A Sail with Eric Bellion

by | Dec 21, 2016 | Ship's Logs

We had a fantastic encounter today when my friend Eric Bellion came roaring up from behind us and passed us close aboard. I had seen him coming on the position reports over the last few days. He has a ‘secret weapon’ in a special sail that Michel...

Encounter with Enda

by | Dec 20, 2016 | Ship's Logs

Yesterday’s rush with the big fractional gennaker was amazing. We hit 27.5 knots of boat speed on 29 knots of wind. For me, I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Those speeds may be natural for Armel Le Cléac’h or Alex Thomson at the front...

Video Connections

by | Dec 19, 2016 | Ship's Logs

Before the night, it was grey, grey, grey all day as we were in between then depressions. Then, as in the lyrics of Camelot – ‘for one brief shining moment’ – we had sunshine and the temperature shot up to 18 centigrade. I jumped at the chance to have a...

In Between Depressions

by | Dec 18, 2016 | Ship's Logs

Last night we had a high speed power sail, still it seemed tacked onto the tail end of the previous storm. 25-30 knots of wind, 2 reefs in the mainsail, plus solent (J2), and with 25 knots of wind, we might surge to 22/23/24/25 knots of boat speed, simply thundering...

Watching the Barograph

by | Dec 17, 2016 | Ship's Logs

Last night I watched the barograph, tenth of millibar by tenth of millibar rise, but incredibly slowly because essentially we were going at the same speed as the storm, and couldn’t slow down and let it go away. But finally, after many hours, I fell asleep for a...