Exploring the World

My future plans

ajulseth — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:22:00 GMT

The last update should have brought you up to speed what I have been doing these past few months. In this post, which will hopefully be a bit shorter, I'll address what my future plans are, because to put it mildly they have changed drastically.

Originally I cast off from Norway in September of 2008, with the intention of circumnavigating. For a number of reasons I'm abandoning that plan. I have decided that when I return to Aruba in November, I'll set sail for Norway. It will be a slow sail, because I'm planning to spend around 5 months in the Caribbean before I sail back across the Atlantic in April/May. When I return to Norway my intention is to return to university to get a Bachelor of Science in Navigational Engineering or Nautikk as it is called in Norwegian. This will enable me to work on the bridge on the big ships. The bachelor will take 3 years, but I believe it is a smart investment in my future. I haven't decided where to study yet, but right now Tromsø is a favorite, followed by Horten/Tønsberg and even Ålesund. We'll see. Right now my focus is on finishing the job here in style, before I return to Aruba and really enjoy the Caribbean.

Things are working in the right direction, because I already have one crew-member for the entire trip home. Petar Pecanac, the Chief Photographer on the ship I'm working on, has already “signed on” for the journey home on my boat. Petar is new to sailing, but he brings excellent mountaineering and outdoor skills to our team, he has amongst other impressive tops, climbed Mount Everest, Cho Oyo and Mount McKinley.

An as of yet unconfirmed member for the homeward journey is my brother, Martin, who will finish his Masters Degree in New Zealand sometime at the end of this year (2009). He would be a most welcome member to the team, but we have to see how his plans pan out.

In preparation for the journey home, we are now investing in instruments to start a boat band. Petar is buying a saxophone, I'm buying a guitar and if my brother joins he'll be joining the band as our percussionist. We are now looking for a bass player, preferably female, along the lines of Bolt Thrower's legendary bass player Jo Bench.

My plan quite loosely is to finish my contract here on November 19^th and fly to Miami for a debrief with Onboard Media (my current employer). This would also give me an excellent opportunity to take advantage of the cheap prices on boat things in Miami. I'd also meet up with Petar in Miami and from there we would go to Aruba. We'd spend the first two weeks getting the boat ready and have her on the water around December 10^th – 12^th. The plan then is to spend Christmas and New Years sailing around on the ABC's (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao). I have good friends on Aruba that I want to hang out with and sail with before we continue onwards.

The 5 months in the Caribbean will be spent sailing slowly from the ABC's to St. Maarten which will be the starting point across the Atlantic. The plan is to do the Caribbean properly and really see and explore the islands like I didn't do when I first came across the Atlantic. We plan to do it in style: eating, drinking and exploring like there's no tomorrow.

The trip across the Atlantic will take us to either Bermuda or the Azores and from there Ireland and Scotland, before we head to Stavanger, probably stopping by the Faeroe and Shetland Islands on the way.

Planned arrival date in Stavanger will be around the middle of June2010, though it could be later, depending on weather and how much time we want to spend in Ireland, Scotland and the various islands we pass.

The only minus with the crew, is that it's turning into a sausage party, so I'm thinking about putting the following contact ad into circulation:

Looking for you!

You must be female, interested in sailing, traveling, the outdoors and music. Needs to be adventurous and ready for new challenges. Would be good if you're either a doctor or an engineer of some sort. Cooking skills would be greatly appreciated, as would a figure that would do credit to small bikinis.

Am I asking for too much ;-)

I'm really looking forward to the trip home. If it sounds interesting to be a part of a leg of the journey, let me know!

Finally an update

ajulseth — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:02:00 GMT

It had been a long time since I last wrote something here. So now I'm returning with a vengeance! (Pictures will be posted soon)

As most of you know I've been working like mad the last few months for Royal Caribbean, to make some much needed cash. My sailboat, though wonderful, is a black hole for my already limited budget, so I really need to replenish my drained and strained bank account.

This post will be a bit long, because I'll try to update everyone on what's happened since the last post, when I was enjoying life in St. Maarten. The plan was to begin working for Royal Caribbean within a few days of walking off my boat, but I needed to get a medical done and most importantly I needed a new C1/D visa (This is something Royal Caribbean requires for anyone that works for them). The easiest place to get that done was on Barbados. While Royal Caribbean would pay for my flights down there, they wouldn't cover hotel, so I turned to my old friend couchsurfing.com to see if I could find a place to stay for free. Low and behold I got a response from Vicky and Steve living just north of Bridgetown. When I arrived in Barbados I jumped on a bus to Fitts Village, where Vicky met me at the bus stop and we walked up to their excellent house. Vicky and Steve turned out to be a fantastic couple that I really enjoyed hanging out with. Their background was cool, involving a lot of traveling and a interesting lifestyle. They had amongst other things run the largest nightclub in the Caribbean, run a few restaurants and enjoyed life. They recently decided to “retire”, so when I met them, they had a lot of time on their hands, which was great, because we really got to hang out and have fun together. I almost felt sorry for their youngest daughter Kim, because I became a new addition to the family (Their oldest daughter was away when I was staying there, but I got to meet her later when I returned to Barbados with the Vision of the Seas (the cruise ship I started working on when I left Barbados).

Their house had a big pool and a very comfortable lounging area. Though I contacted them through Couchsurfing, I actually got my own room. On sunny days the time was spent in the pool other times we just hung out inside. Mostly we drank copious amounts of Mount Gay and Coke and talked. I ended up getting my visa from the US embassy and enjoyed every second on Barbados. Steve, Vicky and Kim will hopefully come and sail with me as soon as I get my ass back on my boat in November.

When I left Barbados I flew straight to Santo Domingo and joined the Vision of the Seas as their Head Broadcast Technician. The itinerary we cruised was pretty good: St. Maarten, Dominica, St. Kitts, Antigua, Barbados, Venezuela and Aruba in addition to the Dominican Republic.

The only hick-up was that it went pear-shaped with Trond and Thomas who was taking care of my boat. They were doing charters in the BVI's for me sailing around with Norwegian guests. The plan was good, but it proved to be a huge mistake on my end to trust two people I didn't know 100% to take care of my boat. Without going into detail I can say that I've learned a big lesson from this and if I ever meet them again I'll drop-kick them. You'll understand more when you hear the state the boat was in when I picked the boat up from them a few months later.

The original plan was to work as a Head Broadcast Tech for Royal Caribbean till the beginning of June, when I would return to St. Maarten, pick up my boat and take her out of the hurricane area for the duration of the hurricane season. A sound plan, until I was asked if I wanted to work as a Port & Shopping Guide instead. This implied a small increase in pay, the emphasis here is small, but it meant less work and most importantly I'd get to challenge myself in very different ways. Instead of being behind the camera I'd now be making presentations in front of people. What's more is that these presentations would be recorded and shown to guests on TV on my own channel. So I went from controlling what's on TV to being the face on TV. After some deliberation I decided to accept the job.

The next few days passed in a blur: I resigned from Royal Caribbean, left the Vision of the Seas and flew to Miami for training (or a conference as they called it) with my new employer, Onboard Media, at their headquarters on Miami Beach. I spent 4 excellent days in training together with the “European Dreamteam”, working hard and preparing for my return to the Vision of the Seas.

Well, we worked hard and played hard as well. I shared room with Erick and a little refreshment (or two) never hurt.

I had to leave the conference in Miami a day early, because I had frightfully little time to sail my boat from St. Maarten to Aruba. The sail was a 4 – 5 day sail, but I wanted to leave with good margins, because I needed to be on Aruba by May 2^nd, so that I could fly to England to join the Vision again.

Trond and Thomas were supposed to arrive with the boat on St. Maarten on Wednesday evening, because I had ordered parts and a service person that was standing by to fix the autopilot. When I arrived in the afternoon on Thursday the boat wasn't there. I was alarmed, because this meant they were a day late, but hoped they were delayed and would arrive in the course of the night. The next morning they were still not there and I had not received any word from them. I was upset and didn't know what to do. It's a horrible thing to wait for something when you have no idea, why you're waiting and how long you have to wait. I was wondering if something was wrong and most importantly I couldn't understand why they didn't get in touch with me when all of the BVI's has cell phone coverage. When I tried to call them their phones were turned off. I was getting fairly frantic and waited another night, but on Saturday morning I decided that something must be horribly wrong, because they had now taken more than 3 times the time it should take to sail from St. Thomas to St. Maarten calculating with a very slow speed. When I was basically lifting the phone to call the Coastguard to start a search for them, they called me. They were still in St. Thomas. I couldn't believe what I heard. They had set sail for St. Maarten, but had broken the second engine (this is after they had succeeded in breaking the first engine a few weeks earlier, so I had heavy engine parts with me).

What amazed me is that they were halfway to St. Maarten when the engine broke, but instead of sailing on, they sailed back to St. Thomas and anchored there, knowing full well the incredibly tight schedule I was on. This forced me to leave the new mainsail I had gotten delivered to St. Maarten with Ian and Lee, because I had to fly to St. Thomas to take over the boat there. I was able to bring the engine parts with me, because I viewed them as absolutely essential, but somehow the mechanic Thomas and Trond were using had ordered the wrong parts from Italy, so I brought 25 kg of wrong parts with me. So no matter what I would be unable to fix that engine, because new parts would have to be ordered from Italy.

I assessed the situation and basically kicked the guys off the boat as soon as I could. When I saw the state of the boat I couldn't believe that I had trusted them with her. I had no working engines, no autopilot and my brand new mainsail was on St. Maarten, because they couldn't sail a sailboat from one island to the other, and on top of that I didn't have enough time to pick up my new sail on St. Maarten before I needed to be in Aruba in time for my flight to Europe. I think the fact that they hadn't bothered to do the dishes the last week, so it was standing moldy and green in the sink when they left, illustrates well Trond and Thomas's character. There was no way to get parts for the autopilot, but I managed to get one engine working by cleaning the fuel filter.

I was now faced with a 5 day sail without autopilot … on my own. I knew I would be stretching the rubber band very, very far if I did that, so I went ashore and looked for potential crew. Picture me walking on the pier asking random strangers if they would be interested in sailing to Aruba. Miraculously enough I got a yes. I spoke to the manager of On Deck, a company doing day sails and match racing. He knew a guy, who had his son, Scott, visiting. In his opinion Scott would be perfect. Scott gave me a call and we agreed that I would pay for food and his ticket back to St. Thomas and that would be it. We met for the first time 45 minutes later, outside Customs and Immigration when we checked out of the US. Having successfully checked out we hurried an bought a lot of food for the journey, before we returned to the boat. Within two hours of talking on the phone for the first time, Scott and I were lifting anchor and motoring away from Charlotte Amalie.

The weather was really good, we had 15 - 18 knots of Easterly wind blowing consistently for pretty much the entire journey. Waves were also coming in from that direction and I'd say the waves were between 1 – 1.5 meters high. We were holding a south-westerly course and got the wind and waves in from just aft of our beam. The true challenge of the trip was that we had to steer by hand the entire journey. We were looking at 4-5 days where one of us would always had to be on the wheel. Due to the direction of the waves it was impossible to lash the wheel and let the boat sail herself, because you constantly needed to make adjustments. I was really lucky, because Scott was exactly the sort of sailor I was looking for: Hard working, always in high spirits and knowledgeable about sailing. We had a good tone and the trip went very smoothly. Before we knew it, we had Aruba on the horizon and we had actually done the entire trip in 3 days, so we were very happy. We pulled up alongside the customs and immigration dock an hour after darkness had descended. Checking in was the easiest I'd experienced and by far the cheapest, because it cost nothing. Having checked in, we cast off and motored towards the marina, which was further into the lagoon we had sailed into. It was very shallow and dark in the lagoon, but my draft made it possible. When we got to the marina, we couldn't find an obvious place to dock, except at the end of one of the docks, where we were too long. It ended up taking me three attempts to maneuver us alongside, but finally we were tied up and could relax.

We were both tired, happy and ready for a shower, me especially so, because I fell overboard as we were docking, so I was drenched and having cut my arm and leg when I fell overboard, I was also a bit bloody. The best part was when I realized I'd lost my Rolex when I fell overboard: I grabbed a mask and dive flashlight and jumped into the dark lagoon. While I was frantically searching for my watch I reflected upon the nature of the lagoon. They are normally frequented by sharks and being so close to Venezuela and rainforest I even feared crocs or alligators. Bleeding quite profusely from my arm and leg, I can promise you my heart was racing, but the end is good because I found the watch and climbed back onboard without ending up as someone's midnight snack. I later asked and was informed that there were no alligators or crocs in the lagoon, but sharks … you bet. Oh well, that which does not kill you, …

Scott and I cleaned up in the marina shower and decided to drink beers instead of making dinner and for entertainment we put on Pirates of the Caribbean and drank rum until we passed out. A perfect ending to a great sail.

I had two days to arrange everything. I tried to get my boat out of the water the following day, but it couldn't be done before the following Tuesday when I was on the other side of the Atlantic. It ended up working out wonderfully, in large parts thanks to Sally, a wonderful solo sailor also tied up in the marina for hurricane season. Scott and I moved the boat to a part of the dock where we could be lifted out of the water and then went about preparing the boat for my long absence. We literally finished preparing the boat when Sally picked me up and drove me to the airport. Scott stayed in the boat a few extra days and explored Aruba and Sally oversaw the lifting out of my boat.

It was with a huge sigh of relief I could board the plane knowing that my boat would be safe while I was away. I didn't have time to relax, because as soon as the plane took off I had to power on my laptop and start working on the port and shopping presentations that I would be holding as soon as I got onboard the Vision of the Seas.

Looking back, it is incredible that the journey from St. Thomas worked out as well as it did. I can promise you that I wasn't quite as optimistic when I was waiting on St. Maarten wondering where my boat was. Now the story moves to the Vision of the Seas, where my adventures continue :-)

Past Trips

ajulseth — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:29:00 GMT

In order to make it easier to keep track of trips I've done, I've put them into chronological order. This way you can scan down on the list below until you find a trip you want to see, then you click on the picture and off you go.

Circumnavigating Adventures

Weekend trips around Beijing

A beach trip to the Philippines

Tearing up the US

Adventures in Ecuador

Traveling in Tibet

Getting lost in South China

China in the summer of 2005

Trips to the Great Wall

Camping in China

All things "Christmassy"

Changes

ajulseth — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:03:00 GMT

I am sitting on a comfortable divan overlooking Marigot on St. Martin while my boat is somewhere in the British Virgin Islands. Has the boat been stolen? … No. Have I sold the boat? … No, far from it. I have decided to take 4 months away from her to make some much needed money. It’s not that I’m going bankrupt, but I want to raise enough money to enable me to pay back a good portion of what I owe Gideon, the previous owner. I came to realize that if I only relied on the charter income that it would take me a few years to pay him back. The result is that I am now going to return to Royal Caribbean to do 3-months of fill-in work for them as Head Broadcast Technician. My boat will still be chartering, but now the boat is being captained by Trond Vika Furu, with Thomas Framnes as his very capable deck-hand. It was hard to go ashore from the boat and leave her in the hands of others, but it had to be done.

The impact has been mad much easier by Ian Gurr , whose fantastic hospitality I’ve been enjoying these past few days. The pictures below show you why.

I have the guesthouse to myself and even have a pick-up truck at my disposal. I now spend the days relaxing on my divan, writing, exploring the surroundings and sampling the island’s nightlife. This is just the kind of vacation I needed. I’ll stay here till February 21st, when I fly to Galveston in Texas to join the Voyager of the Seas, where I’ll work for 6 – 7 weeks, before I go to another ship and work there till I return to my boat on June 1s. The tentative plan now is to use the month of June to sail the boat down to Venezuela to dodge the hurricanes. While Hurricanes make life miserable in the Caribbean, I figured I’d leave the boat there and return to Norway to spend the summer working there. We’ll see what happens, plans always change, but for now it seems like a good one.

I also have to include a picture from where I stayed my first night when I disembarked. I couldn’t get a hold of Ian, but through Couchsurfing I got in touch with a friendly Dane that let me surf his couch. Let’s just say that I really liked the location of his beach house.

Some images from the Caribbean

ajulseth — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:21:00 GMT

A lot of people have asked me to post some pictures from the Caribbean. I'll start with a small video taken when I took Marcus and Morten, two friendly Swedes I met in a bar in Le Marin, for a little cruise on my boat. This is the first swim I took in the Caribbean after sailing across the Atlantic.

Next are a few pictures from Le Marin.

Here are some pictures from Mustique, my favorite island so far. The first image taken as I'm anchored right outside Basil's Bar, the other ones from a walk I had around the island.

When people think of the Caribbean, Tobago Keys are what many visualize

St. Pierre on the north tip of Martinique is another place I really liked.

I've noticed that when I'm on charters I don't really take any pictures. I guess it's because I'm working and I let the charter guests take all the pictures. This is something I definitely need to work on.

When Lauren was here I got to celebrate Christmas, properly which was awesome ... A story my face tells =)

Another Day in Paradise

ajulseth — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:44:00 GMT

I’m currently anchored in Prince Rupert Bay in Dominica. I would go ashore and explore the rainforest if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s pouring down. I know it’s a bit ironic, but I’m not talking about some light drizzle, it is bucketing down outside. So instead I’m catching up on my emails on the boat having forked out $10 to get connected to the HotHotHot network. All is good.
I arrived here in the afternoon yesterday from St. Pierre on the North tip of Martinique after my first proper open-ocean solo sail with this boat. The sail was a bit of a disaster, I set sail with a very conservative reefed main and double reefed genoa only to be met by big waves and wind that was bordering too strong. I had to turn my rudder all the way to port to counter the wind, so I knew I was over-canvassed (though according to the manual that came with the boat I was not). I pulled in the genoa and put the bows into the wind and waves. The autopilot gave me grief, so I had to turn it off and had to dash down to steer manually every 15 seconds. The waves were pretty big and for the first time in my life on this boat I was actually afraid. The mainsail ripped as I was lowering it, hugely frustrating, since this was the first time I was using it since I got it repaired in Le Marin. After a lot of cursing, sweating, getting drenched by sea-water and holding on for dear life I managed to secure the sail and turn towards my course. Needless to say I was depressed about the sail, but I chose to focus on good things: The genoa still works and the autopilot decided to work again, so I was back in business, motorsailing doing between 5 - 7 knots. The waves were really big and by far the biggest I’ve ever sailed in. I tried to take pictures, but they look puny on film, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I got drenched sitting in the cockpit, so that says something to the people that have been onboard.

Once I got to the lee side of Dominica the waves vanished, but the wind didn’t, so I continued in a much more leisurely fashion. While making my way I spotted a whale waving its tail towards me and also a marlin raced out of the water in hot pursuit of some prey. Added to this, I saw some stunning rainbows, so though the sail started bad, the ending was nice. As I was making my way into Prince Rupert Bay I passed Wind Surf, one of the old Windstar cruise ships.

I was planning to sail for Antigua at 2pm, allowing 16 hours to cover the 95nm to Antigua, but I’ve decided to hit the sack early and get up at 3am and set sail then instead. The wind will be more favorable and it will be nice to get to Antigua just before it gets dark, so that I can enjoy a good night’s sleep without having to do a proper night-sail.

Blue Monday

ajulseth — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:50:00 GMT

After a great 2008 with many ups and a few downs and a sensational exit out of it, 2009 has come to hit me in the face. It feels like getting fired on a Monday after a particular festive weekend. There are many reasons for this, chief amongst them that Lauren and I split up. We're still great friends, but she needs to put her university degree to use and start a career, while I want to circumnavigate. Life goes on, but it does take some of the vibrant colors temporarily out of your life when you go through a break-up, even if it is a friendly one. So now I'm sailing solo again in a very literal sense.
On top of this the boat is giving me some grief. I split the mainsail sailing from Bequia to St. Lucia, so I had to get it repaired. I got it back this morning, but carrying the damned 74sqm sail alone is tough, not to mention lifting it in and out of the dinghy and onto the boat. I'm going to try to mount it when the wind subsides, but I think it will be a Hellish job all alone.
Added to this is a 30 point long list of things I need to work on, from leaks and bilge pumps, to laundry and shopping. I'll have my hands more than full up until my next charter starts on January 21st. Oh ... I also need to sail single-handed from Martinique to Antigua, which should be fun. I actually think it will be. It'll be a bit hard in the beginning, but once I get the anchoring down I'll be all good!
So right now I'm doing the only appropriate thing to do when you've just broken up with a girl you like and you have a shit-load of things you need to do and a long way to sail: I'm having a beer!
Things will sort themselves out in due time, so why stress out about them?

Happy New Year

ajulseth — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:52:00 GMT

Happy New Year from Mustique

I'm anchored off amazing Mustique in the SVG. Tonight we're celebrating New Years Eve in Basil's Bar on the beach. Right now Lauren is onboard with me and I have an excellent couple (Roar and Monika) chartering with me. Life is grand and if 2009 is anything like 2008, I'm in for a real treat.

I wish everyone all the best and look forward to (hopefully) seeing you soon!

Love Andreas

Crossing the Atlantic

ajulseth — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:04:00 GMT

(More pictures and video will soon be posted)

Crossing the Atlantic in a sailboat truly is an adventure of a lifetime. It’s one of those things many people speak off, some people dream off and a very few people do. When I left Norway on Sept. 22nd I had no idea if I would find people that would sail with me even to Gran Canaria, going across the Atlantic seemed like a distant, surreal, dream. As I worked my way southwards from Norway, things slowly fell into place. By the skin of my teeth I managed to find crew for every leg of the journey and when I got to Gran Canaria I actually had a long list of people that wanted to come with me. I was in the dream position of hand picking who I wanted to come across with me. I said no to six people and yes to four. The four people were: Knut, Trond, Arvid and Kaja. You never know how things will work when you put 5 relative strangers in a confined space for weeks on end, so I was a bit nervous, but felt confident that it would work out.

We decided to set sail on November 20th, 3 days before the ARC regatta. 225 boats sail with the ARC regatta, so leaving a few days before them was a great way to have their security network around us …. Without paying for it. We got the boat fueled, loaded with provisions and ready to rock by 7pm on the 19th. Then we went and had a good farewell dinner at our favorite local restaurant, before we retired for the evening. At 05:30 am on the 20th I woke the others and by 06:00 am we had cast off and were on our way. The forecast looked good, but when you have 16 – 18 days at sea ahead of you, you only know what the weather promises for the next few days and not the entire trip. We had a friend of mine Morten Wichstrøm, who also does my charter bookings, following our every nautical mile from his home in Oslo, where he sent us a continuous stream of weather updates and news. The trip certainly wouldn’t have been the same without his assistance.

From the get-go we were plagued with very little wind. It quickly became apparent that our projected 16 – 18 day crossing would probably take longer … much longer. The tough thing was we had no real clue exactly how much longer, because in a worst case scenario it could take us up to 4 weeks. Though my boat is fast, I still need wind to sail. Without joking I can say that for the whole trip we had between 8 – 11 knots of true wind hitting us almost directly from behind most of the time. We were lucky to hit some areas of low pressure that really helped us out towards the end. We saw winds from 0.1 knot of true wind, to an absolute maximum of 24 knots when we narrowly avoided a squall. Anyone that sails will recognize that we had very little wind. This is also a reason why this years ARC regatta is one of the slowest in history and they have seen many boats abort the trip across, because they had so little wind that the trip would take them too long and they would run out of food and water. They opted instead to head back to Gran Canaria, or to Cape Verde and wait for more promising wind.

We surveyed our stores and felt confident that we had enough food for 3 to 4 weeks. We had very little canned food or long-term food, focusing instead on fresh fruit and vegetables and filling my freezer with chicken and meat that we thawed before each dinner. This ensured that we had great produce that Knut and Kaja used to drum up awesome meals with. It also meant that we were very dependent on the freezer. Had it gone belly up … well … let’s just say that next time I’ll make sure that I have more control over the shopping list, so that we would have been more non-perishables onboard.

Another concern was our fresh water supply. On the very first night we lost about 100 liters from the port water tank, probably because a faucet was left open. This meant that our water supply was effectively halved. Though I have a water maker it has given me some grief, so I didn’t want to rely on it. Instead we went into water rationing mode. I think any camel would have been impressed by our efforts. We used salt water for showers, cleaning dishes, when cooking pasta and rice and only used fresh water when we really needed to. We had brought over a 100 bottles of 1.5 liters of drinking water, so that came in addition. It is after all tough to sustain your body on salt water. Our efforts paid off and we didn’t need to start the water maker (except to test it … and lo and behold it didn’t work), we even had about 30 liters to spare when we came to St. Lucia. You might wonder if it was a tough to be in this kind of mode, but it really wasn’t, once we got used to it, it became natural and even taking salt water showers was no hassle.

Our last area of concern was electrics. Running a fridge, freezer, autopilot, navigational instruments, running lights, normal lights, etc. is a huge drain on the batteries. It quickly became apparent that my poor solar panels wouldn’t be able to keep us replenished and with so little wind my wind generator was of incredible little help. Now it was time to make any Scotsman jealous at how much we could save. We basically turned off everything except for the fridge, freezer and chart plotter. Yes, you read correct, we turned off the autopilot. We are without a question one of the very few boats that hand-steered the entire way across the Atlantic. This meant that night and day, someone was on the wheel steering us across. As a side note, because we were 5 people onboard it wasn’t a huge strain and also meant that we always had someone looking forward, which sad to say is not the case on all boats. At night we naturally turned on the tri-color, but besides that and the VHF we used no extra power. As another side note I was appalled to see how few other boats had their VHF’s on. I hailed 5 sailboats during the crossing and no one responded. We also saw a number of sailboats that didn’t use their running lights at night, so I was sad to see the level of poor seamanship. I’m sure if they ever get into an emergency they will be quick to turn on their VHF’s to scream for help, but other than that they kept them off. With our supreme level of frugality we still had to run the engines for 5 hours every day to recharge. On days with little to no wind, these 5 hours gave us some momentum forward, but all in all I had a balancing act between how much electricity we needed to use on one side against how much fuel we had to run the engines on the other. It was a tough equation, especially when we had very little wind and would love to motor sail to put some distance in our log.

Though it might seem harsh that we needed to conserve both water and electricity and hand-steer on top of that, I think it worked out well. No one complained and everyone pulled their share of the load. At the end we had a much more true sailing experience, closer to how it was in the old days. With the exception of the freezer of course.

When talking about the freezer I can’t begin to the great cuisine we enjoyed onboard because of it. We bought a lot of chicken, minced meat and bacon that we broke down into daily packets and froze. This meant we only thawed what we needed. For the first week at sea, Kaja dished up some great salads stretching our fresh vegetables for as long as they would last without spoiling. We had apples for basically 2/3 of the way and we ran out of oranges 2 days before St. Lucia, so there were few cases of scurvy onboard. To give you an indicator of the meals we had, listen to some of my favorite: Chili con carne, shepherd’s pie, tex mex, Indian chicken curry, chicken onion soup, taco’s and fajitas, bangers & mash, Pasta Bolognese, pizza and burgers. All of the meals were lovingly prepared by Knut and/or Kaja and it was something everyone looked forward to. It felt like we were having a Sunday dinner every day.

We ate all our dinners together, but left the rest of the meals up to each person. Due to our shifts we never really had a fixed time of day to eat breakfast and lunch, so people ate when they were hungry. The first week we had good bread, then we moved into the long-life bread and lastly we moved over to the Swedisk knekkebrød. We had a large variety of spreads, cheese, meats and so forth, but as time passed our selections decreased, but we never really ran our of anything. On top of that we had a variety of muesli onboard and when topped off with ice cold long-life milk it was a pleasure to eat. On top of this we had a variety of snacks that we also polished off on the way. In short we had a great variety of food and I think it is why spirits were high on the entire trip. A well fed crew is a happy crew.

I mentioned that we did shifts and it worked out the following way: Each person did one 4-hour nightshift and one 6-hour dayshift. Then every 5 days each person did 2 nighshifts and got the whole day off. It worked out well. Because then people could look forward to a day off every 5 days. At all times, two people were on watch. The shifts ran from 18:00 – 22:00, 22:00 – 02:00, 02:00 – 06:00, 06:00 – noon, noon – 18:00. In the beginning I also did a slight shift, so that one shift started 2 hours later, so that you would stand watch with two people instead of just one. That worked well up until the two least experienced people, Kaja and Arvid, were on watch together on the one shift we had the most wind. The result was that we had the one sailbreakage on the whole trip: The old gennaker split and was firmly broken. After that incident I shifted the watches around a bit, so that the inexperienced would never be together on shift. I also changed them, so that two people went on watch at the same time and stayed together the whole shift. The change proved successful and we had no more accidents after that.

Besides the mentioned gennaker, we had few other problems. The spinnaker halyards was a constant source of chafe and worry. I gaffa taped the area that comes out of the mast, right where the gennaker is attached. The forces at play there really tore into it and as the pictures below shows, I need to take a closer look, because things like that shouldn’t happen after only 10 hours of being under tension. I need to get my ass up into the mast to check what’s going on. The brand new foresail also has some issues, because I think the sailmaker screwed up on the measurements closest to the furler. The reason I say this is because from the looks of it, the sail should go about 20cm higher to be in the right spot … well, it doesn't, so I’ll need to hoist it a bit and secure it down with rope. The whole ordeal of hoisting and lowering the foresail would be a lot easier, if it wasn’t connected to a wire, making raising and lowering it a lot more time consuming than it could have been. It also ensures that it’s something I can’t do by myself, but need assistance. Of course the sail itself is beautiful and on the furler it is very easy to use, but I need to get it positioned perfectly on the forestay for it to be perfect. Even though we had ridiculously little wind, we did have days when I feel like the wind generator (Seabreeze) should have generated electricity, but it didn’t. I really feel like it’s been a struggle to get the thing to give me anything remotely in the vicinity of what it promised. One big blow is that both my trampolines are basically falling apart. Gideon said they would be good for another 2 – 3 years, but from the looks of it they’ll only last a few more months, maybe less, now that I’m here in the Caribbean and they’ll see a lot of use. Another blow was that the port side bilge pumps stopped working again. This greatly irritates me, because I’ve spent so much time on them and Gideon even had an electrician come and rewire them in Amsterdam, but it seems to be to no avail. I had to manually bail out over 200 litres of salt water from the bilge during the crossing. Irritating to say the least! I also need to find out where the water is coming in, but I’m not too concerned, because it only happens in rough seas, so I think it’s through one or some of the through-hull fittings above the waterline. It’s also clear to me that both forward hatches leak not only in rough seas, but also when it rains. It’s also clear that it’s not from the seal, but I hope it’s not structural. I’ll need to spend more time on them in the weeks to come. Another disappointment was the solar fans I installed in Amsterdam. I installed 6 and already 3 of them have stopped working. In 50% breakage in 5 months is not a good track record. They basically just pack in and stop working, so I need to jump on the warranty band wagon and get them replaced. Of other pressing concerns I also need to drill two holes in the anchor roller, so that I can move the roller back a few cm. This will stop the anchor from jamming, a problem that becomes evident anytime I anchor.
Now that the temperature is getting warmer and warmer and the sun’s rays are relentless it’s become very apparent that my dodgy Bimini will need to be replaced. I’d like to replace it with a hard top, so hopefully I can scrape together the funds for that. On top of this it is of course the repair that I need to du to the pulpit I broke in Ijmuiden. I’m a bit puzzled at how the stanchions are fastened to the deck, because they seem only to be secured with a screw and no backing plate, maybe not even a washer, what’s worse is that they are in the actual deck molding, so I can’t get to the screws from underneath to strengthen them. Hopefully the mooring cleats are done properly, so that I don’t have to worry about their strength. It’s definitely something I need to talk to Gideon about.
Besides these things I have a nice little list of things I need to do and improve, but hey, that’s the way it always is. The key thing though is that I still think the FastCat is the supreme boat and I’m deeply satisfied with her. I wouldn’t exchange her for anything, especially once I get through with the repairs and improvements I need to do.

I hinted earlier at the poor wind we had and it’s true. In the end it took 21 days and 3 hours from when we cast off in Gran Canaria to when we were tied up in St. Lucia. Considering that we sailed close to 3000 nautical miles, this means an average speed of almost 6 knots, which is respectable for a normal boat, but I was expecting a much faster time. I can’t blame anything or anyone, but the wind. It certainly wasn’t the boat’s fault, because even with an inkling of wind we were moving graciously through the waves. In fact everyone onboard was amazed at how the boat moved. No matter the waves, we were safe and when the wind did pick up (on those rare occasions) the boat loved it. It’s also easy to look at the wind and think: 11 knots of wind. Well, they should do 7 – 10 knots then. Maybe if I got it at a different angle, but when it’s coming from straight behind it’s tough to get a lot of power out of it when you don’t have a huge spinnaker. My sailrobe is basically the main and genoa and two 135sqm and one 120 sqm gennaker. On the days we really moved, we had around 14 – 16 knots of true wind. Then it was a joy to sail and we flew along doing around 8 knots. The problem and what really dragged the average down was the bad days when we hardly any wind to work with. Days with daily averages of 4 knots or less are a killer. We didn’t have too many of them, but those we had meant that we needed to sail so incredibly much faster to lift the average back up again. Our worst day by far was day 14 when we averaged 91 nm in 24 hours. That’s 3.7 knots as an average. We were dying onboard. Then it looked like the trip could take almost 4 weeks and we felt a bit demotivated. Around that time the time-to-go indicator seemed to be stuck on 10 days. It was certainly our big joke onboard that we’ll be there in 10 days. Things got better and towards the end we were able to average between 170 - 185 nm in 24 hours, which we were very happy with since the winds never exceeded 18 knots.

Though we were plagued with little wind, the weather was gorgeous for the whole trip. I think we only had 2 or three days with rain, and even then it wasn’t continuous. We were able to lounge around and enjoy the sun and the great food. I finished 3 solid books: The Birds of Prey trilogy by Wilbur Smith. It felt exhilarating to read about pirates and privateers off the coast of Africa, when that’s where we were sailing. Everyone else also finished a large number of books, so it was a well read crew that walked ashore. The favorite book of the trip was Collective Suicide by Arto Paasilinna a book everyone read and loved. On one of the particular dead days in the middle of the Atlantic, we dove into the ocean and enjoyed a leisurely swim… and a bit of action.

All in all, the trip across was amazing. It was one of the things I dreaded the most when I left Norway, but it turned out to be the best parts of the journey. It is certainly something that will stay with me forever.

Gran Canaria her we come

ajulseth — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:33:00 GMT

After 2 days in Oeiras we were ready to take off. The stay had been short, but sweet. It had climaxed in our epic “Capture the Flag” and we were definitely ready to feel the wind grab a hold off the sails again.

We set sail in the afternoon when the wind was most favorable. It was nice to finally have the forecast kick in. We motored for less than 30 minutes, before we shut off the engines and hoisted the sails. The awesome thing was that we didn’t need to power up the engines again for propulsion before we got to Gran Canaria.

Trond and I decided that we would sail conservatively, so that we wouldn’t rip any sails or have any other mishaps. This really paid off, because nothing broke on the way. The only downside was that we perhaps didn’t push the boat as hard as we could.

The trip was a true joy. The first three days passed in normal fashion, where we basically sustained ourselves on bread, apples and biscuits, but late on day 3 Trond cooked up a storm with a very tasty pesto chicken pasta. After that it was no turning back. We enjoyed all the food we had brought and could finally feel our bodies properly adjusted to the motion of the ocean.

The wind was surprisingly a bit challenging, because we got it straight from behind. Add in modest sized waves and both we and Otto (the autopilot) had to get a bit creative. The main sail and genoa saw the most amount of work, because the waves were a bit too big to fly the gennaker safely. The wind was also a tad strong, so it was bordering on when we would take the gennaker down had we been flying it, but we still let it feel the air for a few hours when the wind was not as aggressive. In essence we decided not to fly the gennaker if the apparent wind was bordering 15 knots. When we were in the vicinity of 15 knots of apparent wind, we normally saw from 23 – 28 knots of true wind, which could have been a pain if something had gone wrong. During the last 24 hours we had decent sized waves, so we opted to drop the main and just use the genoa. It worked like a charm and let us sail doing 6 – 8 knots in a very relaxed way. When we got to Gran Canaria the wind died, so for the last few hours we had to fire up Judas to get us to Porto de Mogan. I would have liked to have gone to Las Palmas, but with the 250+ boats sailing in and around the ARC staying there now, it was better to head further south to a place we could chill and be comfortable.

All that remains now is to wait for the crew members that will sail across the Atlantic with me … and get the boat ready … oh and naturally enjoy some MUCH NEEDED summer and sunshine …