Transatlantic arc 2003 

Northern Child wins her class on the Transatlantic ARC 2003  

Northern Child arrived in St Lucia on Tuesday at 1208UTC after 15 days, 23 hours and 8 minutes at sea. She came first in class, 5th in cruising division (out of 146 yachts) and 14th overall (out of 196 yachts). The crew had an amazing time during the crossing from Las Palmas to the Caribbean and they all agreed that it was 'a great unforgettable trip'. 

 
Julian, Mark, Morten S, Liz, Francois, Liz, Emma, Hans, Erik M, Erik, O, Morten L, Craig

Northern Child departed Las Palmas on the 23^rd November 2003 . The crew consisted of 12 people in total. There were 3 professional permanent crew with Julian as the Skipper, Emma as the cook and Craig as one of the watchleaders. There were also 9 guests this year and Northern Child had a truly international crew, with 4 Norwegians, a Swiss, a Danish, a Finnish, a Frenchman and 1 British.

The crew have been split into two watches, with Craig leading Erik O, Morten S, Liz and Petri. Francois was leading Hans, Eric M, Morten L and Mark. Watch hours were six hours during the day and 4 hours at night. Julian and Emma were floating between the two watches and came on deck when needed.

The start on the Sunday was sunny with 12-15 knots of wind from the north. They managed to get away from the main fleet with a poled out No. 1 and full main. Before the start, all indications were that if you were prepared to take some pain in the first 36 hours and go upwind on the rhumb line, then after 36 hours the direct route was going to have steady winds for the next few days. The crew decided to take a chance and followed this course. The result of this cunning plan is that Northern Child was going as far west as possible whilst they saw the rest of the fleet head south.

The second day the seas become rough, threatening and it was all wet and windy. Down below was interesting at the time! The crew were living at an angle of about 20 degrees with sudden lurches in all directions, so even simple tasks like getting out of a bunk require great effort and coordination.

Northern Child had completed a third of her journey in exactly 5 days. The sun was back out and they were doing a steady 8 1/2knots in 18 knots of wind with a beautiful blue sea and typical tradewind sailing conditions. 

One thing was for sure out there - no two days were the same! A week after the start, the day kicked into high gear at 0430 local time with the receipt of an email weather warning from World Cruising – ‘Expect squally showers for the next 5 days with the possibility of winds in excess of 80 knots in the squalls!’ That same day, dawn came through cloudy and the crew spent some time preparing the boat for bad weather, clearing away extra gear, changing over spinnaker poles, sending down below spare sails and generally making ready.

Although Northern Child managed to avoid the biggest squalls (they had a maximum of 35knots), they did not realise that they could be 1257 nautical miles from St Lucia and beating into lumpy grey seas with the wind on the nose! After two days of wet, squally, dark, uncomfortable and fast days, Northern Child exited west from the trough and the squally weather to find herself in a completely different ocean. The sun had come out and the sea gone flat, with the wind dying to less than 10 knots from the south-west. The sailing was much more comfortable, although the speed went down to 6.5 knots.

At midday on the 2nd December they found a hole - in fact, quite a large hole, in the wind. And what did the crew do - they parked in it! Progress slowed to a snail's pace and when they completely stopped what did they do? They went swimming! The depth there was about 3-4000 metres and the water very warm and clear.

During two days, they slowly crawled west, resisting the temptation to switch the engine on. You are allowed to use your engine, however, there is a stiff penalty for doing so, which is only applied in St Lucia.. The plus side of the wind going light and from the south is that the sea had calmed down and living on board had become a lot nicer. It is always more difficult to sail in light winds, and psychologically it is always hard, as you are convinced the opposition always have better winds than you.

Finally the wind had picked up again and under spinnaker Northern Child was doing 8 knots under 20 knots of wind. Morale on board has exactly mirrored the wind - as the wind goes up, so has morale. Jokes in Norwegian flied round, and past most of us. Funny things come from the mouths of Danes, Finns, Frenchman and Swiss. If only the whole route had been blue skies and 20 knots! The temperature had shot up again and it really was very hot. During the day the crew seek shelter on deck from the sun under the bimini or the mainsail.

On the 6^th December, the crew celebrated the Finnish Independence day with a bottle of champagne. Progress towards St Lucia was good then with nice steady winds from the East or East North East of about 15 to 20 knots. That night they have had absolutely perfect sailing conditions. The moon had nearly reached full and it was a night full of stars and moonlight.

The next morning, the wind had come down a bit, but still under spinnaker, they were pointing straight at St Lucia. On board in the middle of the Atlantic they were relying on three main sources of weather information. The first is the daily weather report that comes in from World Cruising. They had split this part of the Atlantic up into 6 areas and give a forecast for each area. The second is a satellite email service whereby the crew can download grib file onto the boat’s laptop computer and see in more detail what the wind is going to do. The third and quite interesting method is the daily rollcall; each day those yachts equipped with SSB long range radios hold a radio net and everyone reported not only their position but also their weather conditions. However, with all this information the forecast can still be wrong!

With only 250 miles to go, the wind swung around to the south-east and went very light - probably averaging only 10 knots. The last day at sea was characterised by a visit from some dolphins playing around at the bow of the boat and the catch of another Dorado.

For their last night, the winds remained light but from the SSE and they have managed to keep up a constant speed of between 4 and 6 knots under the big blue and white spinnaker. St Lucia was finally sighted on Tuesday, 9^th December at 0215 local: two pretty unremarkable orange lights! It was a beautiful full moon and the spinnaker had been perfectly illuminated during the night.

They finally crossed the finishing line at 0808 Local time, or 1208UTC on the 9th of December! The wind went very light on their approach to Pigeon Island and they slowly inched forward into Rodney Bay. A long blast on the horn of the finishing boat and it was all over – the crew of Northern Child had sailed and hand steered some 2,750 nautical miles across the Atlantic Ocean together. Northern Child was the 35th yacht to finish, out of a total of about 220, and the 25th boat to have finished having sailed all the way and not motored.  

Having tied up in Rodney Bay Marina, they were met with the traditional ARC greeting of rum punches on the dock, and Emma served them lethal vodka jelly! They spent their first morning ashore clearing customs and tidying away the boat and by lunchtime it was time to go to Spinnakers bar on the beach for a long lunch, very kindly offered by Eric Olsen. Spinnakers bar is conveniently situated on a beautiful sandy beach so it was the perfect opportunity to take a swim.

After three days in St Lucia, some of the ARC crew stayed on board and went cruising to Martinique, visiting Marin, Grand Anse d'Arlet, etc... a nice cruise to finish the voyage.

Below are some of our guests' feedback:
Hans: 'I should like to thank you for the excellent ARC 2003 sailing. Thanks to your most experienced seamanship everything went absolutely perfect and beyond expectations - with the extra dividend of coming into Rodney Bay first in class!'

Francois : 'Thank you to the all crew and to our skipper Julian and Craig & Emma for making this a great unforgettable trip! Very proud to be Number 1 in class and 14th overall.'

Mark: 'I would like you to know that the passage with Northern Child has been a very unique and special experience for me - better than I could ever imagine'.

Liz: 'Firstly, I would like to thank you both so much for giving me the opportunity to do the ARC.  It was more than amazing and I am realising that even more so now that I have returned home.  The whole month that I spent on Northern Child was fantastic.  Even when we had to prepare & wait for the 80knot squalls I knew I'd rather be on Northern Child with Julian and Craig (as my watch leader) than on any other yacht.  I learnt so much from the trip and not just about sailing.  The whole experience has been so good for me ! '

Last modified: November 22, 2007