Coco’s Last Voyage?

The Atlantic Passage

They’re at It Again!

Once again we are at sea. This time it is the Mediterranean’s turn to get sliced up by Coco’s keel. Right now we are progressing along the Spanish coast line. After just about 18 hours of motoring we have raised sails and have been gliding along nicely since this morning. 

As is tradition, Henrik served his soon-to-be world famous spaghetti bolognese for the first evening at sea. Sebastian and Peter were only happy to be served and quickly finished the meal, one giant piece at a time, as is tradition. What is not tradition is the show that ensued throughout the meal; a flock of killer whales surrounded CoCo for a while and did something we can only assume is a graceful dance. 

The destination on this leg of sailing is Cagliari on Sardinia. We expect to arrive sometime during Sunday afternoon or evening. 

    

Land Ho

It is around eight o’clock aboard CoCo. The crew has had their hunger extinguished by a giagantic lasagne prepared by Henrik. The sun is setting as Peter and Sebastian make ready for their night watch. Visibility is poor in what appears to become a misty, windless and starless night, but the lads nevertheless expect to spot signs of land at any minute now.
Sebastian is on the look-out as Peter finishes the last few pages of a novel by Jon Michelet about a young, Norwegian sea-faring lad. Fitting. Just when Peter has finished his book and is on his way from the galley with some hot chocolate, Sebastian spots what appears to be a single candle with a yellowish hue flickering on the horizon through the mist. It is the lighthouse of Sagres.
As the light grows stronger, a breeze picks up from the north-west. With it comes a scent that is strongly familiar, but almost forgotten after a week at sea. Dirt? Pine needles? Do they even have pine trees in Portugal? Peter and Sebastian fill their lungs with this landly odour as if it was their very first breath after a long and deep slumber. In a mere hours, CoCo will be making berth in the city of Lagos.

Somewhere Beyond The Sea…

… is she there waiting for me?
Just when you thought you had heard enough fom CoCo for a while and another blog post appears. Presently, we are more than halfway from the Azores archipelago to the strait of Gibraltar. We will not be heading straight through the strait, but are planning to stop for a day or so in the Portugese city of Lagos. The reason for our little pit stop is not because of an emergency or other reason for worry. We are just going to stop to wait for a bit of wind. Thursday morning some fairly decent north/north-westerlies will be coming our way and we can swiftly pop through the strait.
For almost a day now we have been having no wind at all, but the days before we have been cruising along at a daily rate of two hundred nautical miles. A tremendous feat!
Apart from sailing we have been eating well and spotted animals of both nautical and avian varieties. Schools of dolphin (not sure that they should be called schools, because they are mammals. Please correct me in the comments below), always have a good time playing around CoCo’s hull, and a large whale passed us at a distance of five metres. What is more, we have seen swallows and butterflies – not a very common sight this far from land. They probably found CoCo to be a nice place for a bit of rest.
Positive spirit! See you in Portugal?

VLOG Episode 08: Returning (Our Second Atlantic Crossing)

Our Second Atlantic Crossing – Day 14

DIST SAILED: 2074 nm
DIST TO GO: 186 nm

Most likely this will be our last blog entry from sea, as we expect to arrive in Horta just in time for lunch. For the last two days we have been making our way towards this detination in a very uneventful manner. We have barely seen blue sky or sun in over a week and we have therefore concluded that the universe now consists of nothing but infinite greyness.
As we have a constant situation of on-again/off-again rain, the nicest place to be is down in the belly of the ship these days. An entirely different world compared to Infinite Greyness (we will file a scientific report specifiying the parameters of this universe soon). Yesterday afternoon, Peter and Sebastian made popcorn and strapped themselves to the sofa in the saloon to watch a film. This was while Jon and Henrik took command up on deck in waves 3 metres high and with rain coming from all directions.
Infinite Greyness do have some tricks up its sleeve, though! This morning a swedish sailing yacht appeared out of the mist: S/Y ISMINI. It appears that we now have someone to race against for the last 186 nautical miles in to Horta.
Positive spirit!
CoCo.

Our Second Atlantic Crossing – Day 12

DIST SAILED: 1742 nm
DIST TO GO: 518 nm

The last day has, like many before, been a bit hectic. We have been making around eight knots with nothing but a reefed mainsail up. That is a tremendous speed! You can only imagine how strongly the wind must be blowing. Most of the hectic stuff during the last day happened while Peter and Sebastian where on watch between seven in the evening and one in the morning.
First, the mainsail had to be re-reefed, because the previous reefing was unsatisfactory. In order to do this one has to go by motor against the wind. When it is blowing around 25 knots, the difference of facing upwinds and downwind is huge. Any sailor can comfirm this. Additionally, we were moving against waves the size of houses. All in all a bit of a scary experience, but a relatively straight-forward and normal thing to do.
Second, one of the fastening points of the mainsail came loose. The mainsail runs on a rail up along the mast and is attached by small cars. One of these cars coming loose is not a very alarming situation in itself, but it needs to be fixed. Luckily, it was one of the lower ones. Peter resolutely climbed the mast with some wrenches and solved the problem. An interesting experience in the middle of the night, in 25 knots of wind and with waves the size of houses.
Thirdly, our “kick” gave out on us (we call it a kick in Norwegian, and I assume that the name is the same in English, but I am not sure. I am not talking of a Norwegian “sparkstøtte”). A kick, in our case, is a hydraulic arm fastened between the lower point of the mast and the boom. Its function is to keep the boom down as a sail filled with wind will try to pull the boom upwards. We have jury-rigged ourselves a new kick out of some straps and the gennaker sheet. For the time being this seems to be working well, but we are hoping to make proper repairs when we reach the Azores.
Apart from the above-mentioned incidents, all is well abord!
Postitive Spirit.

Our Second Atlantic Crossing – Day 11

DIST SAILED: 1592 nm
DIST TO GO: 669 nm

The last 24 hours has been exciting to say the least. After relieving Jon and Henrik yesterday morning, Peter and Sebastian immedeately raised the gennaker. The wind was blowing at a moderate strength of 14 knots from starboard and CoCo was going fast. After flying the gennaker for almost ten hours, the winds were coming at us 20 knots. Jon and Henrik were once again on watch duty and had the gennaker taken down before raising the genoa. CoCo was still making great speed.
After Peter and Sebastian took over the winds were even stronger, touching 25 knots now and then. The situation was deemed safe as the we were going downwind. After nightfall, a rain shower like you have never even heard of before came pouring down. Sebastian swears to Krishna that he could see a fish swimming by in mid-air. That is how thick the rain was.
With the rain came more wind. The wind gauge was showing as much as 34 knots at times, which is near gale. Some relatively hectic and hard work was ensue on deck. Henrik was roused from deep sleep to join Peter and Sebastian. After some minutes of struggling, the main sail was reefed and the genoa was rolled in. The time was probably ten in the evening now.
Henrik, thoroughly soaked, went back to bed while Peter and Sebastian sailed until one in the morning. From there, Jon and Henrik took over again, and the rest of the night transgressed relatively uneventful.
As a result of the strong winds we were able to cover a distance of 190 nm the last day. A tremendous feat! Right now we are not moving quite as fast, but the captain is considering to book a table at a nice restaurant in Horta for saturday evening. We of course hope to see all of you there in Horta when we arrive, waving Norwegian flags.
Positive spirit!
S/Y CoCo

Our Second Atlantic Crossing – Day 10

DIST SAILED: 1381 nm
DIST TO GO: 879 nm

We are enclosed in a light fog which blurs out the moon and sun. Spooky stuff.
During the night we had to take the sails down and start the motor due to a lack of wind. Because the Autopilot has been making unpleasant clacking noises we have developed a new steering technique. Simply lock a foot in the wheel!
The part of the crew that crossed the Atlantic on the ARC can back me up when I say that this is a much more relaxing crossing the the previous one. This is probably because of a lack of competition. As a result, the iPad of the crew members are running hot from watching films and series’, and the library aboard is getting worn down from extensive reading. Sebastian even spent an hour yesterday shining his shoes. Nobody will believe that he has sailed across an ocean with shoes that nice!
As you can probably tell, there is not really much to tell. I have to go now, because there is a rather tempting smell of freshly baked bread coming from the galley…