Tuesday, 1 March 2016
A new season and Miss Liz II is now at the Universal Marina on the Hamble after running repairs and refitting over the winter. preparations are under way for the next stage of the adventure - which will be a run up to Scotland for a summer season sailing the western isles. Watch this space as the fun continues.
Tuesday, 16 December 2014
Sunday, 14 December 2014
Search and Rescue display at Las Palmas
Jon, Padding out the spreaders to minimise Chafe on the crossing
Chris Loading final fuel supplies
Nigel....have we started yet?
The team. Top Row, L to R, Nigel, David, Rob. Front row L to R. Chris, Jon
One of the many fantastic sunsets.
Nigel assuming "the" position!
There seemed to be a lot of big ships out there.....
Rob on the night shift......
David at night....not much deifferent t during the day!
Chris admiring the sunset...
Rob at the helm....again!
Chris having a quiet moment.
Nigel's turn to enjoy the sunset!
Rob and Jon fighting for the helm...
Kings of the world!
Photo bomb!
Jon perching on the bow....
Photo bomb 2!
At rest...St. Lucia!
Friday, 12 December 2014
Log - Day 18 - home and Dry!
At last we arrived in St. Lucia, Rodney Bay Marina. We arrived at 2.50 am local time, 6.50 GMT.
Congratulations to the crew for a great jobs well done. The arrival was great despite the time and a welcoming committee was there to great us with rum punch! Liz (my wife) and Geraldine (Nigel's wife) may the end complete. Now to repair the various bits and pieces. Watch this space as I will update with photographs shortly.
At last we arrived in St. Lucia, Rodney Bay Marina. We arrived at 2.50 am local time, 6.50 GMT.
Congratulations to the crew for a great jobs well done. The arrival was great despite the time and a welcoming committee was there to great us with rum punch! Liz (my wife) and Geraldine (Nigel's wife) may the end complete. Now to repair the various bits and pieces. Watch this space as I will update with photographs shortly.
Thursday, 11 December 2014
Log - Day 17 - So near yet so far.....
As I write this we are under motor with Chris on the helm about 150 miles out from St Lucia.
Yesterday was a good day with solid mileage, the Parasailor working well in winds of 12 - 15 Knots and Harry keeping us on a good course. As we approached nightfall after a good day we were confident that with the winds we would make good progress over night. Over confidence is not something I would accuse any of us after this trip, but we retired (except for those on shift!) feeling pretty good. Alarms went off at 01.40 as Rob was having problems. The Parasailor had blown out in 15 Knots of wind! So Jon, Nigel and myself lowered the sail and moved on to the Jib which was giving us about 6 knots. By the 7am the wind had shifted so that we could not maintain speed and direction so we went on to the iron sail instead for a few hours. The aim now is to raise the main at first light and then (hopefully) have a relatively plain sail the rest of the way into St. Lucia.....we hope!!!!
The Parasailor has about a two meter tear, we will look to see if we can complete temporary repairs as soon as we get light, failing that we will wait for St Lucia.
ETA at Rodney Bay Marina will be somewhere after midnight St. Lucia time.......one way or another! :-)
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Yesterday was a good day with solid mileage, the Parasailor working well in winds of 12 - 15 Knots and Harry keeping us on a good course. As we approached nightfall after a good day we were confident that with the winds we would make good progress over night. Over confidence is not something I would accuse any of us after this trip, but we retired (except for those on shift!) feeling pretty good. Alarms went off at 01.40 as Rob was having problems. The Parasailor had blown out in 15 Knots of wind! So Jon, Nigel and myself lowered the sail and moved on to the Jib which was giving us about 6 knots. By the 7am the wind had shifted so that we could not maintain speed and direction so we went on to the iron sail instead for a few hours. The aim now is to raise the main at first light and then (hopefully) have a relatively plain sail the rest of the way into St. Lucia.....we hope!!!!
The Parasailor has about a two meter tear, we will look to see if we can complete temporary repairs as soon as we get light, failing that we will wait for St Lucia.
ETA at Rodney Bay Marina will be somewhere after midnight St. Lucia time.......one way or another! :-)
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Wednesday, 10 December 2014
Log - Day 16 - Nothing to report sir!
Nothing broke, nobody broke anything, no one hurt. So a good day!
The wind continues to frustrate. With under 300 miles to go as I write this we have 5 - 10 knots from the East, pushing us a long at 5 - 6 Knots. Not as fast as we would like, but the destination is near...We can almost smell the cocktails!
Parasailior driven by Harry continue to work well down wind and that means we are in watch mode so reasonably low stress.
Chicken curry for dinner last night so Miss Liz II has an interesting fragrance today!
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The wind continues to frustrate. With under 300 miles to go as I write this we have 5 - 10 knots from the East, pushing us a long at 5 - 6 Knots. Not as fast as we would like, but the destination is near...We can almost smell the cocktails!
Parasailior driven by Harry continue to work well down wind and that means we are in watch mode so reasonably low stress.
Chicken curry for dinner last night so Miss Liz II has an interesting fragrance today!
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Tuesday, 9 December 2014
Log = Day 15 - Becalmed
What a different a day makes. After the storms of Sunday night, on Monday during the day the winds steadily calmed until by evening there was none at all. So the Iron sail was cranked up and we started to motor. This went on for most of the night - although about 2am we did raise the parasailor and were able to motor sail, albeit slowly. This has put us back time wise and it now looks likely that we will make landfall somewhere on Friday...
Incident of the day? The self tacking Jib car has broken.Selden will be getting a call as it is only 6 months old!! Luckily we are able to rig as a normal Jib as we have cars on the coach roof for the purpose - so just a few changes in the sheets required.
Dinner was based on beef, with every vegetable possible included...An interesting Chris delicacy!
This morning back on Parasailor in light winds and we are sailing directly down wind which is a bonus. We just need the wind to pick up a little more to boost as long at more than 6 Knots!
Setting up the Parasailor Jon, Chris and Nigel were luck enough to have two pods of dolphins come and watch what they were up to. Hopefully a god omen.
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Incident of the day? The self tacking Jib car has broken.Selden will be getting a call as it is only 6 months old!! Luckily we are able to rig as a normal Jib as we have cars on the coach roof for the purpose - so just a few changes in the sheets required.
Dinner was based on beef, with every vegetable possible included...An interesting Chris delicacy!
This morning back on Parasailor in light winds and we are sailing directly down wind which is a bonus. We just need the wind to pick up a little more to boost as long at more than 6 Knots!
Setting up the Parasailor Jon, Chris and Nigel were luck enough to have two pods of dolphins come and watch what they were up to. Hopefully a god omen.
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