round we go!!
| Vessel Name: | Bubbles |
| Vessel Make/Model: | Fast Passage 39 |
| Hailing Port: | Seymour IN |
17 September 2012 | Nanny Cay, Tortola, BVIs
The final blog, Bubbles sold yesterday
First lets go back to that week in May in the British Virgin Islands… we had over 20 sparkling crew on board Bubbles (all wearing the coral crew shirts) approaching the round-the-world finish line at Nanny Cay. With only a few hundred feet to go the propeller fell off. Not being able to raise sail [...]
22 July 2012
the last leg sail
We had good wind on the morning we set sail to complete the 90 mile last leg (from St. Martin to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands) of Bubble’s circumnavigation. With a full boat, I was on deck explaining some navigational markers to some of the more virgin crew when Trevor at the helm yelled [...]
10 June 2012 | St. Martin
Magic Aboard Bubbles
That night in St. Martin the party aboard Bubbles can only be described as magical. With Christmas lights strung up both in the rigging to light the deck, and in the interior to light below, a special glow illuminated the boat that had carried us around the world. Paddy King lead a conga line of Bubbles [...]
04 June 2012 | St. Martin
The Round the World Pre Party Begins!!
The seven of us woke well before sunup to the Indiana Jones theme song cranked over the Bubbles sound system. Sails were up by sunrise with Paddy King at the helm and brother Joe standing by as we watched the morning light illuminate mountainous Saba's cliffs rising from the sea. With 20 knots of wind [...]
31 May 2012 | Saba Rock
the Sea Hawk 4 takes flight
The day sail to Barbuda was sunny with good wind and buzzing excitement from both new crew and old. Arriving in the poorly charted waters we ran aground, but jumping into a shallow sea full of starfish isn't a bad place to get stuck. Ashore the six of us strolled on an endless beach of pink sand with [...]
19 May 2012 | english harbour, antigua
Adding more Bubbles
Bubbles and crew ran completely broke of funds after Carine flew back to Amsterdam. Having neither cash nor credit via any type of card, Diego and I resorted to trading. For a couple dive tanks we got the jib sail repaired, for a regulator we got fresh produce out of a local garden. We were able [...]
True Sailors
The day before we left Niue, we discovered a little bit of a problem... our engine wouldn't start! It happened to be partially seized (if that makes sense). We talked to a few people and decided Tonga would be a better place to work on it. This was our chance to become real sailors!
We cruised along on our way to Tonga and tried to maintain 5 knots (it's almost exactly 240 nm from Niue so a 48 hour sail at 5 knots). Our fist day was one of the slowest days I have seen on Bubbles. We all took turns driving and sleeping. Back and forth. And finally when its supposed to be quiet at 3 in the morning that's when we got loud! I just finished my shift and wanted to sleep so bad. I made my way down in the cabin to get Jim for his shift. As soon as I laid down Jim was yelling.
"Joe, Joe, JOE! Get up here!"
Oh crap, I thought. What did I do wrong? I ran up to the cock pit to see Jim yanking on the hand line that we threw out.
"We got one!" Jim yelled. "Wake up Alex!"
Both of us began screaming as loud as we could, "Alex, Alex. We got a fish. Get up here!"
I put my gloves on and took over for Jim, pulling on the line as fast and as hard as I could. Man! This must be a big one! I pulled and pulled and finally Jim got the headlamp on it and all I could see what fins spread across the water and the mouth of the fish wide open. To be honest, I didn't want to pull it on board because I had no idea what it was and I thought for sure it was going to eat me. Finally after a big pull I got it on and it was a 42" Tuna! And she was fat! Alex jokingly said we didn't have a knife big enough to cut it up. Since it was 3 am and because we didn't have a fridge because our engine was down, we threw her back to the sea. It took us nearly another hour to clean up all the blood and fish slime that spilled over the cockpit but after that I was all about getting some sleep.
The next day the wind died down a bit and we decided to raise the spinnaker to maintain our speed. Every sail we raise tends to uncover a new problem, so on average it takes us 10 minutes to adjust our sail configuration. In fact, an hour or so earlier we had to completed rewrap the furling line on the jib because of a tangle (the furling line rolls up the jib).
Within 30 minutes of having the spinnaker up Jim pointed out some dark clouds in the south that were approaching us. Alex decided it wasn't worth the risk of keeping her up so down she went. For some reason we have the best timing on Bubbles. Not even 5 minutes later, all hell broke loose.
The winds went from 6 knots to over 36 in a matter of seconds. The only sail we had up at the time was the jib and Alex immediately began cranking her down. Bubbles has serious weather helm, which means as she heels over she tends to turn up into the wind. Generally, it's better to sail at
