LinoCat

The passage was VERY stressful as you can see in the pictures. The wind was very good in the beginning and so we set the Parasailor and had good speeds between 8kn and 10kn and up to 15 in the surf down the waves. And this despite the fact that the antifouling marine coating had given up and we have heavy growth underneath the boat. Extreme chilling... Now testing the foredeck and the trampolin. HEY; this IS hard work. Thomas is testing if the structure of the trampolin is not weakened by the UV light!

Yesterday i dove and checked the propeller. Looks like whatever we caught has gone and the motor sounded as usual. The left engine vibrates a little bit more since the beginning anyway. This was good news because entering the marina tonight with only one engine in wind would have been unpleasant. The water here in the middle of the atlantic is much warmer than in Portugal. My computer showed 25 Celcius. A fish bit on the lure at the fishing rod yesterday and this morning but spit it out again and the hooks did not catch. The stars tonight were stunning. We could see the milkyway and the seawater was sparkling also. It is a bioluminiscence (spelling??) that occurs and it looks great in breaking waves and also the propeller wash. We had a trail of sparkling green behind us. The sea is smooth now with waves of around 1m but its a pleasant long swell. Around 100 nautical miles to go and so we will reach Madeira tonight.

Hi, it looks like the pictures are not transferred via HF radio. Maybe i have to change things in the LinoCat blogger account. Yesterday was rough sailing with 2 different seas crossing each other producing nasty waves. Not high but nasty. The was between Force 4 and 6 and we had the parasailor out. Highest speed was around 10 knots but i could notice that the boat i a lot heavier now. The main swell we are crossing at around 45 degrees angle and the wind angle is around 170 degrees. Before the night we decided to bring the parasailor down. That was not easy. Only have the sock which slides over the sail closing it came down. We then had to lower the sail with the spinaker halyard and packed it away. If the wind is around force 2 we will bring it up and sort it out. Right no thats not an option. We did not catch anything but the lures we almost at the surface and we were maybe to fast. I added a 200gram lead weight and that entangled everything. Not nice :-) Weather is mostly clouded a...

Uneventful night. The wind had died down and we motored. The Parasailor is now up and pulling us with 6knots. Since i did not send any dolphin picture yesterday, here is one. Positionreport has been updated, check on the link list to the right.

At 18.40 today we started to Madeira. Until 1800 they were working on the new trampoline. Course is currently 204 and Speed over ground 3.5kn. There was heavy wind this morning up to 32knots but i died down. The swell is still noticeable so lets see how we all cope with it. Soon we will be out of cell phone coverage and then i can only send emails via HF radio. Roughly every 24h i will try to update out Positionreport on this website. I might not be able to send pictures. In 20Minutes the sun will go down, then we switch radar and lights on since we are crossing the shipping lane which starts in Gibraltar. We have to keep outside the so called traffic seperation zone and therefor we are currently going a little be more south and then in 12hours we will turn a little more south west.