeling a bit proud. We have actually gained on a few of our benchmark competitors, so we will finish this race on a good note. The spinnaker came apart for the 5th time late yesterday, and it’s sitting here in the saloon waiting to be deployed if the conditions on the final few miles allow it. Right now there’s too much pressure from the wind, which is good.

Management has also eased a bit on the performance pressure. Not that anybody on-board has ever been pressured, it’s perhaps more self-inflicted and personal, mostly on Brian and I. When the event has the word ‘race’ in it does something to us, but honest to God, we have been careful not to drag this too far, and to involve those on-board who think differently. I think we have achieved a good balance between excitement, effort and pleasure.

As I am writing, the wind pressure is easing, and we could perhaps try the spinnaker for the last timer, but we’re actually quite comfortable just enjoying the ride and savouring the last hours of the passage. It’s a good thing. It’s been a very occupying and full bodied experience of presence, and we are all a bit exhausted. It would be a shame if we don’t find the energy to enjoy and celebrate the arrival. As it looks now it’s will be late in the evening.

Falling in with the relaxed atmosphere ban on fishing has been lifted, so the deck union “Spirit” is now very busy in the aft to catch something. Again, they get contact, but the fishes just seem too big and powerful. The last one was no doubt attracted to Henrik’s choice of bait, a white, red, pink thing with long hair, a bit like a Barbie doll. The fish is probably having great fun with it, and laughing at our aft deck efforts. Nature always wins.

Ola took responsibility for yesterday’s dinner, and ventured out in an Asian direction, with the raw materials at hand, predominantly fillets of chicken, and with some pork chunks in between. There’s a huge selection of spices and sauces on-board, so we’re able to get almost anything to taste. Ola took more than full advantage of this and served a spiced up dish we will soon forget. He had added noodles for balance, thank God. We were allowed beers and enjoyed a great dinner around the table in the saloon. Compliments handed generously around as usual, and a few tears for what was likely to be our last evening underway.

Yesterday evening also saw the most spectacular moon-rise ever. The guys were almost grabbing for their sunglasses as an extremely brightly lit moon came up over the horizon, moon-bathing the deck, rig and surrounding seas. Just beautiful. It stayed with us all night, together with a steady breeze, providing decent progress and comfortable conditions both on and off watch.

Wish you all a nice evening from everybody on-board CoCo. We will be back tomorrow afternoon with our final script on the finish and arrival in Rodney Bay, including a set of photos.

If you have any comments or questions it would be great to hear from you. From tonight or tomorrow morning we will monitor our in-port email: coco@balticyachts.no. Furthermore, feel free to comment directly on the blog posts, as we will be able to answer (and see!) these comments as well.

All well with everyone!

CoCo / ARC – Day 14

08/12/14 12:00 UTC

DIST SAILED: 2242nm

DIST TOGO: 262 nm

PRESENT SET: SPINNAKER (!)

Yes, the taped up spinnaker has kept together since yesterday! Well, partly that is. Since midnight it’s been up and down 8 times, sometimes to protect it from squalls and 4 times for repair. Our tape and stitching is not holding properly (maybe not surprising… ) so there’s a constant surveillance. And on the slightest doubt, it’s down again, into the sail loft in the saloon, add some tape and stitches, and then up again. After 2 weeks at sea and now in a very hot climate, fatigue setting in, it’s amazing that there is still energy on-board to conduct these tasks over and over again. We are now close enough to see the safe arrival of CoCo, with the best crew ever. Heads should be high, regardless of the final result.

As I have said before our position in the race will be determined by both the handicap factor and eventual motor hours. It’s obvious from the last day’s reports that quite a few boats have escaped becalmed areas using their motor. It will be punished, which will be to our advantage. At the same time it is also becoming clear that our south bet over the last days probably did not pay off as we wished. But regardless, we are extremely happy and proud of soon having concluded this very long sea passage together. Everyone on-board has contributed so much to make this a fantastic experience for all of us. We are looking forward to celebrate the arrival in St. Lucia together.

Although still in light winds straight from behind, it’s forecasted that the Passat will increase a bit in strength through the coming night. I am therefore pretty confident that this will be our last night at sea.

We were inspected from above by an albatross yesterday and again today! That was also Christopher Columbus’ first sign of land. For him it was early, his calculations indicated that India was much further away. Imagine the level of excitement on Santa Maria when they passed through this area more than 500 years ago. One of the great things about being at sea is that human traces are erased; we therefore see exactly the same as he did, it’s like no one passed here since.

With all the deck work and sail handling going on, and a bit of sprint pressure applied, watches is stretched. Still, Peter jr. found the time this morning to make a breakfast buffet, with eggs various styles, bacon and beans. A real treat and a good sign that whatever challenges, we stick to healthy routines and breaks here.

The tropical Atlantic, whatever you pictured, has a lot of clouds over it. And they are huge, or perhaps only tall. They rise to the sky like smoke from a refinery on fire, and by just looking at them you understand their power. With a sea temperature of 27 dc and 30 dc in the air, there is a lot of energy and vertical movement of air. This is the area where hurricanes are made, but luckily not during the month of December. But the powerful squalls coming and going is in fact a micro version of the same thing. Yesterday we also spotted a mini hurricane, curled grey column touching the sea surface and sucking up water. We were quite happy the observation was at a distance. After that, and all of yesterday’s showers, Ola decided to look at it from the positive side commenting that there’s precious little mosquitos around here.

It’s time to once again hoist the wrecked spinnaker, this time we will probably let it hang till it comes down by itself. Let’s hope we’re not too far away from the finishing line when that happens.

All well with everyone!

CoCo / ARC – Day 13

07/12/14 12:00 UTC

DIST SAILED: 2100 nm

DIST TOGO: 404 nm

PRESENT SET: GENOA REACHING

This has been an extremely busy day, and the log has therefore been delayed. The advantage for you good readers is that I can extend the storyline into the afternoon.

This morning we were sliding along on a SSE wind of 12-15 knots, genoa reaching with AWA around 100. That has pretty much been the picture for the last 24 hours. Optimising speed with intense concentration on the helm pays. The helmsman is required to ‘sail’, not ‘steer’, a huge difference in these conditions, requiring fingertip feeling and constant eye on wind, angle and course. I am really proud of how well CoCo is sailed at all times. A sacrifice for the crew has been a ban on fishing due to the drag it creates. The deck union ‘Spirit’ has opened a case on the issue and will no doubt seek some compensation.

Looking at the noon position today, we were somewhat happy. We had managed to gain on quite a few of the boats ahead, and keeping the smaller boats in the back at bay.

At 05:00 hrs ship time this morning we made a last attempt to repair the spinnaker. We came to remember a huge roll of something called Gorilla Tape tucked away somewhere. This product is not made for sails, but it is immensely strong, and it’s full of glue. Out of other options, we decided to give it a go. The workshop filled the saloon and lasted for five hours and voila! – we have a (very) light wind sail to be used in a wind hole somewhere close to the finish. We have tested it briefly, and it flies. But the conditions this afternoon were not soft enough to let it hang. Special credit should be given to Sebastian – he had just finished a six hour night watch and didn’t balk for a second when contemplating to undertake this task.

Just after noon the wind started to go in circles. An enormous squall the size of Telemark passed us, with wind from all directions and an unexplainable amount of water coming out of it. We were brought to a full stand still whilst the showers just kept coming and coming. All by a sudden the whole scenario started to look a bit like Færderseilasen. The squall passed, but left a very weak and indecisive Passat behind, so right now we’re just bouncing around on an old swell with less than 10 knots of wind and a boat speed not worth mentioning. Our electronic charting system continuously gives us ETA St Lucia based on present speed, and you do not want to hear what it reads right now. We neither, we are just hoping for the Passat to return and stabilise.

We are still alone out here. We may look to be in a swarm of boats on the plot, but in real life the distances are so big that since day two or three we have not seen any other boats. The AIS screen was full for a few days, but since then our 48 n.m. range is not enough to spot anything. As we now approach and boats converge into the same final run, things could be different. The tension and excitement is definitely on the rise.

In the sunny and good progress conditions we had yesterday Ola made it his responsibility to clean and polish the entire interior of CoCo. This was conducted in two consecutive operations; firstly, a bit of water and a cloth, secondly, teak oil rubbing. It looks great and he has now kindly re-instated the important layer of protective fat on the teak surfaces.

Yesterday’s chef was Henrik, making delicious chicken pasta. The setting was still the al fresco section of Atlantic Moonlight, where they have a table for 6. Today the restaurant was closed for lunch due to the weather, and it does not look too promising for dinner either.

The forecast is for even lighter winds as we approach St Lucia. So our Tuesday arrival, although maintained basis present speed, may still turn out to be Wednesday.

All well and spirits high!

P.S.: A request for photos has been made. This request will go unanswered until our arrival in Saint Lucia. There is only so much one can upload via a satellite phone.

CoCo / ARC – Day 12

06/12/14 12:00 UTC

DIST SAILED: 1935 nm

DIST TOGO: 570 nm

PRESENT SET: GENOA REACHING

Comfortable sailing for the last 24 hrs. During the afternoon yesterday we continued on our ‘over’ south course, with a pretty good progress our handicap on sails taken into account. Through the night the wind backed from SE to ESE, we boomed out for a while, then back on reaching track, re-boomed and finally, at 4 o’clock ship time this morning the SE reappeared. The boom is now down, we’re reaching on approximately 115 AWA in a 16-18 knots breeze. We are happy with our south position and have altered course straight for St Lucia. Praying for more wind here than further north, and a decent angle to keep us going with the genoa. It does not look to bad for us even if today’s position report set us a bit back. This is partly because of our deliberate off target steering. An investment for the coming days.

The easy sail handling gives plenty of opportunity for everyone to relax. And as I have said before, the team spirit on-board is impeccable. A sign of this is that on almost every watch there is a tendency to enjoy sailing for another hour and thereby delaying calling out the next watch. So there are hours of sleep handed around everywhere.

The Atlantic Moonlight Restaurant in the aft end of the vessel opened at 18:00 hrs ship’s time yesterday with a fixed menu of lamb ratatouille with couscous. Obviously there was some Bordeaux available for good company. Huge acclaims again for the chef, this time modesty prevents any names being mentioned.

The mood is otherwise getting particularly elevated every time the arrival in St Lucia is mentioned. With the good help of the new music system, where Brian seems to add a new ‘zone’ on a daily basis, Bob Marley, 30 degrees in the air and 28 in the sea, we are getting ship-wide noisy tests of what lies ahead. Brilliant!

Brian and Ola had another look at the spinnaker today, just to be 100% sure there is nothing we can do to fix it. Confirmed. The genakker is not even worth re-inspecting. However, we’ve found reference to a first class sail maker in St Lucia in the ARC papers, located right there on the dock, so our mishaps will be rectified in good time before the young Brahawis continue their expedition.

Yesterdays after dinner, cigars were smoked and talks evolved around sailing in general, and this adventure in particular. We are actually quite keen to do it again. With a boat like this we really should spend more time on the ocean, Brian and I agreed. The young half has also started to talk about getting themselves their own boat. This whole concept, sailing, voyaging, camaraderie is obviously a firm part of these good young men’s DNA now, and an old pusher gets really touched and sentimental by seeing how the addiction grows.

We are still aiming for arrival within Tuesday, wind and safe navigation permitting.

All well here, wish all of you a pleasant Sunday afternoon!

CoCo / ARC – Day 11

05/12/14 12:00 UTC

DIST SAILED: 1770 nm

DIST TOGO: 735 nm

PRESENT SET: GENOA REACHING

“The passage had begun; and the ship, a fragment detached from the earth, went on lonely and swift like a small planet” – Joseph Conrad

What an afternoon and evening on the water we had yesterday. Fantastic weather and easy going with only genoa reaching. Perhaps not the greatest wind and pace, but it gives us time to reflect on what we are experiencing.

Our passage so far has been challenging, exciting and rewarding from a nautical point of view, but more important is the experience of being in such a micro environment for so many days. Our minds are definitely getting narrower, focused on the well-being of each other, and the daily tasks in our small floating habitat. We have in other words given up on the global challenges for now, which really adds to the relief and wash out that such an ocean voyage can provide. We promise to return to our daily duties and responsibilities in due course, but for now, we enjoy being in our small and remote tribe.

Yesterday for dinner we engaged the autopilot and set a table for 6 in the aft cockpit. We have a full moon these days, the boat moved gently, and Sebastian made an incredible dinner of steaks, vegetables and a totally custom red wine sauce; solid, natural and hand made from the bottom up. Absolutely delicious! We made several toasts for our great fortune of being able to do this together. CoCo always was, and remains, a happy ship!

Yesterday was also the setting for contemplation and de-brief of an incident which I have yet to tell you about. As many of you know, we destroyed our genakker in the early days of the passage, and since then we have been watching over our spinnaker as a new born baby. At least, this was the case until a few days ago, when we started to gain and saw the opportunity to do real well in the race. We then made a decision to increase risk, extend ‘race mode’, and let the spinnaker fly at night. The overall conditions have become light so the only risk of any trouble would be squalls.

Well, that’s exactly what hit us the night between the 3rd and the 4th of December. Coming out of nowhere, winds gusting to 30 knots, rain hovering down, and before you know it it’s too late to take the sail down, you just have to follow the wind and pray that it will go over before the sail blows out. Brian did a fantastic job keeping the boat straight in longitudinal line with the immense forces in the spinnaker, and everyone else were just hands-off, staying safe and watching. Unfortunately, nature won, and the spinnaker came down in pieces. We managed, with some effort and collective calmness, to get everything back on-board. No other harm done to people or equipment, which was the main topic of talks and celebrations through yesterday.

From a regatta point of view, being in a downwind race and approaching the final sprint to finish, the lack of proper clothing can be quite determining for our result. After so much hard work this is of course a source of disappointment, so we needed a bit of time to cope with this before going public.

Now, any situations can also give opportunities, which is what we are now exploring. It’s obvious that staying in the same line as our competitors with less sails would be a clear defeat. We have therefore ventured south in our approaches to St Lucia, as you may have seen on the plot. There are two purposes with this; firstly, a sharper angle to the wind gives us better speed with genoa only. Without the spinnaker it is very slow to go straight downwind. The sharper angle and deviation south cost some miles, but that may be compensated by more favourable winds later. The last 36 hrs shows that despite being lightly dressed, CoCo is keeping in contact. Secondly, the weather forecasts show signs of very light and difficult winds in the area between us and St Lucia for the coming days. Our present bet is that we will be less affected by this the more south our final approach is.

Anyway, we all agree that the competition is only a very small piece of this whole experience, and our joy and pride of a safe arrival in St Lucia is not going to be affected by the result. Having said that, having a plan and participating in a competition is interesting and motivating, which is why we are excited about still having cards in the game.

Henrik cracked the code today of automatically adding the daily position list into our navigation software, through the ‘back door’, as waypoints. We now have all 200 boats spread out on the chart itself, meaning that we can see the same thing as you can. A huge number of dots moving west in the Atlantic, with CoCo being in the front pack. That’s a pretty cool picture! It is also very interesting to visualise the north/south separation of our group, reference made to the strategies explained above.

All well on-board and thanks for following!

CoCo / ARC – Day 10

04/12/14 12:00 UTC

DIST SAILED: 1602 nm

DIST TOGO: 900 nm

PRESENT SET: GENOA REACHING

The winds remain easterly and light, and it’s a bit of a struggle to keep CoCo at pace. The last 24 hours has not been a record for us but considering the conditions we are fairly happy. Most important, everybody has been enjoying the sunshine and the crew is in good spirits. Henrik had a comment though, after seriously long hours at the weel, at some sheet, or running around deck changing sails. He read a tip for the passage somewhere, hinting that 10-12 books would be a good idea. No-one here has managed to read more than a foreword, and Henrik is looking forward to some easy months in the Carribbean…

After lunch yesterday we continued into the night with spinnaker. The wind gradually veered to SE, giving a sharper angle. Simultaneously we got some good strategic ideas, so we took the spinnaker down and started genoa reaching. We won’t disclose in more details, but we have a plan! Through the night we encountered more squalls than we have seen so far on the crossing. It is amazing how much water these clouds can hold, the wash down is total, and they also deliver strong winds in gusts. Really unpleasant things, but they luckily only hang around for a few minutes.

Since we have decided to genoa reach for a while we made an attempt to hoist our somewhat larger racing genoa this morning. Peter and Brian must have been in a mutual morning haze, as we managed to mess up the halyards and shackles, resulting in some small, but repairable, damage. Ola is now in the center cockpit with the sail repair kit doing a good job to make the sail ready to hoist again, in a matter of minutes.

In the afternoon sun yesterday Sebastian started to experiment with new ways of trimming the spinnaker. It ended up as a combination of locking the sheet firmly between the biggest and second biggest toe, whilst engaging the electrical winch using his right hand. Everybody agreed that the revolutionary idea hereby demonstrated had to be patented and commercialised, so let’s see how Sebastian takes this forward.

We have changed the ship’s time again today, so we’re now 4 hours after European Central time. This is the reason why our 12:00 CET reports reach you later and later.

The fishery in the back continues to be a popular past-time and it seems that something bites every time the line is out. However, probably because of our speed and the size of the catch, the sea monsters damage our bait but refuse to be dragged to day. But luckily, as far as nutrition is concerned, there is absolutely no danger. The freezer and elsewhere is still full of delicious raw materials, so we can last for weeks. As the air is getting hotter we have actually reduced rations somewhat, but at least for us oldies, there’s still more food on the table than we’re used to. In the fruit hanger in the middle of the saloon there’s now only one banana left, so a certain celebration is close.

With less than 900 nautical miles to go we estimate to arrive in St Lucia sometime during Tuesday. That’s not much more than a long weekend away. We’re all looking forward to that of course, but at the same time it’s a bit sad to see time pass so quickly. Life at sea, when you are together with a group like we have here, is actually a very good place to be.

All well on-board!

CoCo / ARC – Day 9

03/12/14 12:00 UTC

DIST SAILED: 1427 nm

DIST TOGO: 1068 nm

PRESENT SET: SPINNAKER

Becalmed mid Atlantic with 1000+ nautical miles to go, a somewhat frustrating situation. Our minds tend to project the present on the future, which, in this particular case, could look like Christmas at sea. But fortunately, we are all rational people, knowing that the wind will indeed be back.

The spinnaker has now been up for 24+ hrs, and we are putting in a lot of effort and concentration to keep the boat moving. The weather forecast continues to announce light winds next days so our ‘race mode’ has been extended to 24/7. This may sound overly ambitious in a cruising ‘rally’, but as our progress has brought us higher and higher on the list, the guys have started to smell trophies. The management on board has taken pleasant note of this development, but has not pushed it. Just for the record. From scattered reports this morning it seems that we have been able to ‘stay on top’ through the night, so work pays, although we may see someone out there with a higher average. Brian made a particular effort, and was so deep into keeping the boat moving that he delayed his watch change for almost 2 hours, a sacrifice only a blood tasting old ocean racer would make. We’re anxious to see today’s position report.

We have been told that this is also the moment in the race where some of our competitors in the cruising class may opt for engine use in periods of calm. This won’t be visible and accountable before self-declarations have been handed in on arrival. It will of course have a huge impact on the results, as engine use, although allowed, is severely punished. So far we have not even considered going that route, as we define ourselves as part of a proper regatta. Winds come and go out here, we hang in.

Today the morning watch woke up to the smell of freshly baked rolls. Yes, Peter jr. has had a project going for a couple of days, testing various Spanish flour mixtures. Yesterday he was almost there, only to find out that the sunflower seeds added at the end, to create that fancy healthy chew, was still in its capsules, making it impossible to eat. But this morning we could enjoy the final product, and we are all looking forward to more. None of us has ever been on a sailing trip as long as this before, but somehow it seems that everyone has lived on a boat for their entire life, knowing exactly what to do to keep life rolling normally. Baking bread in the middle of a regatta suddenly became the most natural thing to do. We could be ready for passages far longer than this one.

Another taste of the wildlife appeared again last night. Henrik is trimming the spinnaker in pitch darkness, when suddenly something lands in his lap. He admits that his immediate understanding of the situation was that something was thrown at him from the hatch of the Captain’s cabin, because perhaps his concentration was not at its best. Well, not sure why he got such thoughts, that type of coaching has yet to be applied on CoCo. Anyway, grabbing for the object (perhaps to throw it back into the Captain’s cabin…?) reveals a slimy moving object with wings, and a short scream could be heard. Thanks to Ola, a very collected watch-mate, the situation was calmed down before the entire crew was called out. The poor flyer jumped back to the sea, and Henrik could put his mind back to the spinnaker.

It is getting warmer every day, so the deck bed in the forward cockpit is now made up and ready for fresh air seeking sleepers or late-night stargazers. Below, with hatches closed and nets of fruit and dirty clothes all around, it’s getting less comfortable, although as Ola says, it’s amazing to experience human’s ability to adopt.

The weather forecast remains good for our precious spinnaker and our general safety, although our racing hearts could have wished for a bit more pressure.

Otherwise all well with crew and ship!