Nov 25 2002
We had a fabulous start of the rally yesterday! We had the Uusnakkis and
Jarvelainens who had come all the way here to greet us, plus a group of flag
waving Finns, and even a Finnish Santa Claus. It was a great feeling seeing over
200 boats before the starting line all impatiently waiting for the gun. In fact,
so impatiently, that the committee vessel, which was a Spanish navy ship, had an
extra buoy out to prevent boats from hitting it. We had to actually start the
engine and put it in reverse at the line to prevent running into a line of boats
in front of us. Once we were past the starting line, we started sailing through
the fleet. What great light air performance we have! In 7kts of wind and sloppy
seas we were just gliding through boats much bigger (Oysters, HR49, etc) on a
broad reach.
The wind then picked up a little (10 kts) and we had a great sail broad reaching
along the east coast of Gran Canaria under sunny skies, UNTIL ...
The fleet suddenly got slammed by heavy winds from the opposite direction (SW).
This meant sailing dead against the wind. I saw the white caps from a distance,
so we had time to put a deep reef on the main sail. We then motorsailed for a
while and contemplated setting the storm jib and sailing on. The wind and the
seas continued to build up: we were experiencing sustained winds of 30 kts (15
m/s or 7 Bft) with higher gusts, on top of a forecast swell of 4-5 meter high
waves, and the first night with darkness soon setting in. We heard reports from
boats ahead of us of winds to 40kts, and saw boats turning back. There were
several boats with broken gear and leaks.
We probably would have pressed on with an all adult crew, as most boats did, but
with the kids on board there's always more concern. So, half an hour before
sunset we turned back, and started a pleasant downwind surf back to Las Palmas,
where we arrived at 9:30pm. Yes, it is very disappointing and demoralising, but
at least nobody got hurt, we didn't break anything, and the boat was handling
itself very gracefully.
So, we're sitting here in the rain waiting for more pleasant weather for our
2,800 mile sail among several other boats with kids on board. Once clear to the
south of the Canary Islands, weather like this is not to be expected, but we may
have to wait another day.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
Nov 26, 2002
We started again this morning at 10am. We are at roughly the same location where
we turned back two days ago. So far so good. There's a lot of wind acceleration
here close to the Gran Canaria coast. We've seen again up to 34kts, but this
time we're going dead down wind, so life onboard is very pleasant.
Juha
Nov 27, 2002
Having problems sending e-mail. It's now just past midnight, everyone except me
is sound asleep. The sky is bright with stars, and the full moon is just rising.
We have a very smooth ride: we are motor sailing because the winds turned very
light, and we want to do some catching up of the rest of the fleet. The kids
have been in SSB radio contact with the other kids 150-260 miles away: everybody
seems to be in good spirits, although the night of 24th was described as
"terrible". Right now I can see the nav lights of Snow Cat from USA and Avatara
from Sweden, who left at the same time. I'm guessing tomorrow night we won't see
anyone any more.
Juha
Nov 29 2002
We're at North 24 degrees 00 minutes, West 21 degrees 59 minutes. Course
240 mag. We have winds from NE at 25-35 knots. Seas are rough (4 meters) with
big cross swell from NW originating from a storm near Ireland creating
occasional freak waves. These conditions are expected to last until Monday.
We are doing fine, nobody is seasick, but nobody is real hungry, either We have
a triple reef on the main and a scrap of genoa poled out to windward. We broke
our telescopic whisker pole last night (these things never happen in daylight),
but luckily we have a stronger spinnaker pole to substitute. We have been in
radio contact with several other yachts: everybody is doing fine.
We'll write a little more when the seas are smoother.
Crew of S/Y Amati
Mon, Dec 2
Since Thursday we've been sailing dead downwind (SW) with 30-40+kt of wind (max
49.6). We have only a tiny bit of sail out, and we're towing three long ropes in
a loop behind us to make sure we don't broach out of control. Seas are huge,
Roland was estimating 7m tall. This is quite exhausting, but we (especially the
kids) are doing fine, and the boat is behaving well. According to the forecaster
I just talked to, the weather will moderate by mid-week, so we'll just hang on.
Unfortunately, there was already one sailor lost to the seas two days ago, which
made us even more careful. It's quite rolly, so it's difficult to type, not to
talk about cooking. The boat is dirty with Sahara sand that gets blown all the
way here from Africa. It's quite warm during the day, nights are cool.
Our SSB radio is out again, and our radar and electronic charting went dead. We
also snapped our whisker pole for the genoa. Luckily none of that is vital.
Especially the autopilot is doing fine.
Ahoy,
Crew of Amati
Oct 3, 2002
Ahhh, we are finally sailing in pleasant tradewinds of just above 20kts, just
like the weather forecasts have been talking about all along. What a smooth
ride, seas are only 2 meters or so. This is fun! Winds above 40kts in the ocean
are not fun.
It appears that the rough stuff (30-50 kt) was a "tropical wave", that was never
properly forecast. We've heard of lots of trouble from other boats: our
Australian and British friends were also towing warps under bare poles: the
Australians lost their drogue and trashed their primary downwind sail. The
British were broaching and had the cockpit repeatedly filled with water. A
Hunter 45 lost its' rudder. The lost sailor was on a Formosa 51, and he WAS
wearing a harness/tether. We even heard of trouble on a 65 meter tall ship.
Relatively speaking, I think we rode the storm in comfort and safety: thanks to
our stout and well behaving Nauticat, even though we stayed on the path of the
tropical wave longer (several days!) than most others. It's amazing how the kids
weren't bothered the least bit by our rough ride. Maybe next time we should make
them stand watch and go to bed ourselves.
We all took a shower for the first time (yes, the watermaker is working). We are
picking up flying fish from the deck. Life is returning to normal. We've done
well over 1,000 miles, only 1,732 miles more to go.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
Dec 6, 2002
We have only 1,300 nautical miles to go, about 1,500 and 10 days at sea are
behind us. The winds have been light the past few days, so we have had to motor
quite a bit. Yesterday we flew the spinnaker the whole day, until we saw a nasty
looking squall ahead, and changed to the genoa instead (the squall never came).
Right now we are broad reaching in variable wind strength, but mostly at good
speed. It's been quite pleasant on board, and we have eaten very good meals,
too. Other than that we are quite lazy: Nikki gets the occasional cleaning fit,
and I get the occasional maintenance fit (or fiddling with the instruments for
the n:th time trying to get them to work).
Yesterday we had a little half-way celebration for: the kids got some new games
to play with. They have been so busy with them that they probably wouldn't
notice if we parked the boat on a dock in St Lucia. We still have plenty of food
to easily last the rest of the crossing, even though drinks are getting fewer.
We may have to keep some of that vodka from the fish.
Two days ago the kids caught a good size dolphin fish that I prepared for
dinner. Every day we find dead flying fish on our deck: it really looks funny
seeing the little herring-like fish flying here all over the place. Their
aviation skills aren't the best, so they keep hitting things and landing on boat
decks. We just have to hope that they don't land somewhere hidden or
inaccessible, as they smell very fishy.
We haven't seen any ships since the Canaries, but we do occasionally see other
sailboats, and hear them talking on the radio. Luckily all the sailboats are
going the same direction, so watch keeping doesn't need to be very intense out
here. In fact, many short handed crews simply go to bed and let the boat sail on
her own. I like to lie down in the cockpit watching the stars, and get up every
10 min to scan the horizon. The visibility here is always excellent.
BTW, the 12-year old girl Freya from Canina, whose "rather different than
normal" birthday was featured on http://www.worldcruising.com , happens to be
Matti's best friend. They are sailing the smallest yacht (29 ft) of the fleet.
We really admire their endurance.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
N 17deg58min
W 38deg45min
Dec 8, 2002
We've had great winds for the past days, the past 24 hours we've *averaged* over
7 kts, and did over 170 miles, even though we are sailing conservatively both
sails reefed down. It's really getting hot here around noon, but the nights are
still cool (need to actually wear clothes outside). We just had a sea bird
trying to land on our mast 1,000 miles from nearest land, amazing. Well, land is
getting closer, and we still want to practice some celestial navigation with the
kids. Maybe tomorrow...
Two days ago we celebrated Finnish independence day with a flag and champagne,
today the cause for celebration is the 1,000 miles and the second advent.
We had a scary moment last night when the autopilot locked up. It started
beeping with a "no pilot" message, and wouldn't react to any keys, and also
wouldn't let us steer by hand. This of course happened in the middle of the
night when Nikki was alone on watch. I had to apply the good old computer
science method of shutting off the power. Meanwhile the boat had turned the
wrong way and our sails and rigging took a terrible beating. Luckily nothing
broke: just a lot of noise, yelling, and commotion. The rest of the night was
rather sleepless. The autopilot has for a few times shut down before, but not
locked up like that. It's now been sheepishly working since.
Anyway, my confidence in the latest marine electronics is quite low. We already
had major trouble with the GPS, Navtex, SSB radio, Radar/Chartplotter, and
Autopilot. Even when they are working they exhibit various quirks and bugs (no
doubt software based). In fact, the only rock solid piece has been the VHF
radio. We need to stay up on watch just to make sure the instruments aren't
misbehaving. Luckily the rest of the boat (sails, rigging, engine, etc.) has
been remarkably trouble free. Even this computer that has already seen some
saltwater spray is working without a hitch. I think there are two approaches to
the problem: have so few instruments that nothing can go wrong, or have so many
that it doesn't matter if half of them break. I think we are in the latter camp.
If the winds are favorable we should be in St Lucia in a week! Since we started
two days late, and we have used our engine through the calms, our placing in the
"race" will sure be low. Looks like the other Nauticat 42, Gustie, is doing very
well, especially considering that the captain is suffering from lung cancer.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
Oct 10, 2002
This morning we had some more excitement to spice up these monotonous trade wind
sailing days. First the batteries wouldn't accept much charge from the generator
even though the voltage rose unusually high (15 V). Then after I shut down the
generator the voltage went real low (9 V), until the instruments started
flickering and the lights started dimming. I quickly called Nikki out of bed and
asked her to hand steer. I then crawled in the engine room, where I smelled
smoke and saw sparks flying. Definitely not something you want to see in the
middle of the ocean! I quickly went for the main power switch and shut off all
the power to the boat completely. While doing this, I already saw nightmares of
hand steering for days with rotting meat in the freezer and warm beer in the
fridge. I crawled back in the engine room with a flashlight towards the area
where I saw the sparks, and I quickly spotted a melted piece of plastic where
thick electric cables where bolted on. As luck would have it, the nut holding
the main cable coming from the batteries was visibly loose. That was simple
enough to fix, and we are back on full power again.
There's an old saying that salt water and electricity don't mix. I was thinking
of that, but now we have hopefully found the mother of all the electrical
gremlins on the boat.
Actually, early in the night we had some other excitement. Finally we spotted an
actual ship in this whole ocean, and of course it just had to be on a collision
course with us (but still 8 miles away). Nikki called the ship on the radio, and
they quite politely said they would steer clear of us. Except that they
eventually changed their course quite late, making us a bit nervous (we hate the
sight of a huge freighter steaming straight towards us at 20 kts). Yes,
sailboats do have the right of way, and for us it is hard to change course when
we are going downwind wing-and-wing with both the boom and the spinnaker pole
well secured (and in darkness).
Meanwhile, sailing is going great! We're headed a bit too far north, so we'll
have to gybe in the next couple of days. Meanwhile the boat speed stays mostly
above 7 kts, with the occational 8+ in the squalls, and less in the calms after
the squalls. I think we have passed over 50 yachts already. It's now very hot in
the middle of the day. We all stay inside in the shade. Maybe we'll rig the
bimini top soon.
Not so lucky on board the Hunter 450 "F2". They decided to scuttle their boat
after their jury rigged rudder had failed, too, and they started to take on
water. If I remember right, the Hunters have composite rudder stocks instead of
stainless steel. The crew of F2 and their belongings was picked up on another
yacht.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati
N 17 40
W 50 22
650 miles to go
P.S. Right now the autopilot shut off again (switched to 'standby' on its' own),
so we're not fully cured. But it doesn't seem to do it more often than once a
day...
Quick follow-up: we lost power again. This time I spent the afternoon in the
engine room rewiring the battery cable to by-pass the ammeter shunt that had
burned/melted. Meanwhile Roland and Nikki hand steered. Now we're powered up
again, luckily well before the night. I'm even letting the kids watch a movie!
Juha
Dec 14, 2002
We have arrived in St Lucia after 2800 miles and 18 and a half days at sea (much
faster than Columbus)! We crossed the finish line at 8:05 pm local time in the
dark, so we really haven't seen this place yet. We haven't even stepped on land,
as we had all our old friends come over right away to celebrate our arrival! It
was a really great feeling of seeing everyone again, and swapping all the
stories from the sea. Now we'll go to bed and catch up on some sleep.
Ahoy,
Crew of S/Y Amati