Safe and Sound!

We've finally arrived in Antigua safe and sound on Saturday 21st December!
The tugboat reached Cape Arrow on  Wednesday evening and the operations to hook the boat started the day after early in the morning, then we've been safely towed to our destination!
In the happy end,  drinking our deserved Wadadili, Cape Arrow Crew wish to you all a Marry Xmas and Happy New Year!

Our Wadadlies have to wait again !

Yesterday was definitely a very unlucky day for Cape Arrow and her crew: we were sailing in 25 knots of wind, with a true wind angle of 110° at around 500 miles from Antigua when we accidentally hit a floating object with the rudder blade, presumably a whale...

We were all impressed about the blow that we felt at the steering wheel and understood the rudder blade had been damaged; fortunately we found that no other problems occurred to the yacht.

The situation is completely under control and we are all in good spirit. The yacht is sailing with very little steering ability but we have created a parachute anchor by using a spare gennaker to stable our course and it seems to work. We are currently keeping our route under staysail and are sailing at about 3kts with a heading of 310-320 degrees.

Pegaso boys and girls are working hard to support us and they’ve found a proper tugboat which is supposed to arrive in the next 36 hours. It will tow Cape Arrow to an Antigua yard where will we be able to repair the damage and carry on with our charter season!

Finally NE tradewinds: 362 nm in the last 24h!

Yesterday, after an endless night of upwind sailing and squalls with rough seas, we've finally hooked on to the NE tradewinds. We hoisted the gennaker at 7 in the morning local time. This allowed us to keep a great speed average and in 24 hours Cape Arrow has covered 362 miles. Unfortunately this morning we had to drop the gennaker as we were sourrounded by squalls again.

We have 999 miles ahead of us  and we are getting wet again but the morale is high onboard anyway!

Our position is 20.07,6N and 044.36,3W and we estimate our arrival in Antigua on 15th.

We should be at the bar with our cold Wadadli (local beer) in our hands in about 4 days!

The Calm after the Storm

Following our escape from the low pressure system that gave us a lot of trouble last week, we had the chance to sail Cape Arrow through a dead calm, which gave us the chance to lick our wounds .

We had the engine running for 36 hours and had the chance to dry our gear, have a shower,  run a couple of washing machines and fix all the little damages that occurred during the storm. As soon as we finished, with a perfect sense of timing, the wind started blowing again. We happily hoisted the sails and finally switched the engine off.

At the moment we’re sailing a bit lower than our straight route as we would like to avoid the tail-end of the second low pressure front.

In a couple of days we should hook on to the NE tradewinds with 25 knots that will bring us quickly to destination. At first we should get some close hauled sailing and later the winds should gradually shift aft to become a broad reach.

Despite the challenging conditions we met last week, morale onboard is good, as we are stacking up a lot of miles, cruising at 11 knots with 18 knots of wind. Our current position is 24.10,4N and 029.57,8W.

We didn’t even lose our temper as the last little "tragedy" occurred onboard. Yesterday Captain Fabrizio fought for more than 50 minutes with a massive blue marlin. He spent so much time winding the reel in that he got cramps to his arms, and when it seemed we finally had him the fish was so heavy that it bent the fishing hook and we lost him! A frozen silence fell onboard for a while, but our smiles returned again soon thanks to olive focaccia and pizza made by our great Sophie!

Sea VS man: 1-0

Last night was extremely hard. We were sailing with two reefs on the main and staysail 500 miles away from the center of the reported low pressure system when the barometer dropped and we found ourselves with the wind blowing 45knots and big waves started hitting us on the beam! The waves were continuosly breaking over the rail and washing the deck completely. We hung in for a while but in the end we took the only possible choice, and decided to surrender to the strength of the sea, and run with it.

Therefore we tacked and since yesterday night we have been heading South. The wind is blowing around 25-30knots, seas are still heavy but at least the waves are now from a more favorable direction.

We’ve covered 110 miles and we’ve lost about thirty miles on our approach to Antigua. We are considering to continue on this course all day long in order to sail away from the low pressure area and then head straight to the lush Caribbean island that is awaiting us.

Postponing further our ETA was a hard decision for our Captain but it was the only reasonable option he had for the safety of Cape Arrow and his Crew!

Hope to write back to you soon in better conditions!

Our Challenging Crossing has begun!

Waiting for a spare part in the sunny Canary islands and unfavorable weather conditions have brought us substantial delay in our crossing schedule as we left Tenerife yesterday evening at long last.

Two stationary  areas of low pressure don't allow the trade winds formation in the south but give us strong headwinds which requires close hauled sailing. We will sail Northbound until the wind becomes too strong for us and then we will turn to the south towards calmer seas and wait for the wind to turn around until we head to the North again.

At the moment it seems that we will be beating upwind for the next ten days, gaining 200 miles per days but sailing many more.

In this scenario life on board is not easy, although someone migt expect us to be drinking Pinacolada in shorts pants and reading Conrad books to kill the time. Even though we cannot eat so comfortably, our great chef Sophie delights us with excellent and varied warm meals. It is a wonder how she can cook such delicious foods in these extreme conditions! 

Stay Tuned!