Azores Hi! Cool for cat(amaran)s.

capnsensible

capnsensible

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Hola from Horta. :encouragement:

Arrived this morning from Antigua, just under fifteen days. About half and half, sail and motor.

Does of course help if you got a 74 foot cat, two 240hp john deres and 6000 litres of diesel!

Hubba.
 
The omens were good. Virgin to Barbados then LIAT connection. Arrived on time and with my bag. A first.

Neat being picked up by ones driver. Straight to Antigua Yacht Club, in full swing for Classic Week. Now there's a welcome!

No messing though, up next day at dawn, bunkers piped to your berth! then quick trip to Nelsons Dockyard to clear out and gone by 1300.
 
Instead of having to take the northern grey wet windy and grey , very grey route we went close to great circle and sunshine all the way ......until two days from Azores.

Lots of Dolphins. Several pods of whales. One member of which gave us far more interest in his intentions right by our starboard bow than I suspect he had in ours......

Happy to say very little rubbish the whole way.
 
Notes.

Having an award winnin, bread bakin, cake cookin super chef on board means for the first time on a transat, I'm fatter. She also is a mean fish filleter.

Caught one Mahi mahi and two tuna. See chef above!

If you got two generators and one breaks, you got one generator.

Unlimited showers, washing machine and dryer with manly water maker keeps a crew happy.

It's still fun taking sights of the sun, moon, Jupiter and their pals even on an all singing all dancing yacht.

Checking deviation is still pants, though.

It's the calmest trip across I've ever done, never more than a force six. Seemed like a cruise!

Most enjoyable. :encouragement:
 
Done by instalments coz internet is a bit rubbish.

Intend to slip mid day Sunday. Pit stop in Gib for bunkers Saturday or Sunday then hop up to Barcelona for Tuesday or Wednesday.

Then fly home to Lanzarote, well in time for FA Cup final!

;)
 
The X factor was iridium go and predictwindoffshore. We routed ourselves very nicely round the bumpy bits.

And got the football results.
 
capnsensible said:
The X factor was iridium go and predictwindoffshore. We routed ourselves very nicely round the bumpy bits.

And got the football results.
Click to expand...
Which models did you use?
I ditched predict wind recently, nice display but their own models were useless. Doubt if I'll stray far from gfs from sail mail and Opencpn offshore next time. Fast seas seems very good for "let's see, if we leave Tuesday... Or maybe Wednesday... ."
Did you get weatherfax for the big picture as well?

Nice to see the jet stream finally back up north again so next leg might be better than anytime in the past few months :)
 
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GHA said:
Which models did you use?
I ditched predict wind recently, nice display but their own models were useless. Doubt if I'll stray far from gfs from sail mail and Opencpn offshore next time. Fast seas seems very good for "let's see, if we leave Tuesday... Or maybe Wednesday... ."
Did you get weatherfax for the big picture as well?

Nice to see the jet stream finally back up north again so next leg might be better than anytime in the past few months :)
Click to expand...

We used pwg. It was absolutely bang on the money all the way across. Used it last year on a delivery across the Caribbean and Pacific to Tahiti with excellent results!

https://www.predictwind.com/

Next leg looking ok but need to crank on to Barcelona before levanter kicks in later.
 
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Bajansailor said:
I'm just wondering why you had to fly via Barbados - where there no direct flights available to Antigua?
I'm pleased though that LIAT didn't live up to any of their popular acronymns!

I'm guessing that you have AIS on board, in which case this must be you (as I cannot see any other large cats in Horta) -
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ai...d:5081353/mmsi:225987638/imo:0/vessel:CALMAO/

She looks very fine indeed. Is she a Sun Reef 74?
http://www.sunreef-yachts.com/en/sunreef-74
Click to expand...

Yes that's us! Bit of a cracker.

She is a charter vessel and they have a rather imaginative travel agent who goes for cheap rather than effect....

My original routing to Gatwick was Lanzarote-Gran Canarian-Madrid-Gatwick because it saved about fifty p.

When they realised that the Madrid flight left before the canaria one arrived they refunded and my wife and I flew Ryanair to Birmingham, did some family visits and she dropped me at Gatwick no problem!

Still a rath r pleasant two hours idling in Barbados airport after a flight spent chatting to an ex pat Bajan who lives in the UK and is as daft about cricket and football as me!
 
capnsensible said:
We used pwg. It was absolutely bang on the money all the way across. Used it last year on a delivery across the Caribbean and Pacific to Tahiti with excellent results!
Click to expand...

Well it's done a lot better for you than it has for the southern Iberian after a lot of logging, all over the place. Anyway, both their models are just tweaked GFS & ECMWF.

Did you log the predictions against actuals for pressure / windspeed?
 
GHA said:
Well it's done a lot better for you than it has for the southern Iberian after a lot of logging, all over the place. Anyway, both their models are just tweaked GFS & ECMWF.

Did you log the predictions against actuals for pressure / windspeed?
Click to expand...

Yeah, a good log kept every two hours of wind sea and barometer. As I said, bang on. :encouragement:
 
capnsensible said:
Yeah, a good log kept every two hours of wind sea and barometer. As I said, bang on. :encouragement:
Click to expand...
How many days ahead did you log the predict wind forecast to check with the actuals? More than a day or so out it starts drifting usually down here.

IM4RGPk.png


A week to wait now ;)
 
Used a rough dr to see where we would be up to three or four days ahead. Used that to route ourselves and logged what really happened. It worked fine. Sometimes downloaded the forecast three or four times a day (we weren't exactly busy!) and varied the area a bit. Two of us were visiting the screen every few hours to plan the route.
 
capnsensible said:
Used a rough dr to see where we would be up to three or four days ahead. Used that to route ourselves and logged what really happened. It worked fine. Sometimes downloaded the forecast three or four times a day (we weren't exactly busy!) and varied the area a bit. Two of us were visiting the screen every few hours to plan the route.
Click to expand...

Ta.

Though I reckon GFS would be as good as their PWG model or from watching all the models in one location probably better :cool:

The predict wind is a great display , though opencpn is excellent as well, gribs over wfax over sat images - haven't seen another program which can do that.
 
Well it's a lovely sunny day here for our departure in a couple of hours from Horta. Should be six or seven days to Gib, again looking like half and half motoring and sailing, but that's deliveries.

I see the search for that missing boat has been called off but we will still keeps eyes open when we pass by.

Top tip. If you are in Horta and want to dos crew thing for an afternoon, hire a big taxi for an island tour. Been here a few times but never really looked around. Well worth it, some spectacular views and we got lucky with the weather yesterday.

There are a lot of cows.

When back to decent wifi, will post a few pictures. iPad keeps dying when I'm trying!
 
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