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| Transatlantic ARC 2007
NORTHERN CHILD COMPLETED HER 7TH TRANSATLANTIC CROSSING IN 16 DAYS AND 1 HOUR, 34 MN 23 S Northern Child was the 38th boat across
the Daily Log, Northern
Child, Monday the 26th of November 2007 As
I type this we are some 100 miles out to the west of Gran Canaria, heading
nicely on a rhumb, or direct, line towards We
had decided in The
seas outside the breakwater were running quite high as we headed out of the main
During
the afternoon we worked our way south down the east coast of Gran Canaria
heading for Maspolomas and the southern tip of the We
are now powering along the straight line towards As
I write this log over the next few days I will introduce you to the crew, the
boat and keep you fully informed about life onboard. You can see where we are 24
hours a day by clicking on the link on our website homepage
www.northernchild.com, to the Yellow Brick tracker that we carry. This device is
a small GPS tracker which has its positions displayed every hour on google
earth, and I think you will all see by the end of this voyage what an amazing
piece of kit it is. Northern Child becomes addictive! That's it for today. A
bientot, Julian – Northern Child skipper
Daily
Log, Northern Child, Tuesday the 27th of November 2007 Another
day in the life of Northern Child, rocking and rolling our way merrily towards Daily
Log, Northern Child, Wednesday the 28th of November 2007 Sometimes
the forecasted winds don't quite materialise - when that happens, it can be
quite frustrating. How frustrating depends normally on what time of day, or
night it is, and therefore how tired you are! You get the idea, our forecasted
trade winds of a perfect 15 - 20 knots with no sign of deterioration have ......
deteriorated! From 2200 hours we have been chucked around like a plastic duck in
a bath bobbing around under the taps, extremely uncomfortable and combined with
frustratingly slow progress. Having written that, it's not quite true as over
the last 24 hours we have made good 165 miles towards the bar. 165 miles in 24
hours at an average of 6.8 knots, well, that's not too bad after all. It's a
long way to swim is the way I look at it. That reminds me, who can help us out with the name of the bar in Rodney Bay Marina? It is either Peg Legs or Scuttlebutts, or it was one and changed to the other, or something like that. Anyway, that's the question for today, what is the name of the bar in Rodney Bay Marina? Answers please to our normal email address, julian@northernchild.com I know that some of our past ARC crewmembers have spent quite a while frequenting this establishment, whether or not they can remember the name is a different matter.
No sooner was it up however, than a squall raced across the top of us and as it was our first time with a spi, it was also prudent to get it down again! It is a huge, powerful sail, and we dropped it perfectly, recovering the sail into the middle of the boat like seasoned professionals. No sooner than it was down, and
the wind has backed, dropped and it is throwing it down with rain! Ah, now that
is de Northern
Child is now happily settled down again, pointing in the right direction at the
right speed with lots of activity going on - no one has the time to get bored on
board... sometimes we are tired and sometimes a little bit frightened, but
bored? Never. Happy? Always. With 2,190 miles to go, we have sailed 526 miles
from Daily
Log, Northern Child, Thursday the 29th of November 2007 Whilst
sitting writing today's log at the chart table I rather wish I was on deck. It
has been a perfect dawn with the sun breaking through ranks of stacked cumulus
clouds on the horizon, typical of north east trade winds in this area. Exactly
what we are looking for. In fact, they are still on the light side strength wise
of what we are hoping for, but that actually gives us very pleasant sea
conditions. The wind kept up all night, a little light, but enough to move us
along at a respectable rate of around 7.5 to 8 knots all night. It
is difficult seeing the computer screen as I type; bright sunshine is flooding
down the hatchway from on deck, swinging crazily around over the screen as the
boat heaves and rolls its way across the surface of the ocean. I am seeing 26
degrees at the chart table at 0930 already, and of course the watch on deck in
the direct sunlight are already experiencing considerably more; suntan cream is
de I
mentioned that we are hopefully now in an area of stable north east trade winds
- what are they? Following in the wake of Columbus the early Transatlantic
traders discovered that if they went south west first to the Canaries they could
then repeatedly cross to the West Indies with constant winds blowing from
behind, the only direction they could sail with the square sails they had. Their
return journeys to the old world in the east were then to the north of the same
Azores High pressure system that they used to go west: thus they completed a
circle around the It
is always interesting to see how things work out on board. We take a group of
people who don't know each other, who don't know the yacht, yet, and we put them
into a situation of close proximity in a vessel the size of a small apartment.
We then take the yacht and constantly shake it around like a sugar shaker,
deprive them of sleep, feed them too much good food, stand back and look for the
fallout! So far, so good, no one has fallen out with one another, everyone is
thriving and enthusiasm for, well everything, is running riot. It is great to
hear laughter, means I can relax as everyone is enjoying the trip, fabulous. Thanks
to Bill Fiske, Nigel Backwith, Richard Art and numerous others for reminding us
that the bar in the
Progress,
well, our progress reflects the wind speed for the last few days - we have had
rather less wind than we would have liked in an ideal world, but on the other
hand our position is approximately half a day's sailing ahead of where we were
this time last year, so that is pretty cool. We are taking the riskier 'northern
route' across from the Canaries to I
cannot possibly In
the last 24 hours we have covered 186 miles towards Daily Log, Northern Child, Friday the 30th of November 2007
We
seem to be, as our American cousins might say, kicking some serious butt! On
board we feel a little cut off from the real world, but it does seem that from
the reports my wife, Magali, is forwarding to us that we are doing okay. That,
of course, will be the kiss of death to our forward progress over the next few
days. However, every time I hear a radio schedule or get any reported positions
in over the satellite phone, I am searching the lists furiously to see whether
our progress has been slower than others in the Rally. Considerable relief if I
think we have got away with it again! Kate is on board as mate, second mate, not sure what her title would or should be. Incredibly good natured, she will help anyone do anything, including cleaning up behind us. We sure are glad that we have both Susie and Kate looking after us and bringing a civilising influence to events on board. To prove how absolutely raving
mad we are out here, I thought you might like this picture of Ric celebrating St
Andrews Day in a traditional way. Susie has done a typical Scottish menu which
includes delights such as Thai peanut pork noodle salad with Haggis followed by
Peach and Whisky trifle, and dinner is classic chilli with Neeps and extra
Haggis on the side. We'll let you know tomorrow how it all went down! In the last 24 hours we have
covered 190 miles under sail towards our destination, our best yet! The
surprising thing is, it's still a long way to A
Bientot, Julian
Daily
Log, Northern Child, Saturday the 1st of December 2007 Friday
afternoon we had perfect sailing conditions, not overly hot, but a beautiful
blue sky, lots of puffy cumulus clouds and a deep blue ocean to scamper across.
This is more what Magali told the crew it would be like! Sue's haggis surprise
of Thai noodles with immaculately cut out little carrot fishes courtesy of Kate,
luckily involved no haggis and was absolutely amazing. With really no room left
for anything else two large salad bowls of whiskey trifle arrived on deck and we
finished every last morsel of it! Of course we could have said no, but did we?
Did we heck! Before
we could complete our daily exercise routine of popping up and down the
companionway steps once or twice it was dinner time, and it was our duty to
consume enormous quantities of home made chilli and rice. This just has to stop:
I bet it won't. All our meat is deep frozen and kept at around minus 30 in the
freezer; this morning I needed to check that the compressors were still working
properly and was slightly alarmed to see that we still had most of the freezer
full and therefore lots more yummy meals for Sue to concoct... We are our own
worst enemies; we keep on eating all we are given. Oh well, we can always go on
a rum diet when we hit Scuttlebutts. All the problems seem to come at night - have I said that before? The moon is rising later and smaller every night as it's waning, thus for the first half of the night it can be really, really dark. The night was split completely in two. Dave's watch took over at 2200 and within half an hour a squall came across us with driving rain and high winds. No sooner come, no sooner gone, and having got all the sails reduced in size for the squall we pretty soon had to get them all back out again. By the end of the watch at 0200 and handover to Rick and his team, the moon had just come out, the sky was completely clear apart from the odd bit of cumulous and a carpet of stars floated from horizon to horizon above our heads, breathtakingly beautiful. As I descended the companionway in search of sleep the helmsman was perfectly outlined against a moving canopy of stars above his head, wow.
Daily
Log, Northern Child, Sunday the 2nd of December 2007 It
seems to have come around very quickly that today I am writing this log, the
conclusion of the first week at sea on ARC 2007, having sailed 1,270 miles from Where
are we? We truly are out in the middle of the southern part of the
Our
big exercise of the day was the result of our decision to head a little more
south to try and find wind for a couple of day's time. We could no longer
goosewing out our two headsails and mainsail, so had to drop two genoas
simultaneously to rehoist just the larger one. This involved most of the crew
wrestling with 150 square meters of wet sail in 20 knots of breeze on a rolling
deck doing 8 knots down the face of some quite large waves. We lost Billy at one
stage as he got underneath the sails, but we did find him again later on!
During
the last 24 hours the weather has changed as we run in towards the low pressure
trough. Although at the moment we are running along in bright sunlight, there
are also huge banks of grey cloud all around us hurrying on their way overhead
to the west. Associated with the trough are squalls and thunderstorms keeping us
on our toes as we constantly reef the sails and let the bad weather pass, only
20 minutes later to reverse the process and get all the sails back out again.
The crew are becoming experts.... We
have covered 177 miles towards Scuttlebutts in the last 24 hours, 15 miles less
than the last few days runs because we are heading a little south of our
straight line to Daily Log, Northern Child, Monday the 3rd of December 2007 Position:
19.46N 39.42W Ah, weather forecasts, got to take notice of them but they are not always right. Trouble is, we have to take note as if we got it wrong we could be dumped in an area of no wind for 36 hours and remember, our goal is not to motor, at all. So we have spent the last 48 hours edging south of our original line to see whether we can skirt just around the southern border of the trough and keep in a band of light winds, rather than no winds. The trade off is that we are no longer pointing straight at our destination so although we are sailing a long way, our total sailed towards the destination is suffering. But, it is part of the master plan, and we shall stick to it! David was volunteered as B team
watch leader right at the start of us all meeting up in
Jeremy is the youngest crew
member on board and has asked me specifically not to mention that he loves
showing off his guns (his muscles), as he is afraid his mates will take the mick!
He sailed dinghies as a child and has crossed the The
A watch together with Kate, were holding an intellectual discussion on deck on
the 1800 - 2200 watch last night. The game was to go through letters of the
alphabet naming animals - not difficult for an infant's school, you might have
thought? You would be right, but A watch got stumped at the start of the letter
B and Alistair came up with the brilliant answer of Brown Fox. Now this might
not sound funny to you, but it has kept us going on board for the last 12 hours!
Totally unrelated but there is a fit of the giggles going on on deck, with Steve
and Ric just about crying with laughter. In the sun, on a flat sea going 7.5
knots in the right direction, life on board goes on. In
the last 24 hours we have sailed a total of 172 miles towards St Lucia and now
have 1,274 miles left to run, passing the half way mark at midnight last night.
Although we aren't pointing at the destination as we are still continuing to the
south to attempt to avoid the worst of the trough, we are pleased to have
knocked off another 172 miles, although we have sailed considerably more than
this. Dave has opened up an ETA competition and guesses range from Daniel with
1000 on Monday morning to John with 1200 on Wednesday - obviously we are all
hoping that Daniel is more accurate! With
over 1,200 miles still to go and the trough of light winds to get through,
anyone could be right.... we shall see. A Bientot, Julian Daily Log, Northern Child, Tuesday the 4th of December 2007 Position:
18.39N 41.43W Some
squalls go through quickly, some squalls don't, this one hasn't! We managed a
fantastic run up until just before 0400 ship's time this morning when in the
blink of an eye the wind backed round 180 degrees and backed the mainsail.
Within minutes the wind was coming from all over the place and really heavy rain
set in, for ages. Glad to say it was Dave's watch on again, and for the rest of
his watch until 0600 the boys really fought hard to get the boat going in any
direction at all. By the watch change there was really no change in our fortunes
and even now at 0830 ships time we are still bobbing around going nowhere,
pretty frustrating!
So
what do we do when we stop in perfectly calm water? Go swimming! The photo shows
just two of our crew, Rick and Kate, but in fact over a period of an hour most
of the crew managed to get in. It is an unforgettable experience: the sea is
nearly 6,000 metres deep, the nearest land is 1,150 miles away on the bow and we
are swimming. Of course, most of the crew couldn't resist humming the music of
the theme tune to Jaws, thanks guys! Why
did we stop? That'll be the trough then! Having looked at the weather a couple
of days ago we were fairly convinced that there was a huge area of relatively
low pressure on our route and we have therefore spent two days coming south to
see if we can avoid the worst of it. Right now we have caught a new wind off our
port bow, we're off again! Fantastic! We're heading right towards Scuttlebutts
at 5 knots. It's not going to be that easy, I'm sure - we'll have a hard day
today in light and variable winds trying to get away from the trough, but
fingers crossed, we're through the worst of it. Billy
joined Northern Child because he wanted to sail the Alistair,
the quiet, contemplative crew member: it's great to have at least one on board!
Having sailed dinghies as a child, he sailed in 2000 on a Tall Ship across from
the Orkney's to In
the last 24 hours we have managed to sail a total of only 135 miles towards our
destination, not too bad considering we have basically been becalmed since 0400
this morning. This means that we have sailed a total of 1,577 miles from Daily Log, Northern Child, Wednesday the 5th of December 2007 Position:
17.40N 44.04W Rain,
rain, go away, come back another day; and other rhymes like that! This year is
the year of the squall, but only at night, only when people are really tired,
only when there is no moon! I was obviously overjoyed to see in one of today's
forecasts the likelihood of heavy squalls over all our areas for the next couple
of days! Good thing is that the squalls normally rush past in an hour, all
forgotten and the decks dry off pretty soon thereafter. In
between, however, the weather has been amazingly good. As we have just transited
and are still on the edge of an area of light winds, the sea is still minimal
with hardly any swell or waves to talk about, so progress is smooth and
comfortable. Tuesday afternoon we managed to keep the big spinnaker flying in
very light airs which gave us a nice little boost on our way to
We
anticipate sailing further away from the trough today and as we do the winds
will pick up from the East and should, I think, develop over the next couple of
days into solid trade wind conditions. This will allow us to pick up speed again
on our rhumb line towards Scuttlebutts and we are hoping for some of the fastest
sailing conditions of the trip so far. As a consequence of building winds we
will get building sea conditions, so we should be able to get some sur Half
an hour ago we passed the 1,000 mile to go to We
continue to gorge ourselves across the At
midday UTC today we have 997 miles left to run to Daily Log, Northern Child, Thursday the 6th of December 2007 Position:
16.26N 46.55W It's
hot out here now, there's absolutely no doubt about where we are and where we're
going! It is 1000 hours ship's time, the temperature at the chart table is
currently 34 degrees, more in the galley and we're fryin' today on deck! In
order to try and make the watch on deck bearable under the intense sun we have a
bimini covering the aft cockpit and the helmsman, a much sought after location
as the sun climbs higher in the sky, as the photo of Ali driving, Marc and John
shows. How does the Pink Floyd song go? Wish You Were Here? Following
a rolly night in light winds we decided it was time for a gybe and it was the
turn of the A watch to strut their stuff and show the B team how to do it.
Waiting for daylight to start was a prudent measure as with three big sails up
and lots of associated lines it is easy to get it wrong. With John's steady hand
on the helm and Billy on the foredeck as bowman, see photo (!), it almost seemed
as if they knew what they were doing - as one of the watch was overheard to say,
'if you had asked us to do that 10 days ago, we would have been b******s!' We
are now nicely sailing along towards
Daniel
alongside me in the galley has been given the task of opening a jar by Susie to
great entertainment for all of us, and calls of encouragement such as 'a girl
opened that last time' are really helping him! No problems, job done, mind you
he now has to put away the hammer, screwdriver, electric drill.... Oh,
okay, a quick message from Dave, (currently planning on selling the
business/house/car/wife, oops not the last, obviously, to sail around the world,
but it's still confidential): WHATEVER! Happy
Birthday Kate! As she is a lady, we won't mention her age but I thought you
would appreciate the picture of her and Susie below decks this morning standing
in front of Susie's Happy Birthday banner - sweet of Susie. Kate is nutty about
sailing and keen to learn anything about boats, has shipped on board with us for
four months until she has to go back to work in March, and is responsible on
passage for all the maintenance of NC as well as helping Susie in the galley
when she needs an extra pair of hands. Susie has taken a year off working for
British Airways and is currently to be found taking on the challenge of seeing
if she can fatten us all up for Christmas. As you might have divined from these
logs Susie spoils us rotten and in hard conditions produces an amazing array of
food. We are extremely lucky to have had a series of super, hard working girls
join us on our voyages over the years, all of whom have made the Northern Child
story and experience what it is. Life
on deck has settled down to an endless role of watchkeeping and relaxing; this
year I think everyone has an iPod and sometimes it is difficult to get anyone to
listen on deck, or is that just my effect on them?! If we see a sail in the
distance we are jumping around with the binoculars trying to identify it; Daniel
spotted a floating bottle a couple of days ago and we thought it was at least
some castaways on a raft or something! What is out here? Not much. An endless
succession of blue, blue rollers, surging underneath us as Northern Child rises
from another trough and surges on her way to Our
progress over the last 24 hours has been slightly slower than I would have
liked, 174 miles towards Scuttlebutts, but hey, that's sailing. Why? The winds
on this side of the trough haven't built up to quite the Trade Winds that we
were hoping for, but that will be the same for the whole fleet. In fact I would
suggest that at the moment the wind outlook is looking a little softer than
normal, but hey, we're not suffering! We haven't motored a single yard of the
crossing, how green are we? Carbon neutral? Hell,
Shell should be paying us to go sailing! A Bientot, Julian Daily Log, Northern Child, Friday the 7th of December 2007 Position:
15.52N 49.47W
The whole thing started with a call from Rupert (Jeremy) of whales, or big dolphins anyway! With a crystal clear sea and gentle rollers coming up under our stern we could see them clearly arrowing in towards us just under the surface. A quick blow and they were underneath us, right underneath. Passing rear right to mid left under the rudder a few feet and then surfaced on our port side. Phew, amazing, weak from adrenaline, short of breath relief surges through us. They swiftly move away, thank goodness, 150 metres and clear of us. The remorselessness of them as they came close, the speed and indifference to us were simply awe inspiring. We all relax, visibly moved by what we had all seen. We thought that was it, but no, they came back at us from astern, so we altered course quite sharply, hah got you whale, play elsewhere. No, they can't do this to us, back again on our stern, one second to port and the next crossing back to midships on starboard. Again, right beneath us, we see the white of their underbellies as they roll over for a quick look at us. Okay we can play your game, 30 degrees to port and off we go. Wow, we just cannot get rid of them. Okay, let's go 500 metres the other way? Nope, no good, they are right back on us again. We feel hunted, how they must have felt for the hundreds of years that Man has been hunting them - payback time. This is getting...? worrying. We
get the liferafts ready just in case. Send a position report home so someone
knows what's happening. Okay guys, this is too close, it's no longer David
Attenborough in a tree observing, these things are bigger and faster than us,
and they live out here. Let's lose them, but how? They follow us with the ease
and disdain of the masters of the sea that they rightfully are. Whatever we do,
they
Following
on from this we had We
have sailed 170 miles towards Daily Log, Northern Child, Saturday the 8th of December 2007 Position:
15.48N 52.39W Life
continues on board, an endless succession of changing watches. Our days are
ruled by the watches as they end, and tired bodies tumble down the main hatch to
be replaced by fresh crew eager to continue to work Northern Child on our way
towards Scuttlebutts. In
the rain. Did I mention the rain? Some Arcs I remember for wind, some for sun,
some for lack of squalls, but ARC 2007 I will remember for the amount of squalls
we have encountered. Normally squalls in these latitudes tend to be easy come,
easy go and at least they are brief. Not at the moment; boy, when we get a
squall we get a squall! B watch were heard muttering this morning at 0400 during
a gybe that in the last 3 watches they have been soaked three times! Each watch
is convinced that the other has better weather than they do..... skipper was
heard saying something about the law of averages! We
had fun and games with Steve our cameraman yesterday afternoon. Steve is an
adventurous sort of chap and with our big American spinnaker up and perfect
filming conditions we decided to try and get some interesting camera angles with
him - first out on the end of the pole and then up the mast! The footage looks
great and I am sure that the
Around
0200 this morning we noticed a red, port hand navigation light coming down
towards us from the north on a converging course. After conversation on the VHF
radio we discovered that she was an English yacht called Aqualuna also on the
ARC and heading towards Having
manoeuvred ourselves out to the west during the previous 24 hours on starboard
tack (with the wind coming over the right hand side of the boat) to get
ourselves in a favourable position for an expected wind shift during Saturday
daytime, the wind shift came at us at 0400 instead, so it was time for a gybe.
In the pitch black night and lashing rain, under bright decklights throwing
crazy shadows around us and bringing our effective world right in close to us,
Rupert (Jeremy) Dave, Steve, Marc and with Tim on the helm, carried out a
perfect gybe. For a while we were pointing at We
are now sailing along in very light winds, sunshine and a flat sea towards the
north west corner of St Lucia just under 500 miles away, another significant
milestone passed. We are currently sailing under our big American Spinnaker at 4
knots, with those 500 miles ahead of us, it's not fast I must admit! However we
won't show any weakness, we still haven't motored a single mile, it is getting
quite tempting, but we shall resist.... Oops, we have just had a big wrap on the
forestay with the spinnaker, so time for me to go on deck and sort it out, no
problem. Unfortunately
I think that the Northern Child forecast issued by me yesterday is actually
going to be a lot more accurate than the World Cruising forecast issued from the
comfort of someone's meteorological office; in other words what I said in
yesterday's log, very little wind over the next couple of days. Having said
that, we have managed to sail another 162 miles towards Scuttlebutts, leaving us
at midday today with 492 miles to run to the corner of the Daily Log, Northern Child, Sunday the 9th of December 2007 Position:
15.23N 54.39W What
a beautiful morning to wake up to - a flat sea, the sun's rays pouring down
between banks of clouds on the horizon and enough wind to gently waft us on our
way towards We
have had a frustrating 24 hours run of extremely light winds with really only
enough puff to just keep us believing that St Lucia is just over the horizon.
The skipper is de
B
watch are on back on deck, with Marc currently using my father's bird book to
identify a mystery bird. So far they have dismissed the penguin, in all forms,
and the common Shag, although I'm convinced that they have made that one up! I
keep on telling them it's a Frigate Bird, but their belief in the skipper
doesn't stretch as far as ornothological matters! Another night where A watch
kept dry on their two shifts and B watch got soaked in a squall; Dave decided to
wash his hair in the middle of the night in the rain, half way through they
needed to put in a reef, so with shampoo all over him the reef went in. Mad as a
hatter! Billy's' fishing exploits continue apace. Yesterday afternoon he was tempted by the actual sight of some fish swimming along in the lee of the boat, that's it, dinner! After an hour of man verses ferocious aquatic beastie, bringing home the dinner to the cave etc, the fish won - nothing. We can't however, doubt his enthusiasm, they are out there and he will get some before we get in, and at our current speed that gives him plenty of time for fishing! We
have completed another 120 miles towards Scuttlebutts, our all time low for this
passage. The question is, will this be our lowest run of the trip or do things
get slower from here on in?! Ah, that is indeed the question and in the answer
lies the secret, our actual arrival time. We now have 372 miles left to run,
having sailed a total of 2,344 miles from Daily Log, Northern Child, Tuesday the 11th of December 2007 Position:
14.14N 60.43W
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