LinoCat

Hi, we were called to the stage 3 times: -for being a net controller (SSB Radio operator and relay) furing the rally -for Lani as the youngest participant -and for our kite photographs We won "Kinderschokolade" YESSS, a meal for 4 at H2O restaurant and a bottle of Antigua rum. I swapped the rum againsr Lanis chocolate, so she now owns a bottle of rum and i can eat the chocloate :-) Too sad that Andi can not join us for the dinner but he left today. In the Multihull division we scored as follows: Multihulls Division Nr. Boat Name Design Flag TCF Finish Time Eng. Hrs Corr. Pos. Class 185 Vanora Lagoon 420 GER 0.964 8/ 08:36:08 4.00 15/13:38:54 1 A 156 FarFar II Lagoon 440 NOR 1.007 8/ 02:58:58 0.00 15/20:37:43 2 A 201 Espumeru North Wind 40 FIN 0.947 9/ 09:40:40 2.25 16/05:08:54 3 A 183 Amazing Grace Broadblue 415 GBR 0.983 8/ 21:38:31 1.17 16/07:02:45 4 A 181 Ca Canny Broadblue 415 USA 0.983 9/ 04:33:13 11.58 17/00:04:46 5 A 100 Boundless 1 Privilege 495 AUS 1.171 7/ 06:35:30...

When the first boat which approached you a night is a rastaman saying hi and when the boat passes by you smell Marihuana. Also when the customs office plays loud reggae music and the "officials" all come a little late but are friendly and quick in stamping the papers. When the most important transportation is a rubber inflatable boat and you have several dinghy docks, even at super markets or restaurants. When Lani needs to learn to walk again if the ground is not moving and is again happy to collect stones and flowers. On the to-do list now: -Get a bigger outboar engine -Get a BBQ grill for the boat -Go to the beach Life is good! RELAX!

The welcome was nice, even at midnight. We got a fruit basket and rum punch which was really strong. Then a 1.5 Liter beer bottle from Heineken :-) and a bag full of information brochures. Those who arrive during the day also get a steel drum player playing to welcome them. Some of the boats sound their horns and the atmosphere is now really relaxed compared to Las Palmas.

I was just looking out the window and already there was mountain of St Lucia visible. So this time it was my turn to shout "Land in Sicht". We will arrive at the first waypoint near pigeon island at 2300 local time. There we have to change the sails to the normal ones and then continue for 4 miles. So we should be able to make it "today" at the 9th of december. This would be great.

I just hoisted the courtesy flag of St Lucia. It looks a little like the symbol of Startrek or "Raumschiff Enterprise" as it was known in Germany. Saint Lucia has around 160.000 on 616 square kilometer. The currency is the east caribbean dollar and the capital is Castries. Main export goods are banana and beer! So we have to check out the beer for sure! Here you see a picture of the flag flying on our starbord side.

We now have less than 100NM to go. So we chatted during the breakfast how it was: It was nice and easy but we think that on a catamaran it is much easier than on a monohull. Lani also had no problems at all. She enjoyed the attention she was getting. WHat would we do different? Stronger fishing line and steel pre line and bigger lures. More cucumbers and if needed more soft drinks. We need to see dolphins or whales. I think we are one of the few boats that did not see any dolphins or whales on the trip. We think that pasta dishes are perfect and also the indian dishes were much appreciated. Communication was fun. We liked the ARC net but the groups should be different for the future because we were in the small boat group but we were rather always near the bigger boats. Therefore my role as a net controller was also made impossible. We played Trivial Pursuit over SSB with Tucanon and Raylah and also enjoyed that. The german atlantic morning round with DH2LC on 14313 was always a good s...

Hi, we now have 230 NM to go until Rodney bay. If the wind keeps blowing with around 20 knots we should be able to arrive between 9th and 10th of december. What do we have do besides a new hair cut? -Get the fenders out and inflate them (some are deflates to give more storage space -Get the mooring lines ready -Get the white sails ready (since the last mile will be against the wind we can not use the Parasailor) -Get the papers ready for customs -Hoist the ARC banner and the St Lucia courtesy flag -Attach our Rally ID (213) to the starbord side (we had it all on the other side for the start) -check in the maps where the finishing line is -get the radio ready for the pre finishing call on VHF channel 77 -Pose for the finishing line picture by a professional photographer -Be ready to get seasick once the ground is not moving any more :-)

......and the nature just wanted to show us who the boss is. We escaped a few squalls but then one hit us and we had around 30 knots of wind before we could bring the Parasailor down at 5 in the morning. So we just kept it up and made sure it was not flapping around and it survived. Afterwards we took it down for 2 hours and then brought it back up again. Wind ist still strong and we are doing more than 8 knots constantly. Now one of the few thing i need before arrival is a hair cut. Lets see if we manage that today :-) This picture shows how the squalls are shown on our radar

Here you can see where we are now.

And we are running out of lures! A really big one now even stole our modified lure. We have exchanged the thin pre-line against a 80lbs one. But he was a good fighter and within 20 minutes he bit through the line. We need steel pre-lines for the Atlantic! Also we are running out of soft drinks tonight but there are around 10 beers left :-) Tomorrow i get the trans atlantic hair cut and it is also shower day. We might not be able to make it for the 9th since at night we bring the Parasailor down if there are to many rain clouds on the radar. Then it would be the 10th early in the morning. But so what... We will get our rum punch form sure!

We just hit the 500NM mark. But due to dark clouds we have decided to take the Parasailor down overnight and use the Genoa only. This will cost us approx. 2 knots of speed but is much easier to handle if we get caught by a squall (small thunderstorm cell). We had Spaghetti Bolognese tonight and cucumber salad. Very good! We filled both Diesel canister today in the main tank to get rid of the canisters on deck. Now they are lying empty in the Dinghy. It was nice to fill them during the atlantic swell. But we manage to fill most of it in the tank :-)

Just another 570nmm so it looks like we will arrive St.Lucia on thursday at around noontime!

Hi, only 577NM to go from now on. Tonight we brought the Parasailor down for a while since dark clouds were all over the radar screen. Up to seven at the same time around us. Once the first few have passed you and only rained a few drops you tend to loose respect for squalls. So we try to be as safe as possible but this will cost us speed. Since we have the little one on board we should try to be on the safe side always (and of course try to be fast). The wind is often changing directions and the waves coming from two different angles also move the boat around therefore we often have to adjust the sail. The weather forecast from the ARC Rally office predicts wind with up to 27 knots but also some gusts around 30-40. While 27 is just on the edge what i would accept for the Parasailor 30 and especially 40 is way to much especially in these waves. Wave heigths are predicted to be 3.5m and we already stared to surf again. The problem is not the surfing but when the boat then brakes the te...

Around 3.30 we took the Parasailor down because of lack of wind. Then later in the morning around 5.30 a dark wall hit us and the wind went up to approx 35 knots. The boat got a good wash down and waves were building up locally so that we had to increase the response of the autopilot to keep the boat on course. For safety reasons we started both engines and i was sitting outside in the rain. The rain came from behind and despite the fact that i was sitting under the bimini roof i got soaking wet and cold. When the sun was coming up and then wind had a steady 15 knots we directly put the Parsailor back up and now we are doing between 6 and 7 knots. Lets hope that this continues for a while. Here is one of the 200 pictures we took today flying a Sutton Freeform matress kite and a Ricoh Caplio digital camera taking pictures every 5 seconds.The original snaps are COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL, this one here is just to small due to the bandwith of the line. I will upload better quality ones, once we ar...

Since the wind died down again we had to bring the Parasailor down. Why not stop for a quick bath ?? so we jumped into the water and had a short swim. No comparison to the canaries. The water has 27 degrees and you feel you could stay there for hours! GREAT! But now the wind should come back!

We had a good night with moderate wind an calm sea. Our average speed dropped to 6.8 since the start so we need more wind. And starting from tomorrow we should get that. I did not win a single game of Skip-Bo cards in the last 2 days, so i have to win tonight :-) We are currently doing 5.3 knots but we still hope that with more wind we are able to arrive in St. Lucia the 9th of December. Enclosed is a picture of todays sunrise.

We are currently doing around 4 knots since the wind has died down. The annoying part is, that the wind also changes direction so we have to move the sail from left to right then back to the middle then right then left and so on. This is not fun. We would rather want to have 20 knots again but they are already predicted for Saturday! Nevertheless we are having coffee right now and "Lebkuchenherzen" Christmascookies. This is the good part of christmas :-)

We will pass the 1000NM mark in one hour and also we expect a toll station or border control in a few miles since we are then back on the electronic chart. The "Amazing Grace" already had these celebrations so they are ahead of us. It is a Broadblue 415 catamaran and they are doing really well. So is "Ca Canny", the second Broadblue. Those who have seen our pictures from Las Palmas, they were the two catamarans side by side directly behind us. The wind has died down to around 14 knots and so we are only doing 5 knots at the Moment. The RObinson is faster but their Parasailor has 125 square meters and ours only 105. In front of us there is Goldina, a Najad 57 with an Israeli crew. We brought the Parasailor down and motored for around 1 hour while checking the parasailor and having breakfast. Now it is again back up. The night was quiet and the waves got smaller also. So we all had a good night sleep. It rained a few drops but enough to wash the salt from the boat. We...

Hi, some people have asked us how Lani is doing while cruising. We are all surprised how well she is coping with the situation. What are the limitations? She can not go outside and walk around but so far she has not complained about that. She wants to go on the trampoline to jump up and down but we told her that the net is dirty and she can not go there and she accepts it. The good side of the coin is that we have a lot of time to play, read and sing with her. So we came up with some stupid things like "Commando". One says "Commando" and then "CLAP" for example and then everyone has to clap. Or "Commando pistol" and everyone has to hold his fingers like a pistol. This can go on endless and always, especially between eating breakfast or dinner. She is learning coordination by that and has a lot of fun. Also we show her all the fish and she is squeeking in enjoyment because she loves fish. Some building blocks like Lego Duplo or Fisher Price basics...

Without any fishing rod we used our permanently installed fishing net between our bows of the boat to catch this massive fish. We are not sure if we turn him into a fish curry or grill the fillets. Size does not always matter but sometimes it does!