One Man, One Boat, 4000 Miles!!!

Tropic 4 Cancer Trans Atlantic challenge is an expedition to sail single-handed 4000 miles across the Atlantic, from the western seaboard of Africa to Antigua. The route follows a defined course along the Tropic of Cancer, which is a circle of latitude running around the Earth at approximately 23 degrees north, and which marks the most northerly position at which the sun may appear directly overhead. Find Out More

Day 6 – Land Ho !!!

Posted on October 31st, 2013

spinnaker

 

Land ho!!!! The distant sight of the top of the giant Mount Tiede on Tenerife greeted me this morning – which was a fantastic start to the day! The weather has calmed down a little, but the sea state is still pretty lumpy. There is blue sky, the sun is shining, and it’s not raining – so who am I to complain!!

Motivated by crossing paths with a tall ship, who swaggered by with a ‘I’ve got considerably more sail than you’ type attitude, and in an effort to force the pace a bit, I tried the small spinnaker.

Small sail, big mistake!! We set off at an uncontrollable Mach 2.5 warp speed downwind on a course which would have seen me arrive in Brazil sometime just after lunch (or more likely broken up on re-entry to earth’s atmosphere)!! Lets just say that we’ve all learnt a little bit more about each other, Haskapa & I!!!! We are now sporting a rather natty sail plan with the storm jib set as a flying jib on the bowsprit. Haskapa and I are both ok with this, and whether or not it’s added any speed is by the by!! Strange thing, sail envy!!!!

The list of things required in La Gomera has grown again – partly as a result of the shenanigans above – latest casualty were sunglasses! This is added to by the need for another spare CO2 canister for the self inflating life jacket, which self inflated when I got jumped on by a wave on a visit to the foredeck (pointy bit at the front of the boat for landlubbers). Cue comedy moment of me fighting sudden onset middle aged spread whilst trying to do something vaguely sensible like sort the sails out!!

All being well I’ll be in La Gomera sometime around 2200hrs tonight. Then I can start getting things fixed on Haskapa tomorrow. I’m enormously grateful to the help that we’re getting from Carsten & Nikki, who are the organisers of the 2013 Atlantic Rowing Race which sets off from La Gomera at the end of November. This will be the latest edition of the race that Liz & I did in 2005. Carsten is based on the island, and has helped sort the berthing in the Marina and someone to inspect the broken mast fitting.

Thank you again for all the messages of support. These all get collated by Liz and sent to me via email in a ‘daily news’ format. It’s hugely entertaining and encouraging to read the comments.