LinoCat

What are the options for tactics ? What are tools that can be used?Of course all start at the same time and place and have to reach the same place. So you can only vary the course, equipment and crew. Crew is fixed on most boats since the owners and some other people are sailing on them. This is different in the racing division. Equipment starts of course with the boat choice and since we all are in the cruising division we do not want to race in the first place but things like a spinnaker, a folding prop, new antifouling paint will influence your speed and so does the load of the boat. But often this is also already given. A folding or feathering prop will give you maybe 0,5 knots. But that is 12 miles per day which is 120 miles in 10 days. That means over almost 3 weeks arriving 1 or 2 days earlier! Routing and weather is one of the biggest things to consider. Some people directly target for St. Lucia while we for example went pretty much in direction of Cape Verde islands. But where

We caught 2 big Mahi Mahi but one escaped. The other will become our dinner! 90cm long and so beautiful that we were also a bit sad to kill him.

From around 6 in the morning the wind picked up and we reached around 15knots in surfing down the waves. The autopilot had problems coping with that and we also started to think about taking the Parasailor down. Tucanon, a Lagoon 440 and Blonde Moment, a Hallberg Rassy 40 had their Parasailor down since yesterday evening. Blonde Moment was 12miles behind us yesterday evening and is now 53 miles behind. This shows how fast we were going. Now we have the genoa out and are doing 6knots. This is slow but comfortable. Less noise and less nerves used. The autopilot is running in the lowest setting also. Lets see if we can bring it up again tomorrow. Linocat has 1439 miles to go. Tomorrow we will reach half the distance to St. Lucia. Our position is 18°31,5N and 036°23.5W

After the 4th lure was "stolen" by some angry fish we decided to produce our own ones.Her is a rapid prototype consisting of parts of a coke can and a "Fruechte Freund" package wich is a kind of cereal bar.Then a double hook and an old metal nut from a toolset and up we go. We will keep you updated about any success :-)

Today is the first Advent as we would call this sunday in german. We light up the first candle of four before christmas. Usually this is also the beginning of having christmas cookies for the afternoon coffee or tea. So we also had coffee and cookies and a candle. But at 29 degrees this is much nicer than in 8 degrees and rain :-)

For all the Lani fans here a new picture from today. Grabbing for everything near her....

The bread is done and smelling great! Also our cruising speed is higher now and we had self made wraps with ham and tuna (not self caught) which was Yummy.Tonight it might be fish if we catch a Tuna or Spaghetti Carbonara. (If we catch some carbonara :-) )We are curious about todays position results for the catamarans.And by the way we also sailed more than 1000miles on this trip until today. The waves are higher now with around 2.5 to 3m coming from NE while we go west. So there is some surfing and slamming and the autopilot has to work hard. It is amazing to see how Lani can now stand and balance herself in these conditions.A true "seagirl".

Hi Blog-Followers, the good news is that we are now catching fish like crazy. Yesterday 9 Mahi Mahi and today the nice one on the picture. The bad news. It is too much to eat and also the fridge is still full.The good news is again for the fish since we throw them back in. The bad news is that one was bleeding but i hope that he will make it. Another bad news is that the boat is now spoiled with blood. Looks like a slaughterhouse.We have reduced now and are only fishing with one rod and the wobbler to catch a Tuna for Sushi. Our position is 19.55N and 30.15W doing 7 knots at 250 degress course over ground. Another good news is that the bakery has opened today and we will have a nice fresh baked bread. Good news: We have enough gas to let the oven run for 1 hours. bad news: We are consuming to much electricity and water. Good news: So does everyone else on the planet :-) Bad news: You will hear more of our storiesGood news: It will end around 9th of December at least for a while !

The fish curry was great. In total we caught NINE Mahi Mahi today. In the end we kept the lures out of the water because noone was keen of getting another one.Maybe tomorrow we change one line to a wobbler. Here is a picture of the sunset which was nice today. It starts to look and feel more and more tropical :-)

I want to bring up the issue of alcohol on board. When i saw some of the boat provisioning themselves i was wondering if they want to get drunk each day. In my opinion alcohol has to be limited by own will and responsibilty and if this does not work by the skipper himself. We bought 2 cans of beer per day, so one each for Andi and myself and about 8 bottles of wine but also because it is said to be much more expensive in St Lucia and they had a good Rioja in Spain. We have consumed nil of our beer or wine since the start but we might have a beer this evening with the indian fish curry. We just caught 2 more Mahi Mahi with 70cm but we are now going for Tuna so we both set them free again. We are now at 20.17N and 28.25W doing 7knots on course 250.

We caught 3 Mahi Mahi in 30 Minutes.This one will be converted into an indian fish curry. Good that we have all the indian spices with us! The 4th Mahi Mahi was on the hook but since it was less than 40cm it went back in again.Sky is blue and so is our sail and the canvas on the boat and Lanis eyes.So we are truly bluewater sailing!

Tonight we broke the 2000 mile marker. So we already managed to leave 700 miles behind. The night was warm and the stars were bright.With the moon out it was incredible how much you could see. We followed the usual watch scheme and now just had breakfast.The wind was down tonight and we are doing now less than 7 knots. We all hope for more wind (but not to much) and for a big fish!

Hi there, we just had coffee and some biscuits. The wind has died down and so we only make around 6 knots. We donated some coffee to the god of winds and so let keep our fingers crossed that we again get around 20 knots of wind. It is strange but you also get used to the fact that our windvane is broken and you can judge the apparent wind quite well from the waves and the boat speed. We only reconfirm it a few times with the handheld anemometer. Today it was my turn to be the netcontroller for group A, these are the yachts from 186 to 240 but due to the fact that we went south first we are quite a long distance away from the others and on channel 4c i can only hear half of the group. But i guessed this already in the last days and had spoken with Blonde Moment and Brindabella if they can step in and so after reading out the weather he took over the roll call. The schedule for such a SSB group is: 11:55 Radio silence on 4c (4.149 MHz) and VHF 16 and 77 to check for any vessel in distres

Every few days it is a good idea to bring the parasailor down and check it for chafing. Everything looked fine so after 5 minutes the Parasailor was up again. At the start of the ARC we have used the normal sails but since then we only had the Parasailor spinnaker up. What a great sail!

The night was warm, it was the first night that i was sitting outside without my sailing Jacket but of course with life vest. At night everyone is not only wearing a life jacket but is also attached to the boat. This is important because no one might notice if you would fall over board. Or at least might pretend not to have noticed it :-) Since the water is warmer now we also found the first flying fish on the boat and showed it to Lani since she is such a big fan of fish. At the same time a small Mahi Mahi pulled on the fishing rod and i reeled him in and let him go since he was to small. Andi brought Christmas cookies from Chris parents and we hope that these will find their way into our night watch motivation boxes! The sun is out and it is already 24 Celcius. What a good start into a nice day.

In the afternoon we had another Mahi Mahi on the rod but he jumped off the hook maybe 5m away from the boat. A little later the reel was running off very very fast and when Andi stopped it there was very high tension on the line and then nothing.The second reel also started to run out a little later and then stopped.When we wanted to retrieve the lures, we saw that both were gone. Maybe ripped away by drifting debris or by really big fishes. So tomorrow morning we have to rig two new ones. In the afternoon i had a one hour nap after the ARC radio net, which is going from 1200 UTC to 1500 UTC. In the morning Andi particpated in the maritime round on 14.313 with Christoph DH2LV called "Seelotse". The routine check of all stanchions, lines, terminals, etc. was normal but maybe tomorrow we should get the spinnaker down, we will check it and bring it back up. This would would cost precious time and we are in a rally :-) Dinner was Spaghetti and a white sauce with feta cheese and p

During the night we could already see a navigation light following us and around noon we heard the Skiathos calling us on VHF16 and then they passed us. It was a nice FIRST 47 and he had almost the same course. We used him to show the wave heights. Check out the picture.Breakfast this morning was good but we were all a bit tired since the waves picked up tonight and so we were surfing a lot which makes strange noises.We had two fish biting the hook but escaped and then just some bread for lunch.In todays net controller SSB round i realized that many stations might not be able to hear me tomorrow since we are further south than many others of our group.The next bigger boat group was much better to hear which means we are rather in their area. Maybe next year the ARC people should consider the handicap of the boats also when assigning the groups? The barometer now shows 1018mbar which shows that we are already pretty close to the turning point to west.We might turn tomorrow or the day af

Due to a diaper accident we had to give Lani a bath. We decided to go for the big blue JACUZZI and so we put her in our blue cleaning bucket. She loved it so much that she cried a lot when we took her out again. I would also be more than happy to get a shower or better, a Jacuzzi!

As protectors we got the following from friends: A Ganesha hindu statue from Anant, Julia and Neel A Christopherus from Karin and Heinz and last but not least A magic eye from Sybelle and Ralli What can go wrong now? RIGHT: Nothing!

At 1400 today one of our fishing reels started to roll out and we reeled a small Mahi Mahi in.Since it was not enough as dinner for all of us we decided to let it grow one more year for the next ARC and threw him back in since he was not seriously injured.Approx. length was 50cm Today is a good day...

How can you motivate the nightwatch? Every evening Chris is preparing a box for each crew member with some "goodies" like sweets, chewing gum, cookies, Gummibears, etc. This prevents us from eating all supplies the first night and keeps us happy during the night.Of course we then need to participate in the Aerobics class on Friday :-)

This is Lani, Chris, Michael and Andi enjoying a fast ride.

Hi, coffee is brewing and so i only have a few minutes left. We opened the box with Christmas cookies! YEAAAAHHH!!! But as a punishment some of our peppers and oranges started to mould and so we had to repack all of them and store them differently. It looks like the quality of the stuff we got is not the best. We listened to the ARCnet on SSb this morning and were amazed that many boats were still behind us. Even much bigger ones. So we guess we are doing ok with our 8,3knots average and an Etmal of 180Miles. In front of us is La Medianoche with Ralf and Inge a 15m Katamaran and also Boundless I, a Priveleg 495 from Tasmania and of course the racing division :-) I am curious when we get the position reports on how we are placed even though this is not a race. We had the rest of the Spaghetti this afternoon and we will have asian turkey curry with rice for dinner. YUMMY! No success on the fishing front so far but the sun is out about half the time and the water started to get warmer. Al

After having Spaghetti Bolognese and a green salad, Chris brought Lani to bed at 19.30 and then went to bed around 21.00. Since it was the first night we decided not to stay inside and play cards because of the risk of getting seasick, especially at the first night. Andi went to bed around 22:00 and so i had the first watch and it was nice with many stars and still many ARC boats around. A while after midnight it was Andis turn and around 3 Chris took over followed by me again around 5 in the morning. Chris had packed "sweets rations" for Andi and myself because otherwise we might finish all in one night. :-) So each of us had some Haribo Gummibears, cookies, Saltstick and other stuff in a box with our name. Also each of us has a bottle with a name on it for water, just to make sure we drink enough. We kept the Parasailor up all night doing an average of 8,2 knots. Sometimes the speed in the surf down a wave goes up to 13 for the SOG and 17knots for the speed through water. T

Here are some pictures from the start and the first hours.

After a nice start with main and genoa we switched to the Parasailor an hour after the start. It was nice to see many other colorful downwind sails.

Until we have mobile coverage i can upload pictures :-) We had a good start but there could be more wind. We started with the normal wind and about 13.10 we crossed the start line. So we are already 10 minutes late :-) We were the last catamaran out but we do not want to be the last one in.

In 15 to 30Min we will leave. There is a marching band, fireworks and many many spectators. We will keep you updated but mabye without many pictures.

it looks like we will have a nice sail in the beginning. Later it depends a lot what the coldfront in the mid atlantic will do. This is how the map looks today:

Hi, so it is Saturday, the day before we leave and so we come down to the really important stuff.Lani is getting a new haircut and if time permits i might also get a new haircut.To be able to cut her hair we had to destract her with "Finding Nemo" playing on the Archos player.

Since on Sunday people should be sober the cocktail party took place already this evening. It was nice and many people. In total more than 1000 people are here for the ARC. People start to really look forward to set sail! Rather tomorrow than on Sunday... A few yachts for the ARC still arrive and some are heavily illuminated at night. Chris and Lani at the party. Lani was sleeping 5 min later and so we could enjoy the party.

Today we tightened the bow-net, went to IKEA for some shopping and to Corte Ingles to pick up the meat and the last stuff. Also there was a radio check but we missed that but i am certain our equipment is up an running. The 12V socket which i added at the outer helm station is working and also the Icom M71 charger which i added. The two 22L Jerrycans (additional Diesel) were filled and i topped off the Diesel main tanks with another 22Liter. In total we carry around 300Liter of Diesel. Another yacht was just at the fueldock and filled in 850Liter. WOW. So we do not have the option to motor to much or run the engine to charge the batteries. Tomorrow i will clean the solar panels so that they give maximum charge current. We also stored the Scubatank which got a new hydro test and was filled. There is some growth on out hull due to being in the marina for 3 weeks but this might be removed tomorrow. There has been an oil spill outside the harbour and this was then washed into our basin. So

Hi, due to the unavailabilty of the Intermar Server for more than one week i changed the link for Positionreports. Now we are going to use: http://shiptrak.org/?callsign=db8us Yesterday there was the Lagoon Cocktaildinner and we fixed a lot of stuff from the to do list. Today we have to go to IKEA and i will post more later.

Some snaps from the helicopter rescue demonstration and the flare demonstration