Jonathan Crinion Ocean Racing
Jonathan Crinion and one of the world's leading Naval Architecture firms; that of Owen Clark Design LLP have together designed and developed a superb racing machine to the new Class 40 Rule of 2004.
| Vessel Name: | Friends of the Earth |
| Vessel Make/Model: | Owen Clark Design Open 40 |
| Crew: | Jonathan Crinion |
20 October 2006 | Pendennis Marina, Falmouth, UK
Falmouth
Well that's it, Cape Town to Falmouth. This last bit of the voyage from Madeira has seen some of the worst weather ever - non stop. My wind strategy worked well to go up the centre of the English channel and ships criss crossed all night. The weather grib files have been hopelessly wrong for the past [...]
18 October 2006 | 48,5.57N , 9,13.81W
Knock down
The ocean can be brutal. More to the point the weather can be. Yesterday was sunny but with large swells and I had been hitting 17 knots reaching on and off for most of the afternoon. Speeding off faster and faster, the feeling is exhilarating. With a reef in the main and the Genoa up I was under canvassed [...]
17 October 2006 | 45,29.51N , 11,19.44W
Approaching the channel
All along I've used one nautical chart for the Southern Hemisphere and St Helena and another for the Northern Hemisphere plus one for Madeira. I'm making fast progress at the moment and should be on the 10 degree West Longitude line shortly where I will switch to a detailed chart to take me into La [...]
17 October 2006 | 42,44.86N , 13,40.48W
Contemplation
I'm starting to understand why Bernard Moitessier made the turn and headed towards the Pacific. He was wondering what he would arrive back to if he kept going on to the UK. It's so vast out here and so far away from everything. I have a 360 degree view of the universe. I'm completely self sufficient [...]
16 October 2006 | 42,33.68N , 14,3.52W
Storm Warning
Wisdom says go wide of the Bay of Biscay but my weather files are showing a huge area of no wind to the West of me which forms the centre of a large and very vicious looking low heading this way.
Next stop The Azores
Speed: 7 knots, Course: 335 deg.
UTC Time: 23rd July 2006 08:51
We left St Helena yesterday afternoon. We had fixed most of the problems and Aubrey, a local mechanic, has turned a new tiller post on his lathe so we have a working tiller again.
The flying fish were out in good form and I was amazed to see a large school of them leap out of the water en-masse and skim for a good 50 metres before disappearing into the water again.
We hadn't gone more than 40 miles when our furler on the bow sprit tied itself in a big knot. Again! Unfortunately this time we snapped the pin end off and now the sail is held in place simply by the pressure on the pin from the sail.
It was very dark last night and virtually impossible to distinguish the black sky from the black water. At some point a squall hit us and we rounded up into the wind being unable to bear off simply because of the intensity of the wind all of a sudden. We already had a reef in but it wasn't enough.
Eventually we recovered and it wasn't until it got a little lighter out that I realised we had lost our solent sail over the side at some point. At least it has our Friends of the Earth name on it, but I doubt it will show up. The bag it was in was lashed to the deck but the bag has an open end.
Our other head sail has a tear so this now means we have no up wind head sails. It's ok at the moment as it will be down wind for a week or so which will give me time to fix the tear. I would attribute all the breakages to the large waves which throw the boat off course and so we end up on our side or gybing out of control.
This powerful boat is very unforgiving and very sensitive to sail balance, which would all be fine if we were sailing on flat water. I'm starting to worry about the mounting costs and if I will even be able to make it to the start line, as we have had intense wet squalls non stop since leaving Cape Town.
All the best, Jonathan
