Boat Plans Bateau | Transatlantic Race 2015

Boat Plans Bateau

Today was the last of the staggered starts for the 2015 Transatlantic race.
Featuring Phaedo 2 and Paradox, the two trimarans and then Rambler and Comanche the monohulls.
After a couple of hours, instant speed gives Phaedo at 31knots and Comanche and rambler at 20.

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Boat Plans Bartender | Transatlantic Solo Passage 14th May 11th June

Boat Plans Bartender

Selma and the kids left the USVI’s on the 12th May; it was really tough. The fact that we had spent the last 10 months living both physically and mentally in each others pockets and knew that we would be apart for at least 2 months created a somewhat eye watering environment. Stiff upper lips were maintained with moderate success but I must confess that as I bid final farewells to the gang there was a slight catch in my throat. Selma maintained an impressive level of decorum until just after I’d left at which point I understand she handed parental responsibility over to Ella and disintegrated. The children were well briefed on how to deal with the situation and approached the problem with enthusiasm by repeatedly instructing Selma ’to just completely forget Dad, not just for a few weeks but forever … he’s gone, completely gone’ they said. Whether this approach was entirely helpful is a moot point but it was a good effort by both of the children and reflects a natural empathy of which I’m quietly proud.

I walked the 4 miles or so back into town from the airport and felt miserable - not so much lonely but just missing something - I kept thinking that any second I would hear the kids shouting at each other or that Selma would pop round the corner; but of course it never happened. The feeling of something not being quite right, sort of like youve left your coat behind in the pub or not locked the door as you left home, didn‘t go away for quite a few days, it‘s funny what living on a 28ft boat does to you.





I cleared customs later that afternoon. They were their normal officious selves and when I explained that I was sailing on my own to the Azores in a 28ft boat they thoughtfully boosted my confidence by declaring me a ‘lunatic‘ and giving me the contemptuous stares that presumably they normally reserve for drug smugglers and illegal immigrants. I left.

The Good Ship was almost ready to go but there were a few odd jobs that simply couldnt be done with Selma and the nips on board and in any case I needed a couple of days to quieten down and get in the right frame of mind. The weather forecast for the next day wasn’t great so despite having cleared out I decided to stay one more day and leave on the 14th May which I duly did.

A couple of friends, Gordon and Jacques, waved me off and at 1117 local time I set off on my first ever single handed passage. Up until this point I had never sailed on my own anywhere for any distant - I was in seriously new territory and it was rather exciting.





The blur of emotions that I felt as I motored out of the marina were the most complicated and vivid of my life. Worry about the boat, whether I could cope with sleeping for no more than an hour at a time for 3-4 weeks, the weather, provisioning, the risk of falling over the side and watching the GSB sail off without me; excitement at fulfilling a longstanding ambition; sadness at saying goodbye to Selma and the kids; happiness tinged with a bit of guilt to be on such a great adventure and so on. All of these thoughts swelled up inside my mind as we unobtrusively left the cosy environment of the marina and headed out to sea. Ahead of us were 2600 miles and 3-4 weeks of ocean sailing. 2 hours later I was feeling moderately sea sick as we crashed, headlong, into 3-4m waves with a 25 knot headwind and heading in roughly the wrong direction - all pretty much business as usual.

The first night was really quite boisterous with strong winds of 25 to 30 knots from ENE. This meant that we were bashing headlong into the sea and waves but making no significant easting, in fact we were heading straight at Bermuda 750 miles to our north. This said, it was early days and to make the best of wind and current on the passage we wanted to head north to begin with anyway so although not ideal it wasnt a big problem. Cooking wasnt high on my agenda so that night I wolfed back a pot-noodle-thing just to get something warm in me and had little else to eat for a couple of days.





We sailed through the night with triple reefed main and heavily reefed foresail but despite this were taking a fair amount of water on board both in the cockpit and on occasions down below. I mentally congratulated Selma and I on our decision to fly the kids home - it would have been awful for them; a few days like this and the wonderful memories they had gathered up from 9 months of sub/tropical sailing would have been rapidly destroyed by the crashing, wet and nauseating environment that we were now exposed to.





Although a little miserable the good ship was sailing like a witch and critically my concerns around getting enough sleep whilst maintaining an adequate watch proved unfounded. During the night I used an egg timer to wake myself up every 45 - 60 minutes to check for shipping, track and sail trim; this worked well and once I was a few hundred miles away from land I increased the length I slept to 60 - 90 minutes depending on weather and traffic.





After a few days the wind moderated to 20 kts but was still right on the nose and the good ship stayed somewhat bouncy-bouncy but by now I had my sea legs and was getting into the rhythm of the passage.

On 16th May (Day 2) I noticed that one of the self-steering lines was almost worn through; this was a big concern because although I had some spare rope it wouldn’t be enough to replace it all every few days and without the lines I would have to hand steer the whole time. I tightened up a couple of loose blocks which could have been causing the chafe, changed the lines and kept a close eye on it. Whatever I did worked because it lasted to the Azores

The wind stayed between E and NE for the first week and with a slight current pushing me to the west I was really struggling to pass Bermuda to the east. I could have tacked but the thought of heading south of east and therefore backwards was too depressing so I cracked on northwards and hoped for a wind shift. I clearly didn’t hope hard enough.

On Monday the 18th (Day 4) I encountered the first signs of the Sargasso Sea which is a bed of floating seaweed that drifts on the surface around this bit of the Atlantic Ocean. The patches are quite large, many of them extending 30 or 40 metres square. It’s a bit like sailing through a very wet lawn and makes a rather unpleasant scraping sound as you pass through it. This causes a rapid clenching of the buttocks on the first few occasions as you try and figure out what the hell is happening.

At dusk on the evening of Tuesday 19th (Day 5) I turned the masthead tricolour light on which flickered and then died. I tested the circuit inside the boat and at the deck fitting and realised that the fault was at the top of the mast - bad news. I briefly considered trying to get to the top to fix it but rejected the idea as I recalled a story doing the rounds as we left. A couple crossing the Atlantic had had some sort of problem which required the husband to go up the mast which he duly did. In accordance with good practice he locked himself on and when secure he promptly had a heart attack and died - his wife could not lower him down because he had tied himself up there, so she had no choice but to complete the trip with her husband dangling and presumably gradually decaying at the top of the mast. With this in the forefront of my mind I was buggered if I was going up the mast. Anyway I had a Plan B. The alternative to the masthead tricolour light are three navigation lights mounted at deck level. They use far more electricity (big issue) but considering I was alone were better than nothing. I begrudgingly turned them on only to find that one of them was faulty as well! (I might add that I checked all the lights before I left). I changed the bulb in the starboard side but had to replace with a traditional bulb which uses about 10x the current which was a showstopper - we simply didnt have enough power to run these lights every night. Still I had lights for the moment and went to bed to sleep on the problem. That night we used as much power in 8 hours as we had on the whole trip so far - an alternative was required or we would have to operate in unlit stealth mode. In the end I only marginally improved on this but did set-up a make shift all-round white light out of an old LED lamp we had in the stores and hung it in the cockpit. The flaws with this were that it was only visible about 5 boat lengths away, was invisible from anything coming from ahead because it was masked by the sails and because it was an allround white light any vessel that saw us would assume we were either anchored or they were seeing our stern irrespective of what they were looking at! As I slept that night I briefly considered whether the light problem invalidated my insurance but then realised that I hadnt got any so that was allright.

At 1430 on Friday 22nd May (Day 8) and to avoid an embarrassing collision with Bermuda I tacked. It was really rather strange. Having been on the same tack for over a week it was all a bit surprising to be heeling over the other way - I even had to sleep on the other side of the boat.
It took a further 3 days to clear Bermuda with progress made even slower by light easterly winds This said the weather was quite lovely with clear skies great visibility and plenty of dolphins.

Clearing Bermuda was a bit of a milestone. I had been tempted to go in to fix the light and get some more line for the steering gear but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Partly because I don’t really like Bermuda and partly because I was in the groove and didn’t want to have to stop and then start again.

By Sunday the 24th May (Day 10) the wind had reduced to next to nothing and I barely maintained steerage making only about 2 knots. My progress was already hideously slower than planned I began doing sums on water, food and gas - all of which were OK although only because I had grossly over provisioned. If the family had been on board we would simply have run out.

On Monday 25th May (Day 11) I had had enough of sails slatting in the swell with no wind to fill them and started the engine. We donked along the next 24 hours until 1230 the next day when we managed to get sailing again. That night I celebrated the return to sailing with a Brimble Mega Special Fried Rice comprising everything I could find mixed with rice and soya sauce; I suspect it would be pretty unpleasant onshore but on the good ship is was just the ticket. I intend to cook for friends and family at the earliest opportunity.

On Thursday 28th May (Day 14) the wind at last moved round to the south and aft of the beam. I celebrated with a nice cup of tea.

Progress from here on in was better with the wind between 5 and 15 knots. Occasionally We were badly hit by up to 2 knots of adverse current but was normally managing a respectable 100 mile day. We started to head further and further north gambling on picking up stronger winds but also risking an increased chance of a gale.


The gamble paid off and by the time we reached 38 degrees North on Thursday 4th June the winds were freshening and still coming from the right direction. For the next few days we made good progress and even managed one day in excess of 140 miles.

By now I was really noticing the cold and had taken to sleeping in a hat. I used my lucky hat which is so incredibly lucky that I can’t wear it outside in case I lose it over the side - in fact it’s usually put safely away and not used at all but I felt it was justified on this occasion - the first night I slept particularly well such is its mighty power.



On the 8th June with just 400 miles to go the wind started to increase to a bustling 25 knot westerly which meant I could drop the main and sail fast with just the foresail. Good progress was made to begin with but we slowed a little as the swell picked up to a few metres. For the next few days we had between 15 and 30 knots of wind and made great progress - I could see and feel the end of the journey approaching but was worried about tempting fate, relaxing and then making some cock up.



By now traffic was noticeably increasing and every other day we were seeing a yacht or a merchant vessel; nice to see them but not so nice when I thought of my somewhat inadequate and slightly illegal lighting system.

At dawn on Thursday 11th June we sighted land for the first time in just under a month. I remembered from the last trip that it appeared lush after the arid islands of Caribbean but I was amazed. Seeing such a breathtakingly beautiful island after so long at sea was simply shattering. I just love the Azores.

As we sailed along the south coast of the island we felt that a wash and brush up was the order of the Day. I cleaned up below, shaved off a months beard and then spent an hour or so with a jumbo pack of baby wipes cleaning and scraping myself as far as was possible - some of the dirt was sort of embedded and irremovable but I think most came off. We felt both smart and casual as we sailed into Faial although for several days after you could see people searching for the toddler who must be the source of the strong smell of baby wipes.

At 1020 on Thursday 11th June I moored alongside Aquilibra, a 45ft catamaran, and stepped onto dry land after 28 days at sea. The log simply said ’1020 Arrived Horta. Delighted’ - which in hindsight was a bit of an understatement. Twenty minutes later (thank god I’d had a good go with the wipes) Jim from Starblazer arrived, the sun shone and we cracked open the first beer for a month and the most memorable I have ever tasted. I surveyed the harbour with a warm, quietly proud and satisfied feeling and for the first time in a long time started to relax.

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Boat Plans Wood | Transatlantic 26th November 21st December 2008

Boat Plans Wood

On Wednesday 26th November the time had come to leave Tenerife. All possible excuses for delays had been used up, the weather forecast was acceptable and if we didn‘t crack on then we would struggle to make Barbados for Christmas. Departure (D) day had arrived. The GSB was pretty much sorted and ready to go but provisioning was still to be completed. This meant working out every meal we would eat while we were at sea and even more critically the amount of water we would drink and use for cooking during the passage . No mistakes could be made on either count. Obviously our estimated passage time was a critical part of the sum; we had initially provisioned for 25 days but were struggling to come up with an estimate we had confidence in. With the exception of a very pleasant, but clearly mad, Swedish student we hadn’t come across a smaller boat than us (you were right Charlotte) and so as ’D’ Day loomed we ended up increasing our passage planning time to 29 days.

The extra few days may not seem significant but we were so tight for space and weight that every day we planned to be at sea made a massive difference to provisioning. To paint a bit of a picture; our total ships water storage is 80 litres. If just Selma and I had a cup of tea every change of watch for 25 days we would use over half of the ships total storage. If you then added 1.5 litres for cooking each day we would run out of tanked water before 25 days was up, let alone 29 days and all we would have drunk is tea and done the cooking.

In the end we allowed and stowed 1.5 litres per adult per day (1 litre per child) of drinking water, 1.5 litres total per day for cooking, 1 glass of juice per person per day and no allowance for washing us or anything else. Buying fresh fruit and vegetables is another balancing act as you make your best guess on how much you need as well as which vegetables will last longest. The market holder in Santa Cruz was incredibly helpful, using many years of expertise to advise us on which fruit and vegetables would last longest and how they could be stopped from prematurely ripening. Of course he was pretty much wrong about everything but at the time it gave us a nice warm feeling that we would have lots of fresh food for a good part of the crossing. This said I can strongly recommend his onions which have lasted forever and rather luckily so, because I misheard Selma’s instructions and bought four times as many as we needed!

The whole provisioning process was a challenge not so much because of the sums but because of the consequences of getting it wrong which at best would be very embarrassing and at worst was best not thinking about. Our next door neighbour in Santa Cruz had run out of water on a trip some years ago and had nearly died … this helped focus our already very focused minds. On our arrival in Barbados we heard of two yachts so far this year who ran out of food and water and had to issue Maydays! Anyway we worked our way through the process and stuffed Brimble with food, water and other essentials such that by departure time the Top Water Line was well under water. In fact we were so low in the water that for the first 2 weeks of the trip the cockpit was so close to the water level that every time the boat healed the cockpit filled up with water - still, kept our feet cool.

The passage to the Caribbean is a little strange in as much as you don’t sail straight to Barbados but head south until you pick up the easterly Tradewinds and then sail east or to put it another way, you sail south until the butter melts and hang a right! Estimated distance, taking the recognised roundabout route, is c. 2800 miles.

So, finally at 1230hrs GMT on Wednesday 26th November, the GSB departed Santa Cruz. As we left the marina we motored past some Northern Irish friends on their boat, Wendreda, a 38ft Nicholson. Jim, Sharon and their 4 children; Michelle, James, Peter and Martin had been the only serious challenge on the trip so far to Brimble’s unbeaten record for the lowest surface area per person. Jack was on the foredeck shouting to his mates at the top of his voice … see you in Barbados in a month, see you soon, see you in the Caribbean. Have a good trip, see you soon, see you there they all cried back. The fact that they weren’t leaving for another 2 months and it was improbable that we would see each other again didn’t seem to matter, we all clapped and cheered as we headed off on our own to cross the Atlantic.

The 60 miles or so along the east coast of Tenerife was a bit miserable. My recollection of last time we did the trip was the same. The combination of strong winds, the notorious acceleration zones, the grey feeling you get initially from leaving friends and land and security behind for a long time, the fact that you’re risking your children’s life on a bit of a whim (or so you think for a short while) all coupled with a spot of sea sickness and a touch of self pity all make the first 24 hours a little bit bleak. This said and not far beneath the surface is the relief that finally after days of contemplation and consideration we were finally off: anything forgotten now would have to be done without. No more working out the number of water bottles or cans of beans or the various illnesses that could strike us down and associated remedies, no more weather predictions or engine servicing, rigging checks and navigational sums …. just a straightforward task to do; sail safely 2800 miles across the Atlantic to a beach in Barbados.

We left the marina and a few minutes later unfurled the headsail in a freshening north easterly wind. As the large genoa unfurled with a healthy smack it also fell down … sadly the genoa halyard had been undone whilst in port so that a washing line could be tied off to the cleat and had failed to be made fast again - good start, well, not bad, I blame the skipper… so much for all the checking … but we were still off!

It would be tiresome to relate the nitty gritty details of the whole passage; it is simply a long way and takes a long time. Some people describe it as 95% boredom and 5% blind terror which I think is not far from the truth. For the first week you try and blank your mind to the magnitude of the task ahead, it’s just too difficult to imagine being in a twenty eight foot boat , with two children, in the middle of nowhere for 4 weeks, so you embrace the routine and close your mind to the number of days that must pass before you tread on dry land. We had a few challenges over the first couple of days over and above the inevitable bouts of mild seasickness. Ella and I had caught some stomach bug which hit us a couple of days out. At home it would have been no big deal but on board you of course allow your imagination to run wild not least due to the limitations of water for drinking and washing. But, as is usually the case our unmentioned fears came to nothing and after a few days of fasting (good for stores) stomachs settled and we gradually got into the swing of things.

Selma and I continued with our 3 hrs on 3 hrs off watch pattern adopting the now officially recognised ‘Flint’ modification to ensure a full 3 hours sleep each time. We soon found that we were coping pretty well on about 6 hours sleep. After tummies had settled Jack took it upon himself to start eating twice his body weight in food. Up until now Jack has had a very modest appetite, that was of course until the time when food was a premium. We can only assume that he had some sort of ill timed growth spurt but my attempts to dish out the ‘allowed for’ modest child size portions of food to him were met with derision as his new passion for food, any food, kicked into overdrive … bloody good timing I grumbled at every meal time.

During the first week we had pretty good winds hardly using the engine at all. We typically sailed goose winged (one sail out each side) with a poled out genoa and a main and preventer. Speed was modest for the first couple of days and then gradually picked up so we were quite often averaging over 5 knots over the ground.

School started on day 3 despite vigorous protestations from the children. I would teach (well, a form of teaching) from 10 to 12 each morning and then Selma would teach from 1230 to 1500 ish. This routine worked well. I quite enjoyed the children clambering into the cockpit wearing a pair of shorts and a life line, the boat rolling all over the place as they said in unison: ‘Good Morning Mr Halsall’ ; ‘Good Morning children’ I would say, ‘now turn to page 1 of your whiteboards ….’

It’s probably worth a few lines on the motion of the boat at this point. On this passage, the wind is almost always aft of the beam (behind you). This is great for speed and dryness but does create a quite spectacular rolling motion. On GSB it meant that the boat rolled literally from beam to beam. First so that one side of the boat was under water, she then picked up 10 or 20 gallons of water and as she rolled back the other way, transferred them round the outside of the cockpit and fired them over the other side as the boat, now with the other gunwhale underwater, dipped into the sea ready to reload for the next roll. This process repeated itself about every 10 to 15 seconds. Amazingly, most of the water did stay out of the cockpit but occasionally a wave would break and catch Minnie the Monitor (self steering gear) and the GSB out and we would enjoy a refreshing dollop. After a few of these we decided that we must formally name waves and came up with the following:

Snorkellor - a wave that charges at you with the sound of a snorkel being discharged. You think they will soak you but a true Snorkellor will not enter the cockpit - these were very common. A night snorkellor tends to be less pleasant because you can’t see it and therefore can’t predict whether it will be a Snorkellor or a Licker (see next)
Licker - wave that sounds like a Snorkellor but which surprisingly enters the cockpit and ‘licks’ one or more of the crew. These were fairly common particularly when the sea was more on the beam, maybe one or two an hour when the wind was over 20 knots.
Hammerhead - a wave that hit’s the side of the boat like a hammer - again, pretty common
Rainbow - a wave that passes over the top of the cockpit without getting anybody wet - perhaps unsurprisingly we have yet to have one of these.

Jack identified and defined a further twenty or so wave types but they had such complicated characteristics that we were never able to match a name to a wave. I too had a few terms that I used for the odd wave but you can probably work them out for yourself.

The motion of the boat made cooking an entertaining challenge. Selma who made breakfast and lunch occasionally threw cereal across the boat and when the mood took her she would throw herself around as well. On one particular occasion she fell quite badly and was lucky not to break anything but I checked all round the area she had fallen and could find no damage; Selma though was quite badly bruised. Meanwhile, I threw everything everywhere and spent the rest of my free time putting it back. The kids were really good and the sight of Jack staggering to the heads at three in the morning like an old drunk will be one of my clear memories of the passage. We assume the fact that we fell over more than the children is because of their lower centre of gravity - the physics of this remain unproven.

By the second week sickness had returned to the Good Ship with Selma having been hurt by her fall made worse by the return of some historic back trouble and Ella was suffering from lack of sleep and a touch of cystitis. Ella was struggling to get to sleep with the severe rolling of the boat coupled with the hot weather. Jack, not wanting to be out done, lost a tooth and then challenged the tooth fairy to find him and it. The ability of that fairy astounded us all when it exchanged an extravagant 5 Barbados Dollars the next night.

On the 5th December we caught our first Tuna which was thrown back because we’d just had supper but made up for this by catching another the next day. It was eaten within 40 minutes including cooking time having had it’s head chopped off by Jack. Ella was a bit put off by the cleaning process, not helped by Jack making unhelpful observations, such as ‘see that Ella, see that coming out of there, that’s pooh’. A few days later we lost our only lure so fishing came to a premature end, much to Ella’s unconcealed delight.

Flying fish appeared at about this time and we also saw whales and dolphins, not quite in the numbers along the Portuguese coast but nonetheless great company.

Our first milestone, the Halsall Halfway Celebration was achieved on the 11th December. In fact at this stage we were well over halfway but a line was on the chart from the last trip and we stuck with it. Making the halfway point was marked by a Brimble Bank Holiday; school was cancelled, we all had a wash, extra half melted chocolate was dished up and a theatrical show(with popcorn) was put on for the children by the Parents - Flash Gordon and by the children for the adults - called ‘Colours’.

As we sailed eastwards towards the sun, changing the clocks every 5 days or so, the weather grew warmer and warmer such that even I was completing my night watch in shorts and tee shirts. Nightwatches were filled dodging flying fish, star gazing and occasionally madly reefing down in spectacular lightning and thunder storms. The routine of the day was firmly set too; we were not exceeding our water and food allowances, passage time look set for under the 29 days and life became really quite enjoyable. All in all, as the weeks rolled by, the passage became the norm and life ashore the exception - we speculated about our arrival in Barbados but having blanked it for so long it was difficult to bring it to the front of our minds; Ella said she didn’t think ‘we would ever arrive’.

However, she was wrong and at 0730 in the morning on the 21st of December we motored into Bridgetown Harbour to clear Customs. The welcome was delightful with Lawrence the Harbour Master coming out to take our ropes and welcoming us to the Caribbean, but despite his helping hands we were unable to moor up. The combination of a harbour wall designed entirely for cruise ships (we were trying to moor next to a cruise ship called The World) and a significant swell running into the harbour made coming alongside for our somewhat diminutive craft entirely unsafe. At any moment we thought we would take the rigging off and be dismasted or smash the side of the boat against one of the enormous steel piles as we desperately fended off. But help was at hand. Snuggling, quietly in the bottom of the cockpit locker, waiting for our moment of need was … Uber Fender - a giant inflatable fender that as Alasdair (fellow owner of an Uber F) pointed out cost as much as most peoples dinghies. With the exception of Norway, Uber, had not been needed, but now was the time and when inflated and safely wedged between us and the offending wall, saved the day. Selma and Ella left to clear customs and immigration whilst I stayed with Jack to mind the boat.

An hour or so later we were safely anchored in Carlisle bay, 100 metres off a pristine beach of white sand in water so clear that you could clearly see the anchor snugged into the sandy bottom, a turtle popped up and casually nodded at us as we jumped into the tropical, turquoise water.

After 24 days sailing and over 2800 miles at sea in our 28 foot, 37 year old yacht, we had arrived. It felt really, really, good.

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