Day 16 – Monday 20 January

Day 16 - Monday 20 January. By Grant Chapman. We spent a good part of the morning moving along at a decent clip of 7-8 knots in winds gusting up to 18 knots, the helmsman’s partner clutching the spinnaker sheet and releasing the tension intermittently with each gust to depower the big bag while the helmsman bore off to put the wind directly behind us and avoid a broach. Things seemed to be going swimmingly as we were eating up the miles. And ... Read more

Day 14 - Saturday 18 Janaury. By Grant Chapman. We had been at sea for two weeks now and were relieved to be heading more directly for Rio, erring on the side of caution a bit by sailing on a slightly higher bearing as we wanted to avoid the centre of a local high pressure that looked like it was ridging up into our path on the coming Tuesday. However lots can change with the weather in 4 days so we would keep ... Read more

Day 13 - Friday 17 January. By Grant Chapman. Daybreak greeted us with red skies and sure enough we had overcast skies and noticed various thunderstorms developing off our starboard beam and astern of us but managed to sail clear of them. Clouds became our friend as we discovered that there were always reasonable winds in the presence of clouds and the doldrums were associated with clear skies overhead. As the wind started to back more and more in an easterly direction we realised ... Read more

Day 12 - Thursday 16 January. By Grant Chapman. At the end of his early morning shift at 2:00am Zulu, Marcus heard one of the rods that we had inadvertently left trolling all night suddenly spring to life and he enthusiastically reeled in his catch, swinging it over the stern and into the cockpit for Chris at the helm to inspect, declaring @#*! man, I’ve caught a snake! A very long wriggling object about 3 foot long with large gnashers dangled from the ... Read more

Day 11 - Wednesday 15 January. By Grant Chapman. We sailed into doldrums weather at about 11:00am and sat in pretty much windless conditions for the rest of the day. This was very odd as although we knew the wind would drop the GRIB files indicated at least 5 knots of wind and the barometric pressure was still at 1017hPa, indicating we weren’t at the centre of the high. Fortunately we were in a reasonably strong current by now that was pushing us ... Read more

Day 10 - Tuesday 14 January. By Grant Chapman. The early morning watch gradually gained on what appeared to be a yacht off the port bow which we discovered was Mike and Sally Bowker on Jacaranda of Carrick when we finally caught up with them later in the morning. The Bowkers were sailing around the world double-handed in a Van der Stadt Madeira 44 and were including the Cape to Rio race in their 2 year circumnavigation itinerary. The wind dropped down to ... Read more

Day 9 - Monday Evening 13 January. By Grant Chapman. We decided to hoist the big purple spinnaker when the wind was a constant 10knots from behind but not giving enough attention to detail and ensuring that the genoa was tightly hauled in first we made a horrible mess of the whole procedure and managed to tangle the spinnaker around the front halyard and genoa. We hadn’t managed to get the anti-wrap device up before hoisting the spinnaker and the problem was compounded ... Read more

Day 9 - Monday 13 January. By Grant Chapman. Daybreak arrived a lot later this morning as we headed further west with the sunlight squeezing through small gaps in a leaden sky that was heavily overcast. With a constant 16knots breeze behind us we swopped the genoa for the heavier white spinnaker as so much cloud suggested that we could be in for a few squalls. We didn’t want to risk damaging the big purple bag further as it was already starting to ... Read more

Day 8 - Sunday 12 January. By Grant Chapman. We still had the big purple spinnaker up come morning, having flown it all night with which we managed to keep up a respectable average of 7.5 knots. Very little happened today which seemed appropriate given it was an official day of rest. Peter visited the heads and didn’t reappear for almost 2 hours - it wasn’t his plumbing that was the problem but that of the boat’s which had become blocked and he ... Read more

Day 7 – Saturday 11 January. By Grant Chapman. We had become used to the serenading sound of Rotary Scout contentedly purring away to us in the early hours of the morning as she accelerated while surfing down the face of the waves created by the following swell, however this morning was different as she was eerily quiet. The purring we knew came from the prop auto rotating with the increase in boat speed and all we could hear on waking was the ... Read more