Is This The Perfect Weather for Sailing the Atlantic?

Starting with the Skipper’s report and then following with the FCS crew on Challenger 2 as they sail towards the Azores on their voyage from Antigua to the historic city of Portsmouth…

Shorts, T-Shirts, Sunshine and Wind – the best of Sailing

Date :19 January 2018
Time : 12:00 GMT
Position :37.50.61 N 37.23.80 W
Destination Horta
ETA 21 January

Morning all,
As predicted the wind filled in yesterday and we were sailing again at 14-30 initially at only 5- 6 knots but that increased building to a current 9 – 10 knts, The wind is forecast to build more as the day/ evening progresses so we will be setting the second reef again before the day is out then maybe even the 3rd, speed will stay the same.

The crew are getting quite excited with the prospect of land in 2 days, with restaurant / food plans being frequently discussed. Helming is now being carried out without the aid of the compass just wind angles and feel in readiness for the broad reach roller coaster that will be the next leg of our voyage.

Amazingly The sun is still shining, the night sky is still starry, the wind is southerly (warm), we are sailing beam reach in shorts and tee shirt … all is very good on Challenger 2

Regards
Neil, Skipper, Challenger 2

Messages From the FCS Crew

Day 11 Blog 18/01/2018
Good morning, we are currently motoring on a course of 80 COG, apparent wind is roughly 10knts with a flat sea state. The intention is to continue to motor until the wind picks up, forecast to be later tonight/early Friday morning.
This should give us a nice beam reach with the potential of 30knts of wind, a nice final blast to Horta and the bonus of reaching our destination under sail.

The weather is generally sunny with occasional showers although the temperature has fallen quite significantly. Full Oilies, thermals and boots are pretty much the norm now and sleeping bags are starting to appear on bunks. This morning saw a rare cooked breakfast, not quite a full English but close enough to put smiles on a lot of faces.

Moral is high and the prospect of a beer at Pete’s Bar is almost palpable. The crew have been taking advantage of the flat condition after the constant struggle of 6 days beating to windward. Showers, catching up on reading and listening to music has become very much part the off watch routine.

The lull in conditions has also produced some very creative and competitive cooking, the Great Atlantic Bake Off playing a major part in both day and night time activity, apparently the latest offering from Swallows watch is their take on the classic Victoria sponge, the Victoria Brick.

The temporary absence of the moon has resulted in amazing night skies, the intense darkness emphasises every star and planet and makes a very beautiful backdrop for our nightly celestial firework display. Roll on Horta, ETA Sunday Morning.
Speak to you all soon Lots of Love
Nick XXX
Mate

Hey Lesley, and everyone else following this blog.

So it has become apparent that my ramblings have become one small highlight of the routine on board, nothing compared to the baking, food and other routines on board, but I’ve raised a chuckle on occasion apparently.

It a strange place to be, with a bunch of strange people, sorry I meant previously strangers but now becoming friends. Little quirks are appearing amongst the crew, Howard is going all hippy and herbal, Steve has a swear gun, Alex is turning into Mary Berry, Chloe is ferreting out all available supplies of any chocolate like substance on the boat, and I’ve apparently turned into a blogger not bad for an E in GCSE English nearly 30 years ago, and we also think Nick has forgotten his shoes in Antigua as no one has seen him wearing any yet.

Ben is about to start doing quadratic equations in an attempt to win the prize for best guess at eta in Horta, feel free to join in if you want to, although I’m not sure how you are going to enter or get your times to us, but feel free to have a competition amongst yourselves on my other boat page http://www.facebook.com/shipfullofkittens a tin of sweet corn will be posted to the winner.

During the day time watch today I was trying to come up with things to write about and just generally taking note of the conversations and the goings on about the boat, and there are just so many things happening and yet not happening at the same time allowing a measure of being able to see things around me in all sorts of detail I’ve never had the leisure to before.

Let take something everyone on the boat does during watch, sitting on deck looking at the Sea and Sky, now you’d think after about half an hour you’d have seen everything, but it appears that we can all sit there staring for hours on end in a way that would have got me a detention at school for daydreaming, so while I was doing this today I realised the amounts of different blues I was seeing in the water, waves, the abrupt change at the horizon from the dark blues of the sea to the light blues and white and greys of the sky and clouds.

And then the changing colours of sunset with its blazing reds and oranges, into the monochrome night watch where the only colours are the instruments and the occasional planet of red or green. Shooting stars and space stations give way to sunrise and the return of colour to the world. This led me on to the wonder the whole crew has started to get for anything that is spotted floating, which always leads to excitement. So far we have had…

An empty coffee jar
A plank of wood – this was very exciting.
A couple of fenders – boat balloons, not guitars.
Birds
Porpoise’s
Sargasso weed.

Whilst I was making this list in my head some of our own contributions came whizzing past my ear, from a grinning Steve. That’s right it’s the bag of used loo roll.

If it don’t go through you it goes in a little brown bag that gets thrown overboard when you don’t feel brave enough to put anymore in it. Let’s just say everyone makes sure this bag goes overboard properly. Unlike the rest of the rubbish on board, where everything that is not made of plastic gets thrown overboard, a small bucket of collected scraps, tins, jars, old socks etc. gets filled to a point where it is passed up to someone in the cockpit, and some unlucky soul get to show off their prowess of throwing all this rubbish neatly into the sea, only of course no one is any good at throwing stuff, we’re sailors, we only pull stuff, so we have ended up with a side deck that has at various times been decorated with teabags, boxes, tins and of course sweetcorn.

So back to stuff we can see, and in another flash back to my school days I decided to use some maths that I never thought would come in handy and that was to calculate the amount of space we can see around the boat.

So skipper and mate reckon the horizon is around 8 miles away, and what with there being nothing there apart from what I have listed above we should be able to calculate the area that we see using that favourite equation Pi*R^2, so (3.14 * 8)^2 = 631 square miles, let’s call this the same area as encompassed by the M25 in the UK.

In our nearly 650 square miles there are 15 of us, in London there are… A lot of people.
Budgie

To whom it may concern,

I have an itch, can anyone advise please.
Cheers Steve.

Dear Steve,
I am sorry to hear about your current predicament, I would suggest liberal application of sweetcorn to resolve your issue.
Kind Regards, The Jolly Green Giant

Thus though I possess nothing, have given away my fortune, camp by the side of all my houses, I can still be blessed with all riches when I choose, set sail at every hour, unknown to despair. There is no country for those who despair, but I know that the sea comes before and after me, and hold my madness ready. Those who love and are separated can live in grief, but this is not despair: they know that love exists. This is why I suffer, dry-eyed in exile. I am still waiting. A day to come at last.
Bert.

‘A man is never lost at sea’ (Ernest Hemmingway).

An update from Alex:

Huge excitement today. Our whale calling has finally paid off though we reckon Howard was the real winner. Apparently he can talk to them without even making a sound!

We were in the height of a game of bird charades in the snake pit on our afternoon watch when suddenly out of the corner of my eye whilst trying to stop laughing at Chris S’s version of a Thrush (I’ll very much leave what you thought he acted to your imagination on this one!), I saw a plume of spray around 200m off the starboard side of our bow.

A pod of around 3 or 4 whales came cruising past. In this non-white horse sea conditions, it does make it so much easier to spot disturbances. We’re hoping with our approach to the Azores looming fast, the number of sightings will increase so fingers crossed.

As you may also have gathered from other crew’s posts, Howard has now acquired the name of Herbal Howard. I feel quite the leader in my watch as I have now converted both Howard and Leo to herbal teas. Who will be next? The general expression being ‘same as Alex’ when someone asks who wants tea.

Though apparently Howard’s herbal limits were tested this afternoon when I asked him whether we should do rustic potato mash with our Bolognese sauce and keep the skins on. He turned around, looked at me and said ‘I’m not THAT herbal Alex!’. When this tale was regaled over dinner (and a lot of mash), Howard proceeded to draw out a diagram with his finger on the table showing us where herbal Howard sat on the scale and where rustic potato mash sat – apparently almost off the side of the table!

The bread making has been taken to a whole new level as Ben has left the bread mixes behind and gone all out making bread from scratch. I have never seen someone quite so mesmerised by the process.

After 45 minutes of hard kneading and stretching this afternoon, Ben proceeded to separate his dough out into two bowls to rise (often placed on a sofa in the corner of the saloon out of harm’s way).

You will then find him over the coming couple of hours, popping down from deck sitting in the saloon and cradling his rising dough in his lap for a while, staring fondly at it. We came back on watch at 11pm. I found Ben rocking holding his knees up on the saloon sofa in a bit of a state.

Apparently the bread had not cooked as planned and this had completely thrown him (who had not slept through his off watch!) off kilter – the piece of straw that finally broke the horses back!

The oven went back on and it does appear the situation has been rectified – thank god some might say otherwise we might never have heard the end of it!

The motor is finally off and we are sailing again. The stars are out and as always I can’t wait to get back behind the wheel. We currently have a tanker passing us around 14nm away but it can’t be seen.

Showers today were a massive treat. I managed to get rid of all my salted dreads and for once look a little more normal again though how long this will last who knows! If all goes to plan only till Sunday at some point.

I will miss this crew enormously and although I can’t wait to join Tots, Kate and the gang skiing next Saturday, I will be very sad to not do the final leg to Portsmouth with everyone.

My stomach muscles ache from how much I have laughed over the past fortnight. It’s just the wonderfully endless and bizarre conversations that get me. If only I could write them all down. There is already talk of a reunion at Leo’s guesthouse in Swansea some time later this year.

I hope this happens and I do hope I stay in touch with many of them.

You’ll be pleased to know my 4am Victoria sponge baking turned out ok and I managed to get through 2/3rds of a jar of strawberry jam – a dent in the supply albeit miniscule! I even had Chris S singing ‘Jamming’ by Bob Marley in the background as I applied it to the sponge.

When someone suggested sweetcorn could also be added, I had to put my foot down! I’ve always loved sweetcorn but I am maxed out now as it makes an appearance every second meal without fail these days! The latest suggestion being bubble and sweetcorn or pancakes with sweetcorn and syrup.

I hope all is well and lots of love as always to one and all. Speak oh so soon.
Alex
Xxxxxx

Update from Iain Blair, 0900 UTC Friday.

It’s the 0300 to 0700 watch. The sun is just appearing. We are still on Antigua time, local time is about 0630. Confusing. We are sailing east at about 8 kts. The wind, as expected is now more from the south, the sea is still flat so the boat’s motion is comfortable. The sky has been clear, good for star gazing and satellite spotting Expected to arrive Horta, which is 450 miles away, as planned on Sunday..

All is well. Regards IB

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