Falklands to Barbados 2012

Vessel Name: Cutting Edge
Vessel Make/Model: Bowman 48
Hailing Port: Southampton
Crew: Carl Freeman, Betty Romo and Tim Thorogood
About:
Originally from Australia, Carl has lived in the Falklands for over 30 years. He arrived on his and his wife Dianne's yacht in 1980 having sailed from New Zealand around the Horn. [...]
30 May 2012 | Atlantic Shores Barbados
30 May 2012 | Barbados (ashore!)
26 May 2012 | Barbados
23 May 2012 | En route to Barbados
21 May 2012 | En route to Barbados
12 May 2012 | Iles du Salut, Guyane Francaise
12 May 2012 | Degrand des Cannes, Cayenne, Guyanese Francaise
12 May 2012 | Degrand des Cannes, Cayenne, Guyanese Francaise
10 May 2012 | South Atlantic
07 May 2012 | South Atlantic
07 May 2012 | South Atlantic
01 May 2012 | South Atlantic
01 May 2012 | South Atlantic
30 April 2012 | South Atlantic
29 April 2012 | South Atlantic
28 April 2012 | South Atlantic
27 April 2012 | South Atlantic
26 April 2012 | South Atlantic
25 April 2012 | South Atlantic
23 April 2012 | South Atlantic
Recent Blog Posts
30 May 2012 | Atlantic Shores Barbados

5 days to reflect

The sight of Barbados as it appeared out of the clouds was one of the best sights I can remember, not only for it's beauty, but at the thought of being on dry land very soon!

30 May 2012 | Barbados (ashore!)

Reflections

Well, we're now getting settled in to our new home (31A Sunrise Street, Atlantic Shores, Christ Church, Barbados) which has included stripping Cutting Edge of most of her stores, all our personal gear which she was transporting and also many of the tools she carried.

26 May 2012 | Barbados

Arrived!

Dear All,

23 May 2012 | En route to Barbados

We're starting to smell the coconuts

We are now about 260 miles from Barbados.

21 May 2012 | En route to Barbados

Final leg

We are now en route to Barbados having left Isle du Salut this morning. We had some excitement as we left our mooring as the boat got stuck in reverse and speeding towards the shore only about 50 meters away. Fortunately by steering really hard over (in reverse) we managed to do a circle without hitting the shore and worked our way out of the harbour in this eccentric fashion (boat is not great to steer in reverse). Eventually we dropped anchor and investigated to find that the transmission control cable had simply sheered off. We've set off anyway as we can work the gears from the transmission housing though that involves running below, not practical for a mooring in Barbados with only two crew. Hopefully we can develop a work around in the meantime. Our other problem right now is that the wind is from the North! It's good though to be only 590 nm from our final destination and we are busy talking through our first few days in Barbados. We plan to have Cutting Edge lifted out pretty much straight away (there is no real marina). Anyway, let's see how we get on over the next couple of days, at this rate we'll be in Trinidad (due to wind direction) ......

12 May 2012 | Iles du Salut, Guyane Francaise

Salvation Islands

Arrived at the Salvation Islands yesterday about 1500 after a fast journey from Cayenne (30 miles). Anchored very close to shore to avoid the swell but still rather bouncy overnight. Today we picked up a Police/customs bouy and we are still on it this evening so fingers crossed! The tiny islands are beautiful, palm trees and other exotic vegetation everywhere, lovely walks with great views across the water to Kourou and to Devil's Island. Prison buildings impressive. We have even found a bar with great views and are really pleased. It has been very hot today, which has been largely clear of the successive bouts of torrential rain we have otherwise had in Guyane. We plan to stay here tomorrow and leave on Monday, should arrive Barbados by Friday! Nice to see the comments on the blog: thanks again for those. Off now to down some more Pims.....

Crossed the Equator

07 May 2012 | South Atlantic
Tim
Well, we crossed the Equator about 0300 UTC this morning. Yesterday the SE wind had been weakening and and backing to the east all day. Overnight running with genoa poled out to starboard became untennable and we dumped the pole (good nautical expression that one) and began flying the genoa on the port side. By mid morning the wind was to the North East and back to trade wind strength and we have been on beam reach ever since. So we are hopeful we have traversed the ITCZ. Weather has been good all day and we have escaped at least for now the succession of depressions and squalls we had Saturday - Monday. Even better news is that the on-going efforts by various large ships to run us down appear to have stopped as we have seen no shipping other than at a distance on radar for 24 hours. Hurrah for that! Other sailing news is that we spent a large part of the day trying to get the wind self steering to work properly on our new sailing position. Hours of effort led to perfectly trimmed sails but to no avail. In the end we concluded that the vane is being blanked by the outboard engine stored on the starboard side of the transom and that is preventing it getting enough wind to steer properly. As a result we have had to de-power the main considerably to enable it to work. Rather frustrating that. However we are still doing an average of 8kts (SOG) so not too bad.

All the above may be unintelligable to non sailors - sorry about that! More generally all is good and we are feeling that we are nearing the end of this voyage which started on 25 February and has achieved 6,778 miles so far. Barbados is only 1,200 miles away! We are now unlikely to be able to call in at Belem and so our next stop will be Kourou, Guyane Francaise and then Iles du Salut where we will celerbrate my 50th. It will be great to be in France again after several years (as Guyane Francaise is of course part of France and not an Overseas Territory ....) and good that we can speak French (it was difficult in Fernando de Noronha as we could speak no Portuguese).

We continue to be really grateful for all the comments left on the blog which are provided to us each day - many thanks.

(Note position given automatically with this blog is several days' out of date)
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