sailing – Mistral

18/05/2023

Fishing

Funny old thing, fishing. We weren’t sure we’d do any on this trip, never having fished before, but we inherited a rod and reel with the boat and Martin passed it fit for duty. He promptly proved it by catching a decent-sized wahoo.

Karen & Tim with a Mahi Mahi — Laura, Martin & Karen with a Wahoo

So when we arrived in Gran Canaria off we went to a fishing shop where we bought a new rod & reel, some spare line and a selection of lures, mostly pink plastic squids. We also popped into the off-licence for a cheap bottle of vodka, a splash of which which sends them to fish heaven almost instantly.

Shirts & Karen Gutting a Mahi Mahi — A Big Mahi Mahi!

So each morning, assuming the seas are not too rough, the rain not continuous and enough crew awake to be able to deal with a catch, we set two lures two or three boat-lengths behind the boat. We then go back to our normal activities e.g. navigating, boat repair, boat maintenance, sleeping, radio net calls, cooking, reading, writing blog posts, FaceTiming family etc.

Landing a Tuna — Patrick preparing to fillet

A few indeterminate hours or days later, we are startled into action by the sound of one of the lines running out as a fish takes the lure. At this stage, five things can happen:

The fish immediately rejects the lure and disappears.
The fish bites the line and takes the lure to the deep.
We are too slow to get to the reel, the line runs all the way out, breaks, and the fish gets the lure and 150 ft of line.
We battle the fish to the side of the boat whereupon it thrashes up and jumps the hook.
We successfully gaff and land the fish. Note this only has a 20% probability…

Assuming we land the fish, we then give it a dash of vodka, bleed it (increases flavour), gut it and fillet it. Sounds easy but probably takes 40 min or so.

Yesterday we heard the lines running out and both lures had been taken! The fish on the starboard line took option 1 and vanished but we managed to land the other one, which was a magnificent tuna.

Oh, I’ve missed a sixth possibility after a bite: the fish becomes bait for a bigger fish. Nice work, Tim!

04/01/202304/01/2023

2022

Here’s how we got to Rodney Bay, St Lucia, from Spain, in 2022. We leave on Saturday 7 January on the World ARC 2023. You can see our position (updated every 4 hours) at the YB website.

31/12/202231/12/2022

North from Grenada

After a couple of weeks fixing things and winding down after the Atlantic crossing, we left Grenada and started to make our way north towards St Lucia.

Our first stop was Tyrell Bay, on the island of Carriacou, followed by Clifton Bay on Union Island.

Once we’d negotiated the reefs and found a mooring buoy, we went ashore to “clear in” which is sailing-speak for Customs & Immigration. A local recommended a sunset cocktail on a tiny island (20 metres across!) in the bay so off we went. Wonderful!

From there we anchored in Saline Bay, Mayreau Island, Charlestown Bay, Canouan, then past Mustique and Bequia to St Vincent. We were cautious about St Vincent as there are many online reports of burglaries, but we stumbled upon Keartons Bay, just south of Wallilabou Bay. We were helped to a mooring buoy (only room for four or five boats) and ashore we met Rosie and Orlando who made us welcome and cooked a wonderful meal at their Rockside Café. We were the only guests!

We arrived in Rodney Bay Marina on the 22nd of December, but decided to take a break from the boat over Christmas and checked into the local Hilton for three nights. It was weird spending Christmas Day by the swimming pool…

Then it was back to work and a short trip to Martinique to get the backstay tensioner repaired and serviced. There must be 3-4,000 boats in Le Marin Bay, certainly the centre of yachting in the Caribbean. And because it’s really France, we hired a car and did massive shopping at Carrefour and Decathlon!

Finally, I’ve googled the national flags of the countries we’ll be visiting in 2023 and prepared their courtesy flags. Happy New Year!

07/12/202227/03/2023

ARC+ Leg 2: Cape Verde to Grenada

2180nm in two weeks. By the time we got to Grenada we were ready for a break.

The first two or three days were the worst – the genoa furler packed up so we had to drop it into the forecabin. The furler needs to work in case you need to furl the sail in a hurry, for example if a squall hits unexpectedly or man overboard. The genoa is the “power sail” so our speed reduced from 7.5 to 6.5 knots – a shame since we’d had a good start and were sitting around 20th out of 88 at that stage.

The next day we flew the Super Zero, but after an hour or so the tack line cut through the bowsprit so we had to try to take it down. It got horribly caught around the forestay and – long story short – Karen went up the mast and cut the sail away. It was dark by the time she was back on the deck, and her arms and legs were black and blue with bruises. Very brave.

The rest of the trip we sailed using only the mainsail and the jib (staysail), so the passage took two days longer than planned. Laura and Karen prepared some wonderful meals – we ate very well – and under Martin’s guidance, landed a wahoo which we cooked and ate the following evening.

We are now resting and repairing the boat ready for the next part of the journey. We will make our way to St Lucia for Christmas and the start of the World ARC on 7 January.

Much more on this passage on Karen’s blog.

05/11/202216/11/2022

Tomorrow is the Big Day

The first leg of the ARC+ 2022 starts tomorrow from Las Palmas. The start is 1300Z but we won’t be competing on the start line – a few minutes over 5-6 days won’t make any difference and there’s no point in taking any unnecessary risks.

There’s been loads of prep this week. The engine now has a new salt-water pump and exhaust elbow, both of which contribute to engine cooling. The engine is now running at 80C as opposed to 95C before, so we think it’s fixed. We’ve got tons of meat, veg and drinks and it’s all stored away safely. All the databases are up-to-date and I’ve practised my skills with the sextant – just in case…

When we tested the engine we also practised setting the pole and flying the new Super Zero sail. Lots of good learning – I expect we’ll only fly white sails with the genoa poled out, but we’re ready either way.

I’ve tried to embed a link to the tracking website so you can see the position of all the boats So far, I’ve failed, but I’ll try again when I get a chance.

Meanwhile, you can follow our position at: my.yb.tl/mistral and see all of the boats at the World Cruising Club website. And if you download the YB Races app, you can follow ARC Plus 2022 race and see the positions of all the boats. There’s also a WCC blog which many boats contribute to.

More when we arrive in Cape Verde!

15/10/202215/10/2022

Our First Long Passage: Gibraltar to Las Palmas

Finally, our first long passage!

We need to sail to Las Palmas, Canary Islands, for the start of the ARC+ 2022. The ARC require the skipper to have sailed a passage of at least 500 nm in the last 12 months, but I’m also attempting to complete RYA Yachtmaster Ocean which requires a passage of 600 nm with at least 200 nm more than 50 nm from the coast.

The plan (Weather 4D & Routing) tells me that it’s 703 nautical miles (nm) from Gibraltar to Las Palmas, Canaries, and the Great Circle routing gives us 212 nm more than 50 nm from the coast. The weather forecast shows light winds off the coast of northern Morocco so we have to go further out to sea anyway

We slipped out mooring in Queensway Quay Marina in Gibraltar at 5:30 pm on Sunday evening in order to avoid a massive current against us in the Strait of Gibraltar. A few hours later we were dodging cargo ships before clearing the Traffic Separation Scheme and setting off to the south-west looking for stronger winds. We didn’t find them for another 24 hours.

Sailing!

It all went pretty much to plan except the engine is still burning through coolant despite the heat exchanger and turbo being overhauled in Gibraltar last week. The coolant level is reducing even when we’re sailing so it’s probably a loose jubilee clip or something simple like that.

One night we spent quite a while dodging thunderstorms. We dodged them all – but one. It’s great having a radar but thunderstorms move faster than Mistral!

It was great to complete our first proper ocean passage. 706 nm against our previous longest of 260 nm, five nights at sea against two. We all learned a lot and I’m sure Laura and Martin are more confident about managing the boat on an overnight watch. For the record, the stats are:

Distance: 706 nm
Time: 4 days and 21 hours
Time motoring: 37.3 hours
Time sailing: 79.7 hours
Fuel used (generator): 16 litres
Fuel used (engine): 171 litres
Fuel consumption: 4.6 litres per hour (that’s low because we reduced power when we noticed the coolant was leaking)
Water remaining: 817 litres (topped up every day by the watermaker)
Average electrical drain when sailing: 3% per hour
Average electrical recharge rate on engine or generator: 25% per hour

02/10/202202/10/2022

Gibraltar Oysters

Amphora - Oyster 675 — Amphora – Oyster 675

Oysters seen recently in Queensway Quay marina. Some undoubtedly en route to Gran Canaria for the ARC or ARC+.

Lilli Mae - Oyster 56 No.40 — Ayaxa – Oyster 72

16/09/202215/10/2022

Sailing to Gibraltar – Timelapse

Friday 16 September 2022 – filmed with Insta360 ONE X2

12/09/202212/09/2022

Sextant Work

I’m brushing up on my sextant skills with the aim of taking (and passing) the Yachtmaster Ocean exam in Las Palmas when we get there. My 500 nm qualifying passage will be Gibraltar to Gran Canaria in October.

The plot today went well, all things considered. There was a clear view of the sun in the morning so I did a standard Sun Sight which plots as a Line of Position. In this case, 112 degrees from my chosen position and 10 seconds (nautical miles) away from it.

The second shot today is known as Sun Meridian Passage. The idea is to take six or eight shots before and after noon and work out the time and angle of the highest point of the sun. At local noon you are on the same meridian as the sun (the sun is directly north or south of you) so the result is a line of latitude, in this case 36 deg 51.1 seconds North. The was a lot of high cloud at 1400 local so I wasn’t very confident of accurate readings.

Finally, in order to fix your position at the time of the second sight, you move (advance) the first Line of Position by the course and distance sailed between the first and second sights, in this case 290 deg and 12 nm. Where the Advanced Line of Position and the noon latitude cross is your position! Magic really.

The final plot looks like this:

The noon sight was taken after we had dropped anchor, so I took a screenshot of my iPad which shows the boat location (red arrowhead) and my calculated position (white circle) about 8 nm apart. Good enough for sailing the oceans!

09/09/202209/09/2022

Alicante to Aguadulce

Sunday finds us in Alicante Marina meeting Tim & Jane from their flight from London. The first night we spent on the anchor off the island of Tabarca, about 10 miles south of Alicante.

Next we headed south to Cape Palos, and took a couple of sun shots with the sextant en route (5 miles out, not bad!). Once there, out came the paddleboard.

Next stop was Carboneras Beach, with a great view as long as you’re not looking west (cement factory). On the way we intercepted Brizo, a Discovery 55 owned by some of Tim’s friends. They were on their way to get a new engine start battery so we left them to it.

At Carboneras we took the tender ashore for some urgent provisions, a cocktail or two and a rather disappointing meal. Win some, lose some.

Then finally we took the opportunity to practice with the cruising chute in light winds. Too light, really, but a good learning experience all the same. Back in Aguadulce Marina we had a meal ashore (half a metre of pizza) before saying good-bye, for the time being, to Tim & Jane.

Cruising Chute Practice — In the Lazarette