A tale of two yachts
23 December 2016 | Guadeloupe
Bern
Bernie helming the 50' yacht mid Atlantic
I arrived in St Maarten 11 days after leaving Cabo Verde aboard the 50' yacht Roberta of London. It was a learning experience to say the least. The yacht was new but had few of the necessities for passage making. Water was rationed from the beginning, so no showers. There were no fans in the cabins and they were very hot. There was not a square mm of shade on the deck and for some reason the skipper chose not to use the autopilot so we had to hand steer all of the 2500 miles. I did my 500nm bit and have to admit my helming skills did improve. The yacht had no pole for a kite or to pole out the jib, so for much of the time it was badly balanced and felt like it was on a knife edge wanting to round up. So it was hard work and we only helmed for an hour at a time. So that was my trans Atlantic crossing.
Simon, Noelia and Max sailed First Light III across in a similar time, just under 12 days covering a similar distance. They did it in relative comfort using the autopilot all the way. They used as much water as they wanted and simply topped up the tanks daily with the water maker. Max played with buckets of fresh water in the cockpit. There was shade in the cockpit and fans in each cabin below. I could go on, but the bottom line is that our humble little aussie yacht out classed the 1.4 m euro flash yacht that I was on. Yes I am biased.
Currently Simon is chilling out in Guadeloupe and planning some sailing around the Caribbean before heading to Panama. Bernie is filling in time before taking over FL3 in Panama in the new year.