A question inspired by Alpaire

Hello

Congratulations on your crossing and exciting for observers as you raced for 2nd place.

I have a HR48 and will be crossing in Jan 2017.  I very much enjoyed reading the blog of your ARC crossing and  would like to know more about the twin headsail setup.  I had discounted the twin jibs as we have spreaders that allow the boom to go well out,  but your commentary favours twin headsails. What size were your headsails, I believe they were similar sizes?  On the HR48, do you think this setup would work with 140% and 108% in the same groove?

I too have a furling assymetric and think its a wonderful sail.

Thank you

David Bowes

If you have any comment please pass it on via the comments section and we'll make sure David gets it.

A few photos from the race itself

A couple of pictures from social media

A few beers with the other Paddies

Hello St. Lucia!

Alpaire Last Day - the end

Well we got here. We are now in Rodney Bay St Lucia. We finished this afternoon. We had a fantastic run over the last 48 hours with a good favourable breeze all the way to the finish,. We took 16 days 3 hrs 41 minutes and 49 seconds, 3rd in our class. That is a very good time for a cruising boat like a HR 48. It is also fairly unusual to sail all the way without use of engine. As far as we can see most of the boats ahead of us were bigger or more racy. In fact many boats larger than us are still at sea,  Discovery 55s, Oysters etc.

St Lucia is a small island 25 miles North to South. If has very steep mountains which are no doubt as a result of volcanic eruptions. The highest is 3,117  feet, 950 mtrs so as high as Carantuohill but steeper. We were sure that the Easterly winds would bend to South Westerly and accelerate at the Northern end of the Island. We could therefore afford to sail a higher course on starboard gybe as we made our approach. The Northern tip is clean and we sailed close to it in seventeen meters. The swell subsided past the tip. We dropped our two spinnaker poles, rounded Pidgeon island, and close reached to the finish in Rodney Bay. The entrance to the lagoon is a dredged narrow channel. The marina there is very sheltered.

The temperature in the afternoon here when we finished was close to 30 degrees. There were a few rain squalls but they were irrelevant. We were greeted on the way in by Liam Cavanagh and his partner Liz who came out to meet us in a small rib with an Irish flag. They had sailed the "Arc plus" via the Cape Verde Islands. They had a bit of bother and arrived in St Lucia at the weekend.

We finished just after Bam and Taistealai, we nearly caught both. We got to meet each later. Conor Fogarty skipper of Bam has done over 20 trans Atlantics and 100s of thousands of miles at sea on all sorts of high performance boats. Some of you may know Daragh Heagney one of his crew who used to sail on a 1720. They ran out of water but still had UHT milk. Chris Tibbs's wife is Irish hence the name Taistealai which means Travellers as many of you pointed out. They could not understand how we could sail so deep. They were carrying a spinnaker.

I am sure there are many stories to be told by the other boats. On Alpaire the skippers favourite phrase was "belay that rope". Let's hope that he does not get belayed ashore in the next few days.

In a last desperate attempt to catch a fish Des put a spanner on the spinner. One of Lidl's best. The idea was to sink the lure. However all aspirations to catching another fish were consigned to Davy Jones locker. When we arrived at the dock we saw Marlene F tied up with multiple fish tails strung up. They had two large fishing rods set up on the stern, so had many other boats. In the bar we met the crew of the Finnish boat Mearra Nieida. Mearra means the sea in the  language of the Lapps. They showed us photos of the Mahi Mahi and tuna that they had caught. I think that we have got a bit to learn, for the next time!

The danger is that we now become a bunch of "when Is" ie "when I was on the ARC". In order to eliminate all risk of this nostalgic possibility we watched Casablanca in the saloon over dinner and a glass of wine. Here's looking at you kid means something else after 2,600 miles across the Atlantic!

Thank you all for your reactions to our blog. We enjoyed putting it together and I know many of you enjoyed reading it.

Alpaire Day 15

Just 217 miles to go at noon. We covered 176 in the 24 hours to then. Furia 174, Taistealai 177, Bam 166 and Crackerjack 183. Does anybody know if Taistealai means something in any language? One suggestion is a journey in Scots Gaelic. (Note from Editor: It means Travellers but is commonly used to describe those undertaking a journey rather than a member of the travelling community as Gaeilge {lucht siúil if anyone is interested})

We assume that you are enjoying good weather by now. In accordance with the Confucious theory of the World in Balance you should be, because we had plenty of rain showers last night. It is such a pain putting on the water proofs!

Our destination in St Lucia is Rodney Bay. It is called after Admiral Sir George Rodney. He defeated the French fleet at the Battle of The Saints in the Caribbean just South of Guadaloupe circa 150 miles North of St Lucia. That was in 1782, and was one of the few successes of the British in the American War of Independence. He brought with him a young Scottish man Gilbert Blane as his personal physician. Blane (later Sir) studied all that was written about scurvy and in particular the works of James Lind and the advice of Cook. He advised Admiral Rodney how to avoid scurvy. As a result  of implementing these policies the crews of the Bitish ships in the Caribbean were fighting fit and it was a significant factor in the battle against the French. Blane's personality, social standing and relationship with Admiral Rodney led to the Admiralty adopting anti scurvy regimes in all their ships. This policy change was a major advantage when blockading the French ports and at the Battl  e of Trafalgar. As a consequence Napoleon was unable to invade Britain.

As this is one of the last blogs that I will write I wanted to mention cardio exercise for future reference. Anybody planning a long ocean voyage should consider it. The boat is moving all the time and we unconsciously move our bodies in harmony, but that is not cardio. I found that the most practical and safe cardio exercise is to stand in the middle of the saloon athwartships holding the edge of the chart table and do squats. Half an hour of vigorous squats in 28 degrees of heat in the cabin will have you knackered. It is also good for getting into shape for skiing.

The ship's company are very focused on aviation matters. Perhaps it is because we saw Peter Pan lose his nerve and keep both feet on the deck during the early hours of Sunday.  They have come up with two important innovations. One will help many seafarers and marinas in future and the other is likely to be of substantial benefit to the Irish economy. I am particularly excited by the latter as it could lead to a Nobel Prize for Economic Innovation for my colleagues.

Some on board are very concerned that the Rib Dingy, unlike the ship's company, is going a little soft. In future it will be filled with helium. This will have the added benefit of lightening the stern of the boat and counterbalancing the weight of the engine so that we can take the waves better. It should also save space in marinas because we will be able to tie the painter to the spinnaker halyard.

The second idea is, I think, particularly promising. We are planning to cross the flying fish from Atlantic tropical waters with mackerel in the Irish seas. We will then develop the new sport of shooting flying mackerel. If you hit them in the air they no longer count as fish so they should be exempted from EU fishing quotas. As Ireland's maritime waters are circa eight times the land mass we have a lot of potential. Please keep this idea to yourself as Des is planning to get Lucinda to include it in her manifesto.

The otherwise idle members of the crew have come up with a new collective noun for Mahi Mahi, a snigger. That is what they do hiding under the boat when we put out our lines! I have no more to write about fishing!

Joxer advises that the smell of rum is not wafting up wind from the Caribbean. Rather it is the crew acting with the knowledge that the stocks will soon be replaced. The ships rules are: one beer or glass of wine per person per day, no spirits. The skipper is afraid that any more might result in the crew becoming (even more) delusional. I fear the search for the cause of the delusions is rather like the search for a cure for scurvy, it will take a couple of hundred years at least!

All the best from the good ship Alpaire.

Messages to the crew (Part 10)

Tadhg Pearson

It's funny to read about the tranquility of the ocean... it's quite the contrast from this busy office in Bangalore! http://imgur.com/bAXtUuD

Alpaire Day 14

Now two weeks at sea and only 393 miles to go according to the ARC control noon stats. We did 177 miles in the 24 hours noon to noon. Furia 188, Taistealai 174, Bam 163, Crackerjack 185. We are taking the shifts and downwind tacking along the rhumb line. The computer routing using the downloaded grib files suggest staying a little to the North on starboard gybe using the current wind which is North of East. The wind is expected to shift East with a bit of South East, so staying on starboard gybe should give a faster leg into the finish. That is if the wind shifts. In any event the forecast is that we will hold the breeze to the finish. We are taking a book on when that might be. The best estimate is midnight on Tuesday 8th December, or the early hours of the 9th - 2015 of course.

Jan writes: "I can see that have and have-not are on opposite poles to each other as it were, conceptually. I draw a line and I put an arrow head at each end. But I fail to grasp what it is that specific members of the crew have or have not been stroking. Please clarify." Well yet again Yan and Ying. The clue was the cotton wool for Santa Clause. The reason that you are not stroking yours in a Confucious like fashion is that it has clearly been some time! Confucious he say: he who strokes his, can think like me!

Ronan writes: "In 1601 Captain James Lancaster an English sailor performed an experiment on the prevention of scurvy. On one of four ships bound for india he prescribed three teaspoons of lemon juice a day for the crew.By the halfway point 110 men out of 278 had died on the other three ships. Everyone had survived on the lemon supplied ship. It took another 194 years for the Royal Navy to enact new dietary guidelines, and it wasn't until 1865 that the merchant fleet created similar guidelines. Not an example of black box thinking!" Actually Lancaster had been commissioned by the East India Company and it is thought that he knew about the benefits of lemon juice because he had grown up in Portugal. The benefits of lemons became known in the merchant fleets and in fact the Dutch East India Company even maintained citrus plantations at key stops such as Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope. Then the good times for the East India Companies faded. The accountant's introduced Auster  ity (and possibly water charges!). By the time that naval ships began to travel on long voyages the knowledge was forgotten.

Peter Pan was up to his old tricks last night. I came off watch at mid-night. However at circa 03:45 (UTC/GMT) the said Peter was dancing in his normal graceful fashion on the foredeck hatch over my head. Anxious to finally get a glimpse of Tinkerbelle I peered out and realised that she had escaped, and that he was chasing the clue of one of our jibs. It had frayed through where it was led through the spinnaker pole end. The recovery was not so easy because when both jibs are rolled together the clew is too high to reach when standing at the bow. For some reason Peter's aviator's skills had deserted him at that moment. Perhaps it was a confidence issue. He preferred to use the boat hook and keep his feet on deck. You gotta believe if you wanna fly! We were back on track and in the race again by 04:30.

I went back to my bunk and was on watch again at 06:00 UTC/GMT. As we are now at 55 degrees West local time was approx 02:00. My watch was uneventful except for a few shooting stars, our friends the planets and the Moon. Jupiter had risen early in the East. The Moon, as reported yesterday, rose on its ear, followed some time later by Venus. All three were in a perfect vertical line equally spaced apart. Mars rose a little before the Moon but in the North East. The four of them were like a giant triangular sail of a ship in the sky following us, Mars being the clew.

Des identified a black-browed albatross that came to look at our fishing lines this morning. Even it was not tempted. We read from the Collins bird book that it is the only albatross likely to be seen in the N Atlantic. It is a bit like a gannet but described in the book as clearly heavier and more long winged than a g.

It is with deep regret that I must announce, on behalf of the skipper, that Sam has tendered his resignation as Minister for Fisheries. Sam refused to comment on speculation that he is following his heart's desire. He is to become Patron of the Royal Society for the Protection of Maritime Fishes in Tropical Waters of the North Atlantic between Latitudes 12N to 30N for the Lunar Months of November and December. In future he is to be referred to as his Honour the Patron of the RSftPoMFiTWotNAbL12Nt30nftLMoNaD for short. As this is a newly established organisation, a bit down on its heels, he is to borrow the Crown Emblem from the Royal Irish Yacht Club Ensign.

It is understood that Sam's position became more difficult each day as Marlene F recounted all the fish that they had caught. Some of the other boats on the SSB net think that she is a factory ship!

All the best from the good ship Alpaire.

Alpaire Day 13

We had a great run overnight, 190 miles, and at noon were 570 miles from the finish. The wind seems to be a bit stronger at night so that we were able to maintain our speed and run deeper, particularly in the gusts. The guys on watch have done a great job taking advantages of the wind shifts in the gusts. The other boats that we follow did: Furia 184 miles, Taistealai 166, Bam 177, Crackerjack 176.

We are encountering lots of sargasso weed. Since the prevailing wind and current is from the East it is hard to understand how it gets down here. At times there appears to be a cross swell from th NE leading to a confused sea. But the sargasso sea is a long way North of us.

I must also return to our friend Orion and its ARC across the night sky. The belt becomes a zip and Orion appears on its side at the beginning and the end of its ARC. In the middle of the night Orion is as upright as the rest of us, whatever that means. For the same reason the moon also appears very strange to our eyes when it rises. It is on its side. Des thinks that it is under the influence (of moonshine). It is now a waning crescent and 35% full.

Today we have company from two US catarmarans who appear to be making the crossing together. We also have the odd dolphin who visits.

The crew is now sharply polarised, the haves and the have-nots. Those that have are seen to regularly stroke theirs in a Confucious like pose. I am not sure if this is related to the transoceanic sailors delusions that I wrote about yesterday. I don't believe that I suffer from same as I will need to buy cotton wool this Xmas.

I mentioned scurvy yesterday - you know it plagued seafarers for centuries. Britain and France fought the Seven Years War in the middle of the eighteenth century.  Out of 184,899 men raised or rounded up for the war, 133,708 died from disease, primarily scurvy, while only 1,512 were killed in action. The situation on the good ship Alpaire is of course better. We still have a few oranges, lemons and tomatoes left. I think the lemons were bought for gin and tonic (which probably damages the scorbutic efficacy of the fruit). As the skipper has reserved all gin for the fish catch our stocks are exceptionally good. Tonic is supposed to be good for warding of mosquitoes but fortunately there are not among the pests we have on board.

Back to fishing. We have been getting a few small flying fish on deck most mornings. This morning we got a large one. In fact it was so large that the crew thought it was a tuna that had empathy with our feelings of inadequacy (as fishermen) and had committed hari kari to redeem our self esteem. It is now sun dried bait. A long tailed skua had a good look at it but was not fooled. It is clearly immune to the transoceanic delusions of the rest of us.

We have had reports of the weather in Ireland, storm force winds and heavy rain. We are enjoying clear blue skies on a crisp blue sea. Shorts and tee-shirts is the dress code day and night. The Confucian disciples on board say that this all part of the way of nature Yin and Yang. It all balances out. You must suffer so that we have the pleasure of blue water sailing. Me thinks Yang is in Switzerland controlling us all.

We feel we are on the home strait now with a good wind forecast to take us to St Lucia, and a race to the finish with the objective of overhauling Taistealai.

All the best from the good ship Alpaire.

Messages to the crew (Part 9)

John Leckey

Uel and Alpaire Crew, from John, Barbara and Arran Yacht Club, continuing to monitor your excellent progress and well done for holding 3rd place.    Enjoy reading your daily blogs and note the problems of flying fish - same issue here, with Guinness flying everywhere. Stay safe.  Not long now.

Alpaire Day 12

The stronger wind of the last few days is now dropping. We had a noon to noon run of 187 miles. Furia who is leading did 191. Taistalai (in second place) covered 185 miles. Bam from Howth, in the racing class, did 197. Sully and the guys in the Kinsale boat Crackerjack covered 175. We have 760 miles to go but our daily runs over the next while will be less because the breeze is softening. That is roughly the length of a Round Ireland race. However, we expect to complete our voyage without any headwinds and can expect much more benign conditions.

The sky last night was spectacular. Jupiter is making moves and closing in on the moon. Mars is no longer in alignment, but Venus is in hot pursuit. It you visualise standing on the Earth's surface and looking into space, then the constellations that appear upright from the Northern latitudes appear to be on their side when viewed from close to the equator. Orion is on its side here and its belt has become a zip! It is a wonder then that it took so long for civilisation to accept that the Earth was round. It just shows that it is very hard for humans to question preconcieved notions. If your belief was that celestial bodies moved about the heavens, then the constellations and the stars comprised in them were no longer a fixed frame of reference. As a result of this fundamentally flawed starting point it is impossible to deduce that the Earth is round. We have to continually question the foundations on which we base our views.

Des is reading Eric Hiscock's ocean sailing text book written in 1959. He is particularly interested in the bit about pest control. We think that he thinks that it is something to do with managing crew. I must remind him about the Flat Earth Society.

All transoceanic sailors write about becoming delusional. The skipper thinks that he is in control of the pests. If the truth be known Jan and Susan planted a really smart device in the auto pilot. Jan issues instructions from his computer. It gives misleading information to the boat's navigational instruments, which we rely on to sail the boat. We think we are going to St Lucia. Jan has programmed us to go to Crans Montana in Switzerland. Remember Apollo 13! I hope he has a routing programme for the Alps.

We saw a ship today, a small tanker. It passed about three miles South of us. We also saw a yacht in the distance in the afternoon. She crossed about two and a half miles ahead of us but had no AIS signal so we were unable to make a positive identification. Her course was quite Northerly so she may not be part of the ARC. We wonder where she is coming from and going to? Surely everybody is going to the rum party in St Lucia.

The fleet got the following message from ARC control today "At 1940 (UTC) 3 December, ARC Rally Control was contacted by the skipper of yacht Magritte (ID 164) to advise the yacht was taking on water. The source of the ingress could not be identified or stemmed and the four crew on board indicated that assistance was required as the situation worsened. On the advice of MRCC (Marine Rescue Coordination Center) Falmouth, a MAYDAY was issued and the yacht's EPIRB (Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacon) activated. The liferaft was readied in anticipation of a possible need to abandon the yacht.

MRCC Cape Verde coordinated the evacuation of the crew. Cargo vessel SCL Basilea diverted to provide assistance, reaching Magritte at approximately 0500 (UTC). The crew were safely evacuated and are all well on board SCL Basilea which is now en route to Spain. Magritte was abandoned at approximate position 16 44.36N 027 27.82W."

That position is just West of the Cape Verde islands. The daily weather briefing suggests that conditions there today were 15 to 20 knots ENE with 2 to 3 meter swells. Earlier in the voyage we heard that that boat was taking water, and heading for the Cape Verdes. It is great that the rescue services were able to implement an efficient rescue. I always think that it is a pity that they do not ensure that any abandoned boat sinks. It is now a danger to others at night, but of course it is far to the East of us. The fact that the ARC is an organised event with many boats, de-risks the ocean voyage for everybody. The middle of the Atlantic is the most exposed area as the fleet by then has has separated, there is no shipping, and shore based rescue by helicopter is not possible. In our position, with circa 760 miles to go by noon, the fleet is converging, there is some shipping, weather conditions are good and we don't have too far to go.

I must conclude with fishing and supper. No more excitement! The boats that are catching lots of fish are doing so with rods. They know immediately if they have a strike. We are trailing lines with some shock cord to demonstrate the load at any time. We are now convinced that we need to count those three strikes we had on the double. It is obvious that first we caught a whopper on each line, but because we were busy we did not notice it. Then something even bigger came and ate the lot! What we have managed to catch is plenty of floating "saragosso" weed. There is plenty of that about. Certain members of the crew think that this is a sure cure for scurvy, of which more anon. Me thinks it is further confirmation that certain members of the crew are delusional!

There is plenty of that about too!

That's all for now from all of us on Alpaire, with just a Round Ireland to do!

Alpaire Day 11

We had a great days run to noon, 180 miles closer to our destination. 947 to go at noon today. All the boats I mentioned yesterday did between 176 and 178 miles. So we are all enjoying these fresh conditions - Force 5 from a little North of East. The sea has increased a little with the wind. We got a bit of a wave into the cockpit last night, the first in the trip to date. Sam had another seawater shower but without the shampoo. So far our rib, which is on davitts at the stern, has stayed dry. We have a quick release system in the event of an emergency. It's called a knife.

We had just gybed onto starboard when I sent yesterdays email. We are sailing due West @270 degrees. Last evening/night was the darkest so far because we had plenty of cloud, some of it stratus and also no moon until the early hours. We reduced sail by taking a few rolls on the jibs and the main. The highest gust was circa 25 knots. These conditions are forecasted to continue for a few days. If we get any little shift to the East we will take it to get further South. We are at latitude 17 degrees and 50 minutes. Our destination is at 14N. So we have to eventually get circa 240 miles further South. The weather forecast is suggesting that the wind will go into the East in about three days. We can gybe then so we do not have to make any progress South for now.

As the wind got up and the waves began to splash we thought it best to take in the washing. Drewry is still looking for his underpants. The rest of us are looking for the best dressed Wahoo in the Ocean. Beckham has competition.

When the shackle at the top of the jibs parted on one of the first few days out of Gran Canaria we also tore a few meters of luff rope near the head. That was another reason to take a few rolls in the jibs. Remember that we have two jibs on the one foil, so they roll together at the press of a button.

I was searching for a few more nuts to add to my porridge for breakfast. Unfortunately the supply of edible nuts is running low. Our complement of nut cases is as healthy as before. Des found a bag of Stainless Nuts under the forward bunk, not good with porridge me thinks.

Joxer emailed us with the long anticipated news.

"The big Pharma is happening. Pfizer has gone from 31.3 on 23rd Nov to 33.6 this morning but has receded to 32.9 this evening on the news that you have run out of yellow bags."

That is just as we expected. If you acted on our advice we will expect you to be buying your own Halberg Rassy for next years ARC. Remember that share prices can go down as well as up. No liability of any kind is accepted for any mistakes you make in this regard. Nor do we expect to benefit from your good fortune. I should also like to remind you that the flap of a butterfly's wing in St Lucia on the 9th of December can affect the weather in Ireland on Xmas day! Remember cause and effect!

Still no more fish. Two boats on the SSB net reported seeing whales breaching. Another hit a whale. Another caught a barracuda.

In a desperate attempt to preserve the integrity of their RIYC flag the patrons of the Alpaire charity have proposed tieing the corners of the ensign to the radar support pole, thereby adding to our sail area and moving the centre of effort of the sails lower. The dissenting members of the crew have pointed out that this idea is not incompatible with using the crown on the ensign to add to the colour of our fish lures. All good transoceanic downwind sails have a neat hole for stabilisation, note for example the recent growth in parasail spinnakers! This discussion is not over and we are becoming more desperate. When it comes to a vote, Des C is conflicted and has a foot in both camps.

The prospect that we will soon run out of the delicious cooked meals provided by Margaret, Jo, Angela and Eleanor, is looking like reality. To alleviate this mental distress Des T (of the Ballymaloo school) cooked us an Alpaire paella, without fish of course. It will be on the menu in future as Paella Sin Pisces. He used the electrical skillet to great effect. The idea was suggested to us by Noel and the crew of Emelia who did the ARC in their HR48 a few years ago. The skillet on full power draws 60 or 70 amps, so we can only use it when the smart battery controller is in the mood. It is very practical with its own lid and is independent of our gas cooker.

Joxer also commented about our difficulties with the smart controller which we will investigate. On a practical note Joxer suggested we test the battery voltage at the terminals. We did turf Drewry out of his bunk to do just that ..result ...battery voltage A Ok but one irate sleepy Drewry.

Joxer's other suggestion is still under appraisal, he proposed a very practical alternative. "If that doesn't work why not try linking Drewry's head in series rather than in parallel. It will at least put more voltage through Drewry what ever about the controller."

All well here enjoying the sail.

Messages to the crew (Part 8)

Jeffrey Ryan

Hi Alpaire ,

Sounds like you are all getting into  the groove...........gins before dinner followed by a movie......What would Christopher  Columbus make of you all!!!

You are making impressive time  so  you should be liming in St. Lucia on the rum shortly!

Impressed you haven't resorted to engine assist mode for speed but good to  hear your new found spinnaker got a blast

Weather is fairly miserable back  here ( unrelenting rain at the moment ) and apparently we have just had one of the  windiest November ever with the fastest windspeed in 70 years.

Keep up the pace and safe sailing.

Francis

This blog is very addictive. I missed the last Sunday. If i understand well, you are slowly closing in on number 2 talstealai. Congratulations! Has the spinaker halyard disappeared into the mast? For fishing, we used successfully a device that makes the lure swim up and down and sideways. The fish react to flickering and movement.

All the best

Messages to the crew (Part 7)

Tadhg Pearson

Glad to hear you're having fun. Thick fog here in Boston, couldn't see to the end of the street earlier.
So I'll keep an eye out for the boat with the yellow and pink gloves trailing out the back as I fly over the Atlantic in the other direction tomorrow :)

Paul Burke

Hi Alpaire,
Fascinating reading the log and feeling the excitement building. 22 Tons averaging the daily runs you are doing is good going.! Well done.
Its torture sitting here in grey Dublin and reading about champagne sailing every day!
Bon voyage

Hannah Ganly

Richard hope all well. Reading blog every night. Obviously no fishermen on board. Big wind here.
Robert & Sandra

Alpaire Day 10

The Wind has been fairly constant at circa Force 4 from the East, but is forecasted to go NE and strengthen to Force 5. We are continuing to sail South West (230 degrees true) in order to have a better angle for the inevitable gybe. Our direct course is 260 degrees True and the distance is 1127. We got 164 miles closer to our destination in the period noon to noon. (Bam 158, Crackerjack 170, Taistalai/ Chris Tibbs 161). We do not have a reliable distance sailed log, but distance to go from the GPS is all that matters. Our progress yesterday did not go un-noticed. On the SSB net today we were asked by Mrs/Ms Tibbs if we were still carrying a spinnaker.

At circa 1100 miles to go we have enough fuel to get there if we had to use the engine. We have used some diesel for the generator. Occasionally we run the engine to recharge the batteries and give the generator a rest.

We have been having a problem with the readings from the smart controller which was saying that our starting battery voltage was low and that input from the generator to the service batteries was a few amps even though it was saying that those batteries were circa 80% full. As you know the charge going into the batteries decreases the fuller that they get. Normally we would expect it to charge at a few amps when the batteries are 99% full. At 80% full we would expect the rate of charge to be circa 80 amps. First we had to get an irate Drury out of bed (all in a good cause, since the batteries are underneath). We checked the actual voltage of the starter battery with a volt meter and it was 13.5 volts. That means the smart controller is not so smart. We discovered an inverse correlation between the smart controller voltage readings and the angst of a certain member of the ship's company. We don't have a fully tested method of measurement for the angst. It is similar to the Ric  hter scale and is definitely logarithmic. We intend to attach the meter to the lugs on the side of his head.

Most days we do not see any other boats. However since early morning we have been sailing parallel to Marlene F, a Colombian registered Oyster 66. We have a visual on her and can see her on the AIS. We saw her a few days ago and parted company as we headed on a more Southerly route using the assymetric. They told us they do not have a spinnaker. They do not seem to be able to sail as deep as us with our twin pole etc. At the moment our courses are converging slightly and we seem to be of similar speed. They are five miles away.

Back to fishing news. Again we have no successes to report. We lost another lure overnight. This time I think it was due to rust and being in the water for too long!

Mark writes "Charles has some tips for catching Dorado. He says do this and you will get a dorado within 1 hour at any speed, guaranteed :-).You need four or five squid skirts (aka lures) on the same line. (Or yourbit of yellow glove might work just as well). Space them out 1.5 - 2m apart, over a knot in the line and a small weight. Put the last squid skirt at the end of the line with a triple hook inside it. (The others don't need a hook). Also put a reasonable weight further up the line so it all runs a bit deeper under the surface (to avoid catching birds. Probably not a problem where you are!). He says it's guaranteed dinner."

Des and Sam jumped into action. Multiple squids and weights were deployed. Des started the stop watch. It is now 127 minutes and counting.....

I can reveal we have a number of new strategies which we are about to deploy. The first strategy is to use the alu foil from the statin packaging. Hence my hint the other day to buy big pharma, Pfizer etc. We are a bit cut off from the world here. Has there been any movement in the share price due to this price sensitive information? Our next strategy is a little more controversial. We are running out of yellow shopping bags. The majority of the crew have decided that we should use the crown on the RIYC ensign. We can probably cut it out very neatly. It is too big anyhow and serves no useful purpose. I can't remember who the last king of Ireland was.

All well here enjoying the sail.

PS. just gybed, wind 23 knots, boat speed 8.5 knots sailing 270 degrees true.

Alpaire day 9

Champagne sailing today, a gentle Force 3 to 4 from the East is speeding us towards St Lucia. It was 1291 miles away at noon. That means we have passed the half way point. We also crossed the 20th parrallel heading South West. Our 128 miles noon to noon is marginally better than Sully in his Oyster 53 Crackerjack (125 miles) and Bam (115 miles), a Jeanneau Sun fast 3600 (in the racing class) from Howth. The distances are low because of the light winds across the fleet.

The breeze started to build as forecasted during the night. Yesterday evening was as expected very light. We decided to keep the assymetric flying as darkness fell. Sometimes the wind got down to three or four knots.

Jan and Susan emailed us: "Great find that gennaker. Perhaps it improves the (mis-)match between the polar data in the router and reality. Perhaps not! Susan says: where was it stowed? has it a lot of mildew? why was it never seen before?" I don't think we have enough data to reach conclusions on the polar with or without the assymetric. The sea conditions are very important and whether or not we can get laminar flow across the sails. Susan's questions are easier to answer in reverse. Sails get mildew when stowed wet. This was still in the plastic bag! I suspect that it never got used before because of the 110hp Volvo Penta with a press button start. Me thinks a suspect capital investment appraisal process! Drury must have had a comfort break during that Board meeting. Notwithstanding this extravagance from the days of the Celtic Tiger, all the crew were delighted when it flew. A better investment than bank shares, me thinks.

Night time attire is now shorts, tee shirt and life jacket, no huddling under the shed. However that increases the risk of being hit in the face by a low flying fish. These nights the moon is 62% full and rose just after 01:00. Jupiter got out of bed at about 3:00 am followed by Mars at 04:30.

At 03:51 the assymetric came down of its own accord. Des and Drury were on watch and said they were planning to take it down anyway, but they would say that would'nt they. (No Mandy Rice Davis here to prompt them). The halyard parted due to wear at the sheaf at the top of the mast, after circa 16 hours of use in light conditions on a gentle sea! Bad design or specification by HR I think. It is also possible that Jupiter, Mars and Venus were giving us a fishing alternative. So we reset the twin headsails.

Then we had to deal with the vang. The hydraulic seals were leaking internally. We were losing pressure and the vang was unable to keep the leech of the mainsail tight. We tried to get the leech down by using the block and tackle from the check stays and pulling the mainsheet to centre line. It is now kompletely kaput with a nice buckle in the ram. So Richard disconnected it from the foot of the mast. The block and tackle is working fine. All of these things happened while we had the light of the moon. When Venus rose from her slumber at 05:30 all was ship shape.

Thank you for your emails. Some of our readers are most erudite.

Joxer writes "Congratulations on bagging a Dorado. These start life as Lampuki in the Mediterranean and become Dorado as they get older and eventually Mahi Mahi, but I was told many years ago by a Bajan (Barbadian???) that they have to be over 5kg to be Mahi Mahi. The big ones are best marinated and barbecued. I'm sure Wikipedia has a different story. London Dry is very expensive for killing and is better for drinking. Larius is cheaper but you can only get it in Spain at he right price. €7.00 for 1 litre in Spanish airports and its drinkable.

The pink rubber glove works as well as the yellow one but only at dawn. The yellow is better at dusk. The slower speeds are better for the Dorado and the higher speeds seem to be better for Tuna."

Joxer confirms his belief in pink power. The despatch methodology seems to me to be an excellent and humane use for gin and the fish tasted all the better for it!

Currently running directly to St Lucia at 6.5 knots. 

Alpaire day 8

Well we have news, some important price sensitive information for a public company. You are warned, it may affect the share price! More of that later.

Conditions are lovely except for the wind which is a bit light at 6 to 8 knots. That is entirely as forecasted for the main areas where our fleet are. We are now making our dash South. The wind is forecasted to gradually increase over the next 48 hours. Our 24 hour distance made good to St Lucia was 127 Miles. That looks great compared with most of the fleet. For example; Taistealai, skippered by Chris Tibbs, a meterologist who advises professionally on routing etc and is lying second, made 111 miles to the good. Maybe we were lucky. We concentrated on boat speed. It must be in approximately the right direction. However we are North of Chris and most of the fleet, so hence the need to get South.

This morning we unveiled our secret weapon, never used before, an asymmetric spinnaker on a roller. That has given us extra speed. When we get into the grove we can occasionally manage 7 knots on a true wind of 9 to 10 knots. It is all about getting the apparent wind to work for us. Every now and again a wave swings the stern and we lose the apparent wind effect. Our average is better than six knots with this rig in 9 to 10 knots of wind. The success of our routing strategy all depends on whether or not the others are getting a better angle towards St Lucia.  

The orcas, marlins and wahoos have been very aggresive. With two more strikes they took the bait and snapped the wire, twice! That also proves that we don't have a problem with knots. Then shortly after 10am, before the night watch were fully awake, we caught a dorado. Congratulations to Sam and Des. We will bring back the photos to prove it. The dorado was a beautiful golden colour when it was in the water. Hence the name, from gold (in Spanish ?). I understand that it is also called Mahi Mahi. Our speed at the time was 3.5 knots. This gave Des the chance to use the gaff to land the fish. He has been wanting to use that for a number of years now. Hard cheese for the Dorado!  Then we applied the Larious London Dry Gin to each gill. Now I know the origin of the expression full to the gills. Sam cooked it on the skillet for lunch and served it with a fine Spanish white (Rioja) and a slice of lemon.

I can now reveal the price sensitive information to the faithful followers of Alpaire's progress. The dorado was caught on an artificial lure fashioned from the yellow part of a Morrison's super market bag. I described this previously as an El Corte Ingles shopping bag, in case any spies or the CIA were tuned in of course.

We have two further strategies for fishing. I will consider revealing all tomorrow , if I have space. In the meantime keep an eye on the share price of the major pharma companies.

All well on Alpaire as we sail SW in a gentle breeze and a calm sea.