Atlantic Adventure News

Follow the attached link to see a few pictures from the trip:

PW Update 02/06 1700 bst

The Iridium phone stopped working 3 days ago so I couldn`t send you an update.

We have arrived in Horta, Faial this morning at 7.30am gmt. We had great sailing up to yesterday afternoon when the wind died. Shortly after sending the last update the wind picked up and we were in a Force 7 gale with gusts of Force 8, this lasted for about 24 hours and then increased to Force 8 gusting Force 9. The Force 8 gale lasted for about 8 hours and then fell back to force 6/7. The wind was largely from behind us so was relatively easy to cope with. We had prepared by having the storm sail set up along with the genoa which we just reefed when the gale started. We were down to the storm sail and a very small bit of mainsail and we were still doing over 7 knots.

We had 4 days when we achieved over 150 miles per day, which is very good for Pinball Wizard.

We have just sorted out the boat, getting things dry etc and had our showers and we are now chilling out. Celebrations will get under way properly tonight!!!

We will be staying in Horta for 1 week before cruising the Azores.

PW Update 30/05 1500 bst

Well we have now coped with our first Atlantic gale. We were well prepared due to the weather forecast from the ARC, we had set up our inner forestay and hanked on our storm jib inside the Genoa. When the gale hit us, initially force 7 gusting force 8, we reefed the main and took in the Genoa a bit. Once the wind climbed to force 8 gusting force 9, we reefed the main further, we took in the Genoa and took down the mizzen. We were still doing over 7 knots with just a tiny main, about equivalent to our mizzen, and the storm jib, it worked extremely well. I can't say we enjoyed it, but after an initial bit of apprehension we coped very well. For the past day the wind has dropped to 15 - 25 knots and we are getting great sailing, although it has been very cloudy and rainy.

We have covered 463 miles in the last 3 days, with our greatest run being over the period of the gale - 158 miles in 24 hours. Pinball Wizard likes a good blow, you can feel it 'pick up her skirts and take off'. We now have sunshine once again and it's time to put on the shorts for a brief period. We are now expecting to arrive in Horta in the early hours of Wednesday, at least 24 hours earlier than my original estimate.

Team spirit is still high and we are looking forward to showers and a good celebration!!!

PW Update 28/05 1500 bst

Great sailing over the last 24 hours, 155 miles, could be a new PW record, only 680 miles to go.

We have been getting winds from 15 knots to 30 knots and have consistently been making over 7 knots and at times over 8 knots!! The forecast, given 2 days ago, for this morning was 40 - 50 knot winds, but this was revised yesterday to 25 - 30 knots, which is pretty much what we are getting. We expect to have good winds through today and tomorrow, so should make great progress and get to the Azores by early Thursday.

PW Update 27/05 1400 bst

We are now over half way and counting down the miles to the Azores - 860 miles to go.

We have had a mixture of light and reasonable winds in the past 2 days, but have continued to make good progress. We turned South East for a period yesterday after getting a weather forecast of severe weather for tonight to the North of us and extending down to our latitude. We were called up by a Superyacht (Bodicia) yesterday afternoon for a chat, they were making for Gibraltar. They are a private motor yacht with 27 crew on board and they go all over the world so the owners can cruise different areas and also for charters. They had just downloaded a detailed weather forecast and said that there was unlikely to be severe weather in the area we were in or the direction we were travelling. We therefore went back to our Easterly course - time will tell, but we will have our storm sail hanked on tonight just in case.

We have been having a frustrating time with our fishing attempts so far. We had to buy a new reel in Bermuda as the original reel was damaged when we landed the large Dorado on the trip to the Caribbean, we didn't find this out until the trip up to Bermuda. We had a couple of days where we just didn't catch anything. We then lost our line and lure when a 47' yacht cut across our stern too closely and then yesterday a large bird got caught up in our line and broke the line. We have now run out of suitable line and will have to give up fishing until we get to the Azores.

We are finding the Atlantic a very friendly place. We have been called up for a chat on VHF by an oil tanker bound for Nigeria, a couple of sailing yachts, the super yacht Bodicia as well as a couple of ARC yachts early on.

Well it's time for coffee and a mid morning biscuit.

PW Update 25/05 1700 bst

After the very light winds we were experiencing at the time of the last update, things started to happen very quickly.

Firstly we saw a whale, probably a Pilot whale, about 30 metres off our starboard side. It was a little scary, given Pinball's history, but the whale just ignored us and went its way.

We then started to get wind and were soon getting a good force 6 from the SW, just ideal conditions for PW and we were surfing along at up to 7.5 knots. This continued through the night and into yesterday morning. It was really exciting to be surfing at these speeds in the dark, where all you could see was the white surf. The next day, Monday, the winds dropped a little but we were still doing 5-6 knots through the day.

During Monday morning we sighted 2 vessels to our port and we were called on the VHF by one of them, a US Navy boat. Once they heard our voice they were happy and said to continue on our way - this is 700 miles North East of Bermuda. It really gave us confidence when they identified us as the boat travelling at 15 knots - we were actually doing 5 knots.

We were shortly afterwards treated to a close up of 3 Killer Whales, which came along side the boat then crossed our bow and swam off. They were very pretty, but we were naturally a little apprehensive. In the afternoon we spotted a Turtle off our port bow.

We had a very good spinnaker run all yesterday afternoon, but in the evening a mist came down and we dropped the spinnaker and sailed through the night unable to see very far. It was quite eerie sailing along at 5 knots in silence surrounded by mist. By this morning the mist started to lift and we put the spinnaker up at 8.0am. We are still enjoying a good spinnaker run at up to 7.5 knots. We are very impressed that our WindPilot copes very well most of the time, even with the spinnaker up.

A couple of hours ago we were called up by another yacht, which was off our stern to port. They are also heading to the Azores, but not part of the ARC. The cross our stern very close and caught our fishing line, it must have caught on his propeller as it pulled the line and lure right off our rod. It is not too bad for us as we have more line and lures, but the other boat may have trouble if the line is round his propeller.

We are continuing to eat well on board and John has made good use of his training as a chef. He made a really good shepherds pie on Sunday night, but we have also had Duck with Olives, Veal sausages, Lamb, Pork and Apple sauce, Spaghetti Bolognaise, Chicken Stir Fry etc.

We will have a little celebration tomorrow morning as we pass the 1000 miles to go point. We hope to be in the Azores in 9-10 days time and then we will really celebrate!!!

PW Update 23/05 1400 bst

Still experiencing light winds. We have had periods when we have had to motor and we have used more diesel than we would like, however we are hoping for better wind as we get further North. We are currently under sail doing 5 knots heading 30deg, our ideal heading is 75 deg, but the wind is SW so we have to sail a little off the wind.

It is still very hot during the day, but the nights are now much colder and we have to put on long trousers etc. It's not quite like Scotland yet, but quite a difference from the Caribbean. We haven't managed to catch any fish yet, but We are making a serious attempt today, as some fresh fish would go down a treat.

We are continuing to enjoy the use of the WindPilot and the autopilot, it allows us to get on with tasks other than helming. I am currently fishing and doing my position report and e-mails. We have seen very little boats, either commercial traffic or yachts. It gives a real feeling of isolation - all part of the adventure. We must all be a little crazy as we spend much of the day reading books on sailing or Artic adventures and hardship.

Looks like we may take a day or two longer than we hoped unless we get stronger winds, but we are not in a hurry. We have plenty food and water, good weather and good company so all is well.

PW Update 21/05 1730 bst

We had a very good spinnaker run yesterday from 1130 to 2330, in fairly light winds but we averaged over 5 knots. We then set up the genoa for overnight and had a fairly slow few hours, but at least we were sailing and not using diesel.

We had some very heavy showers in squalls, mainly during one 3 hour shift (poor John!!) along with quite strong gusts - 35knots.

We now have the spinnaker back up and the sailing is very good in very hot sunshine. We are just about to start fishing as we have eaten most of our fresh meat

PW Update 20/05 1130 bst

I have managed to fix the problem with the Iridium phone. It was a bad connection inside the phone, I now have an old credit card, cut into 4, inside the phone to force the 2 parts of the connector together.

We left Bermuda yesterday lunch time and had good wind through to about 6.0pm, but had to start motoring at 7.0pm and we are still under motor. We hope to get better wind shortly, but light wind is pretty much what we were forecasted. All is well and we very quickly got back into the ocean sailing routine.

If the phone keeps working I will send an update every 2-3 days.