Cheers!

We cracked. Grog opened to compensate for our missed arrival. If it had not been for the very odd weather pattern we would be in St Lucia now. Instead as I write we still have 200 m to motor!

Yesterday was perhaps the most frustrating of our sailing days. Despite the prophecy of storm force winds, all we had was 12 knots, but all on the nose.

It is truly a wonderful thing that man has harnessed the wind and is able to sail the oceans using the forces of nature alone. But, despite thousands of years developing the concept, we have not yet managed to devise a means of sailing directly into the wind. The best that the Swedish boat designers at Halberg Rassy have come up with is the ability to sail 35° off the wind. That means that all we could do was to sail north and south of Saint Lucia yesterday. With an unusual westerly current, and swell from the West as well, we couldn’t achieve the 30°, making nearer 45° tacking angles, backwards and forwards, reducing our distance to the way point by a measly mileage. Those of you following our track on Yellow Brick or Garmin will see a number of course changes trying to make headway! We tried to motor sail, to sail as close to the wind as possible, but the sails flogged too much. We took the sails down, and tried to motor alone. With the swell, and the headwinds, unfortunately the theoretical speed of 5 kn, was just not being reached. We were at some times only getting 2 to 3 kn, and we had insufficient fuel at those speeds to make it all the way to Saint Lucia.

So we turned to the galley for solace!

We made our finest loaf so far. This one, a pecan and raisin fruit loaf.

As our best tack was a southerly one we contemplated sailing as far as we could overnight then motoring the rest of the way to Barbados to ensure that we had sufficient fuel to make it all the way to Saint Lucia, knowing as we did that at some stage the winds would completely die. As the sun set, the wind veered further E and allowed us a direct approach to Barbados. We parted company after dinner (for our night watches) singing, “we’re going to Barbados!”

Overnight the wind veered even further NW, and we made really good headway WSW covering more miles than we had during the day and giving us a shot at a direct run to Saint Lucia. We downloaded the updated forecasts and they indicated that by noon the winds would disappear entirely for the next 4 days. Lo and behold at noon, they did! With the change in the swell pattern, which turned to the N, and the absence of wind, we were now able to achieve the theoretical speed of 5 kn under motor alone, and we have calculated that we now have sufficient fuel to make it all the way to Saint Lucia with just enough of a safety margin. We’ve been motoring for 12 hours now and have another 40 to go!

As to the swell, the majesty and might of the waves today was something to behold. Currently the swell is approximately 7-8 m on the starboard beam, ie coming at us from the right. Ascending and descending these swells is simply amazing. There is no question of the waves breaking and imperilling us, it’s just a gentle ride up and down them every 15-20 seconds. People would pay good money at a fairground to experience this!

Dennis spent the afternoon in the galley making his first ever lasagna. Bravo!

The crew gave it a massive thumbs up as it was delicious. He didn’t take the crew hints of complementary garlic bread, but you can see why it cried out for an accompanying glass of red wine!

Pete and I spent most of the day putting away all of the sailing paraphernalia; lines, shackles, poles, friction rings and sails, as we won’t be using them now even on our passage S to Grenada next week, which, if the winds return, will be a simple beam reach using the white sails we have. It is somewhat anticlimactic having the boat ready for arrival, but still being two days away! We’ve sort of run out of things to do now!

We had a beautiful moonrise after dinner. We have been blessed with a waxing moon over the past week which has given us incredibly light nights. Despite this we are still being hit by flying fish every night. 3 perished last night. We can see scales all over the boat, were they have hit and bounced off, last night on the windscreen and the tender.

News from ARC rally control;

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With a huge sense of relief, this morning saw a very emotional welcome for TAKE OFF and her crew as they arrived into Rodney Bay marina. The crowd greeted them with applause and cheers, Rum punch for the adults and ice cream for the children. Now the hunt is on for a new mast!
We are also pleased to report that DEFIANCE made a graceful entrance on Tuesday evening and is already heading to Martinique for repairs leaving a thank you gift of Piton beers attached to the jerry cans they returned to TRANQUILITY.
As night falls this evening 47 boats have now arrived and the atmosphere in the marina is building.

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It must’ve been quite something for the children to have experienced the loss of a mast so far offshore and it caused us a moment to reflect on what that family must have experienced.

On a lighter note…It sounds like the rum punch is on ice waiting for us!