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.