Atlantic Crossing - Special Preparations ?

[Pete7]

Barnie is as always correct. We went from F1 with a 150% Genoa up to F7 in about ooooh 90 seconds sailling between Tenerife and Gomera.

I was on the bow trying to get the bloody genny down and I looked like this

It was the only time in 3000 miles I have seen the bow of a Nicholson 55 go under water.



Pete

[Pete7]

Hoppy, I see your from the land of the midnight sun, can I suggest therefore you give serious consideration to some form of sun canopy or bimini for the crew whilst at sea. Like you I also have fair skin and burn easily at sea.

There is that lovely saying:

"Sail South until the butter melts"

Of course the butter melts, its hot from strong sunshine, so unless you have a good tan take care.

Pete

[hoppy]

Hahaha....

I am actually and Aussie with a 37,5% Maltese in me. The years of living in the land of the long long winters has reduced my ability to handle exposure, so the first days i have to be careful I don't "go British", but after that I think I am fine.

[boatman61]

Or as the beach boys of the Caribs say....
" Hey Mon..... Lobsters on South Beach...."

[jram]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Originally Posted by jram

Don't be afraid of the acceleration zones but be aware that they can exterd 50 miles to the south of Grand Canaria. It makes for a spirited start if you are prepared to reduce sail. If your on the ARC, you'll leave the south of the island about sunset so you''ll want your sail reduced anyway.

Barnakiel explains:

Gran Canaria is a tall island. A tall island, a high island. A high island will have an area of calm in its lee. Tenerife is an even taller island - it has the HIGHEST mountain in all Spain on it (Teide). If you are a foreigner and looking for Teide from our beach, you are looking in the wrong place - PLEASE look above the clouds.

Now what does it mean to a sailor?

It means open a book and read how far the calm in the lee of an island extends related to the height of the island. Then stay away of the zone.

Otherwise you will be bobin' up and down in the swelly but completely windless area close to Pasito Blanco the whole first night of the Rally while I will be sitting on the cliff, looking at 200+ nav lights of ARC participants who did not care to notice the facts of life.

But as I said elsewhere - it is a rally, not a race: sail safe and enjoy the ride.

Hi Barnakiel,

I was talking about the acceleration zones and not the lee of the island! I completely agree with you that it will probably be a very frustrating and uncomfortable night if you get into the lee of the island! To be avoided! However, if the winds are light (as they were last year), a run down by the airport allowed us to overtake 2/3 of the fleet since we got a bit more wind there. Its important to know how to sail near big islands - I completely agree

[Hud3]

I moved some posts regarding routing from the Canaries that weren't related to this thread's topic to a new thread...

here: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post548865

[feelsgood]

perhaps they want to be in the calms because they are in a BAVARIA WOOOOOOOOO. Careful now the keel might drop off

[Bruce B]

I crossed last spring with a crew of 5 (total) on my GS 52. Here are my additions to the conversation:
(1) The bimini provided a great degree of comfort during the trip. It was the "hang out" spot during the day and was rolled up at night to facilitate viewing the spar fly.
(2) We did not use the autopilot much - during the day we flew spinnakers (up at breakfast/down at dinner) and, given our wave pattern, the autopilot was not fast enough. Plus, we hated running the engine to recharge the batteries - noise etc (only 40 gal for the Cape Verde to Rodney Bay run). Once we hit the trades (with a crew of 5) we preferred to hand steer.
(3) Wunderground, passageweather et al tend to understate the wind velocities you will experience. (4) We determined that satphones (we had 2) were a better use of our cruising $$ than SSB (of course, with an unlimited budget you'd be crazy not to add the SSB). Folks onshore later raved about our occasional blogs about life at sea and incoming text messages are free. We established a set "listening hour" for folks to call, but only got one call.
(5) SPOT is an amazingly effective, cheap technology - we sent a SPOT message each day at a set time to my wife, who forwarded it to the larger group that was tracking our progress, allowing a large group to feel involved for $1/day. It worked, even when our satphone/email system was being balky.
(6) experienced downwind Transat/Transpac guys tape the foam you use to insulate water pipes to spreaders to minimize mainsail chafe on the spreaders. I suspect that's what you see in the photo - sections of foam tubes wrapped with duct tape. We didn't and our main survived (sort of, it's being replaced for other reasons), but the aft side of our spreaders took a beating and look like someone took a hatchet to them.
(7) We added 30- 6 litre jugs to the main water tanks of the boat. The water jugs were "drinking water only", set up on a sort of "water cooler" arrangement where each crew could fill their individual water bottles. One crew was designated "water czar" to track water use and release new jugs for use (only this crew could open a new jug). This worked well and we got to St. Lucia with 5 bottles left (and water in the main tanks as well as several gallons of fruit juices, etc). We had a moderate crossing, but in 2009 many boats had very, very slow crossings with some boats taking 39 days to cross -- if you are not tracking carefully you can get in trouble.
(8) With respect to food - tuna fish, sold in euro 2.5 kg cans much larger than found in the U.S. is a great source of protein that is tasty and does not need to be refrigerated. We used it in salads and with pasta with canned peas (or other veggies), olive oil, & garlic (we had 3 Italian cooks on board that created awesome mediterranean diets as well as fresh bread and pizza).
(9) we found certain unbaked euro bread products that lasted forever w/o refrigeration and when put in the oven were great (brownies were also a great treat). Italians do not refrigerate eggs (and I'm here to tell the tale). Cook your pasta in a 50/50 mix of seawater & ships water to save on ship water use. Wash dishes in saltwater w saltwater foaming soaps, light rinse in fresh.
(10) Don't count on catching any fish (other than flying fish). Hopefully you will be going too fast for any but the fastest fish to catch your lure.
(11) We had to go a lot further south than we wanted to get to the trades, but the Cape Verde Islands were a very pleasant stop, so don't fight it if that's where the god's direct you.
(12) Everyone had a digital camera -- before we left we put them all on one memory stick and duplicated it so everyone had a full set. Bonus!