Forwarded to "cruisenews" on behalf of Ni and crew.
I tried to send this as an attachment but it did not work so here it is.
I hope you enjoy reading about my trip across the Atlantic. It is currently 22:45 and we will be arriving in Valencia, Spain on this Sunday morning the 20th of May to enjoy some of the activities of the America's Cup. Then on Tuesday we will push off the the last of our trip, which will end in Santa Margherita, Italy where Krissy and I now live. By the time I arrive in Santa I will have sailed the Dolphin 460, Finalmente, over 5,700 nm. what an experience, especially the part going through the Straights of Gibraltar. I will send one final recap aft(missing text)
(missing text)nd 28.4W on a course of 35 magnetic. Our SOG is 7 nm, TWS 35 magnetic, BS 8.5 nm, and AWA 13.5 nm and in the last 24 hours we have covered about 168 nm. Still the winds are too good with the water to rough to stop, so we kept on sailing.
22-04-07 Sun. Our location is now 7.5N and 29.6W on a course of 6 magnetic. Our SOG is 7.3 nm, TWS 13 nm, BS 9.5 nm and the AWA is 40 magnetic. Winds have picked up a bit as well as the sea. The port daggerboard line that is fouled in the port prop was making a lot of noise and I was afraid that it might hurt the side of the hull so we placed the spinnaker halyard on to the top of the daggerboard and raised her about 4 inches. This allowed the line some slack. When we went to make water the watermaker would not stay running. We have tried everything we can think of and we still cannot get it to work. We currently have on board 20-5 liter bottles and we started the rationing of one bottle per day. No more showers. As we use the bottles w (missing text)
(missing text) showers, and a relaxing stay it was time to push on.
11-05-07 Fri. We motored out at 18:45 under both motors until we were well passed the island south of Terceira to get to the winds. At 20:40 the motors were off and we were sailing straight for Gibraltar at 7 SOG.
12-05-07 Sat. The winds turned light at 00:30 so one motor came on until 05:30 when the winds came up again. By 10:15 the winds have increased and our speed was now 9.5 SOG. During the period we saw the seas increased and some gust up to 30 nm. In addition, there were times when we were surfing at 12 nm and once at 15.2 nm.
13-05-07 Sun. During the night we lost our bow navigation lights so we had to sail with the steaming light on. The seas were now between 2 to 3 meters with winds of 15 to 22 nm and our speed had increased to 11 to 12 nm. Several times we were surfing at 16 nm. During this 24 hour period we covered 198 nm going close to the weather.
14-05-07 Mon. The seas have called down a little with true wind around 11 nm. On this day we noticed that the steaming light was hanging down out of its case. Because the seas were too heavy we decided it was not safe to go up the mast and we would wait until flat seas or Valence. The wind has clocked not to our favor and we our now on a closed hulled point heading straight to Gibraltar.
15-05-07 Tue. For the last 36 plus or minus hours the seas have been 2 to 4 with winds from 28 to 38 nm. The highest I saw was 41.7. SOG's have been 7.5 to 10.5 even with fighting the big waves. At times our SOG would climb as high as 14 nm. Because the winds keep getting bigger we put in one reef in the main. We saw no decrease in speed. A little later we added a second reef in the main and one reef in the jib. Still no real change in speed. Before we were through we added a second reef in the jib. The white water was breaking over the bows on a regular basis and landing on the driver. Very wet ride and this continued all night long. During the night we notice that we had lost the port life ring and light. We continued on a point throughout the night into the next day.
16-05-07 Wed. During this night is when we saw our biggest seas and highest winds. When the sun came up the seas flattened and the winds died. This was not uncommon. During this entire trip we have seen higher winds at night and less during the day. As the winds died down we started taking out the reefs and that is when we notice that we had a problem with the main sail. In order to check it out completely we took her all the way down. What we found was that the second batten pocket was worn away, exposing the batten near the mast. This was cause from the upper shroud slapping it during the night. We also notice minor additional wear and a bent third batten at the ss joint. The third batten was ok to leave in but the second batten had to be removed until a repair could be made. None of the damage is major and a sail make can repair it to new easily when we can find one. This damage happened during the night when we were in Force 8 winds which lasted from about 01:00 to 05:00. This was my watch and I saw winds from a low of 28 nm to a high of 41.7. A new leak appeared in the owner's hull in front on the hanging closet. We suspect that it is either the chainplate or the deck cleat and this will have to be addressed after we arrive in Santa. As we approached the evening the winds were down to 6 to 8 nm and we have gone back to motor sailing with an SOG of 7.5. The seas have been calm for a while since we have passed the point of Cabot de Sao Vicente, which is about 50 nm to our north. During the last 48 hour we have covered 371 nm most all has been on a loose close hull. During this calm period when Ray was up starting the watermaker he found a broken wire that was the cause of our not having any bow navigation light. The wire leading from the bow light back through the dolphin striker cross arm to the starboard hull at the point that it leaves the cross arm and enters the hull was worm from wave action. He was able to repair it for now but it must be put inside a plastic tubing to protect it from future wearing. For now, the good news is, we have light again.
17-05-07 Thu. Last night and this morning were the most difficult sailing of the trip. We were unable to carry any sails as we point straight for Gibraltar directly into a head wind that keep increasing. By the time we were about 30 nm from the start of the shipping lane the winds had increased to Force 7 and the seas were 2 to 4 meters straight on our nose. We were now pounding into the wave at 3.5 to 5 SOG. When the waves would hit the spray would feel like sand hitting you during a sand storm. You could not stay dry because the waves we landing in your lap. As the night gave way to day light we could see both the north shore (Spain) and the south shore (Morocco). That is if you could see through the spray from the waves and the salt water in your eyes. By mid morning we were at a steady Force 7 in true winds and an easy Force 8 in apparent winds. The highest apparent winds that I saw were 43 nm. At that time the wave were breaking and landing on top of the boat with nothing but white water covering the person driving. The biggest wave hit us during my watch. It was at least 5 feet higher that the saloon when it landed in my lap. Literally breaking on top of the boat. Hit the front windows and making a noise so loud that Ray and Urban thought it was coming through. Immediately after it hitting us Urban came out to see if I was ok. All I remember was seeing how high it was and grabbing onto the stirring wheel as hard as I could as the wave slammed into me. What I new experience and not one that you really care to have happen again. We can easily blame this on B&G and the autopilot that is not working. If we had an autopilot we all would have been inside dry. The balance of the day we fought our way through high winds and big waves at 3.5 to 5 nm with both motors at 2,400 RPM's. Once we passed the end of the shipping lane the winds died and the sea flattened. This happened with a minute or two. It was very hard to believe that you could be in such high winds and waves, not able to look up because the spray hurt so much, and then, bang, calm. Very hard to explain. Now we were into calm waters and light winds, which were still on our nose, so we had to continue to motor with both motors. The nice thing is that we could relax as we picked up a following current that have us a SOG of 9 nm. Distance covered during this period of time was 143 nm and considering the head winds we were very pleased, and the boat handled these conditions like a pro.
18-05-07 Fri. It is now 01:15 and not much has changed. We are still having to motor. Our SOG is now 7.5 nm, and we expect to arrive in Valencia, Spain on the 19th about midnight. We plan on staying there until the morning of the 22nd when we will push on the Santa with an expected arrive time of midday on the 25th. At 12:30 we spotted Spinner Dolphins. Hundreds of then and we stopped in the middle and took maybe as many pictures. What a treat. The seas were flat as glass and you could see them swimming all around us while they were under the water. After more than 10 minutes of shooting pictures we got back on course to Valencia.
Annibale "Ni" & Kris Orsi
Santa Margherita Ligure, GE, Italy
+39-0185-283879 Apt in Italy
WDD6399
norsi
www.dolphincatamarans4sale.com
/EX