Halfway Day
Before I set out the today’s events I thought it would be good to introduce the crew properly and to set out why they wanted to do this Atlantic passage as they have explained to me. Statistically apparently 100 dream of sailing the Atlantic but out those 100 only 1 goes on to actually do it. Keith and Peter are on the same watch.. Over the next two days I will deal with the other watches.
Crew feature
Keith Winstanley
Keith was a career Naval Officer, now retired, having reached the rank of Commander and having Captained a number of ships. He has also completed 4 legs of the Clipper Round the World race. He sailed on Stormbird in August 2023 from Spain to the Canaries and he was introduced to me by Mark.
Reason for Sailing the Atlantic
Keith loves the idea of adventure and travel. He loves life on the water and felt it would be a privilege to join Stormbird for this leg and other legs as he wants to share in this adventure and he is very grateful to be included. His wife will be flying out to Barbados where they plan to have a holiday. Keith keeps bees at home and not only have we learned a lot about bees we have also had lots of his lovely honey! He is a very solid crew member and his years of experience at sea are invaluable.
Peter Saint
Peter is retired former engineer and worked for many years in IT infrastructure projects. He also sailed on Stormbird from Spain to the Canaries in August 2023.
Reason for Sailing the Atlantic
Peter sailed the Atlantic in 2018 as part of the ARC on a catamaran and wanted to do it on a monohull. He loves travel and is probably away up to 4 months a year travelling. He plans to travel to Dominica and Guadalupe after reaching Barbados. He is a very solid crew member and his engineering skills have been very useful.
Today
We sailed through the night at a reasonable speed and Robbie and I were on the 5.00am -8.00am shift. There was a beautiful dawn and we saw the sun slowly come up at about 6.30am. Here it seems the sun comes out of the sea and at sunset it sinks into the sea. The sea state was calmer with long large waves of some 3-4 metres but about 100 metres apart. Whilst these seem large, due to the length apart they are not threatening and you ride over them but in the dip you lose the horizon.
Mark found a large flying fish on the deck and decided to cook it so we all had a piece to try at breakfast. It tasted quite meaty and was a bit like a sardine. Robbie cooked porridge which went down well. It was a lovely warm day with few clouds and we sailed along around 5-6.5 kts and were not in a hurry. We read and chatted and I made a few calls and emails to see if I could get the Red Baron repaired and/or whether I could get another. I had also bought a Datahub from Predict Wind which sends data which I finally got working and so you should see on the tracking page wind speed and direction now as well. There are lots of flying fish now which seem to be disturbed by the boat and they leave the water and fly for some 30-50 feet sometimes and may hit the water a few times but skim on- a bit like when you throw thin stones on the water and they skim a number of times.
We looked at the weather and there was a choice coming up as to whether to go further north and then we would come down to Barbados from the north or to continue west and for the southern point of Barbados. A wind hole was developing behind us and it seemed the southerly route would give us more wind, As the day continued the wind began to decline so we decided to get out the Asymmetric Spinnaker (Gennaker) I had under Marks bunk. I had never flown this before and it is red, white and blue and I had been given a picture of it when flown by the previous owner. We prepared it on deck and it has one tack line holding it to the prodder (pole) on the bow (front of the boat) and a sheet (rope) which comes down the side of the boat depending on which side you are flying it. Once we were happy with the lines we raised it on the halyard at the mast. This sail also has a snuffer and a sock. As we raised it we could see it was bunched up but eventually we had it up and flying. It was a beautiful large sail (bigger than the Red Baron) in red, white and blue and I decided to call it Bluebird. -see picture. As the wind was dying after we had flown it for a short period we decided to bring it down and to tie it to the deck for future use.
The wind died even further so we put the engine on to make up the miles and we were soon on our way. We had noticed a white bird flying around us and I think it was an Egret. I thought it must be tired as were about 1,450 miles from Barbados, 1,200 from Brazil and 600 miles from Cape Verde. It is unusual to see birdlife this far out and you normally see this about 200 miles from land except for Albatrosses. It circled a number of times and then tried to land on the spreaders of the mast. However it was not able to do this but landed on the genoa sheet (rope) at the front of the boat instead. It stayed there for some time and then flew off but returned again but left before sunset. We hope it is ok and it reminded me of civilisation and that there is life outside our Stormbird bubble. The sun went down and we reached the halfway point to a cheer. Robbie cooked a delicious chicken curry which we eat as we had a fabulous sunset. It looks like we may be on engine for the night. It had been another enjoyable day and we saw no ships at all on our plotter and we seem (apart from one bird) to be the only ones out here.
Distance run last 24 hours - 148nm