Monday, 07 December 2009 14:51 | By Richard Bolt in Antigua
Yesterday Chsalonina became the 14th rally yacht to arrive safely in Antigua. Our photo shows a moment of great elation for every yacht that gets in. Jeremy, with rum- punch in one hand and beer in the other is celebrating to the full. Although he had made one Atlantic crossing 10 years before, for many this is their first adventure across an open ocean. So it is a great mixture of relief, a sense of achievement and well-deserved pride that each crew member enjoys as he touches solid land for the first time in 3 weeks.
The fleet have been going through a difficult patch of very varied weather. We sent out a severe weather warning that advised they were in an area where thunder squalls could occur, with short periods of very strong winds.
Now the forecast is better, but there is danger of too little wind to keep them romping along. This is very apparent because there has been a great flush of lengthy blogs telling the world of the excitement on board. Here are excerpts for a couple of the blogs to give you a flavour of the action. I would like to have included some from Fai Tira, where John has waxed lyrical, but you can go there yourselves.
Thursday, 26 November 2009 21:38 | By Tony Diment, Rally Director
Many yachts are now beyond the half way point to Antigua. In fact Miss Tippy has less than 1000 miles to run. Having said that the fleet is well spread out with 500 miles between the front runners and those at the rear of the fleet. This is creating some radio problems and the daily roll call is taking a considerable time. It is good to read from the personal logs that yachts appear to be having a good passage and everyone appears to be in good spirits. The weather forecast continues to give favourable winds but with typically squally conditions from time to time. The sea state is also a little confused with a cross swell sometimes tipping the gin and tonics beyond acceptable limits. Richard Bolt is now on route to Antigua the hard way - by air!
Derry, on Jackamy, provides today's report. They all seem to be having good sailing days at the moment. They are covering lots of miles with the wind behind them, but it is a bit lumpy.
Saturday 21st November.
We had an incident in the night......a BOB! Similar to a man overboard but it was a bbq overboard! It managed to work it's way out of the housing that connected it to the guard rail. We were busy star gazing when we heard a loud plop! Oops!
Bionic Un sends our report today. They have sailed the most southerly course of the fleet and hope their tactic of picking up the easterly trade winds first will pay off in the long run. Read their blog (click here)
Wednesday, 02 December 2009 03:19 | By Richard Bolt in Antigua
We are expecting our first yacht in tomorrow. Miss Tippy has continued to head the fleet and hopes to be in sunny Antigua before nightfall. A number of yachts who are joining the fleet in Antigua have also made an appearance. Katrin and Steve, on Island Kea, are having some final repair touches done in Falmouth Harbour. Scot Free, with Deborah and Eileen, is down in English Harbour and Aqualuna, with captain Jonathan aboard has arrived in Jolly Harbour.
Saturday, 28 November 2009 17:53 | By Richard Bolt
Whilst I am now sitting in the sunshine, waiting for yachts to arrive in Jolly Harbour, I have a chance to update you on how the fleet are faring. Poor old Bali Blue, is limping along with a torn mainsail and bent whisker pole, after a couple of mishaps. But she is doing quite well, nonetheless, and is managing to keep fairly well up with the fleet. Mercury Rising took a small detour to Cape Verdes and were swiftly back on track. They are the last ones in the fleet at present, but are catching up slowly. Miss Tippy leads the charge.
Our Swedish yacht, Natibou, sends today's report. They wrote it in Swedish, so I asked Mr. Google to translate it. I thought I might tidy it up, but it's more fun trying to decypher it yourself! Yesterday the fleet put their clocks back 2 hours, so they now get up 2 hours later than we do in UK. They will stay on this time zone until next Saturday, when they go back 2 more hours.
Saturday, 21 November 2009 09:57 | By Richard Bolt
As a ridge of high pressure to the west of the Azores continues to force bad weather on Northern Europe, it also continues to give good trade wind conditions to the BWR fleet. Sue, on Camomile has been keeping the crews amused with a running quiz after the 1800 daily radio net. Here is her report from last night:
Wednesday, 18 November 2009 15:51 | By Tony Diment, Rally Director
Winds from the North East have now moved in and the fleet is sailing well. Most of the yachts are well on their way towards Latitude 20 Longitude 30 - known as position 20/30 (approx 300nm North West of the Cape Verde Islands) - a traditional turning place for altering course direct to Antigua.
Monday, 07 December 2009 14:51 | 
By Richard Bolt in Antigua