Start of Day 14 Position: 40° 39.8787' N 071° 09.1321' W Boat: All good with the boat and we are sailing slowly Last night we had almost no winds so its very slow and it could mean we only arrive very late in the night tonight. People: we are both fine Speed: 2 to 3 KTS Wind: 4 kts Easterly Distance 74 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditions: ok sailing conditions for very light winds 24-hour mileage: 74 miles with around 50 miles still to go to Newport with an estimate of 1806 miles sailed of the 1856 total miles Comments: It was very slow last night but we had to be vigilant because we are near New York and there is a lot of shipping traffic to look out for and then at 5 am the fog set in and you could see nothing but you could hear the ships horns blowing all around. And amongst that there were sports fishing boats racing around at over twenty knots with visibility down to less than half a mile and at tim...

Start of Day 13 Position: 39° 30.2631' N 070° 37.1987' W Boat: All good with the boat and we are sailing slowly Last night we had good winds and we got up to 12 knots of speed at times but this morning the sea has flattened and we are sailing slowly but doing fine Later the wind will drop even further and we may have to motor for a few hours but we are limited to how many hours so we charge batteries and motor at the same time to get the best out of the diesel I am so glad I have my Small Honda generator which helps me when I need it but I have to carry a little petrol to get it to work People: we are both fine Speed: 4 to 5 KTS Wind: 5 kts Easterly Distance 160 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditions: ok sailing conditions 24-hour mileage: 160 miles with around 125 miles still to go to Newport with an estimate of 1699 miles sailed of the 1856 total miles Comments: Last night the winds were from behind and ...

Start of Day 12 Position: 36° 54.6174' 069° 50.2833' W Boat: All good with the boat and we are sailing very fast Last night we put away the Gennaker and opened the Genoa and it was a good idea as the winds picked up and we were bulleting along all night and even touching 11 knots at times and are now much closer to arriving I still like taking longer and having a more stable and easy ride and John has a *need for Speed* and pushes the boat to its limits but we just put the Gennaker back up and now we will go even faster I expect Well now while writing all hell broke loose and we were seriously overpowered so out we went and put the sails back to the previous configuration and now we are sailing well again. The wind subsides just long enough to give a sense that its dropping then it sends a long gust to put a thumb to its nose and say I got you again ha ha so we have decided to keep the genoa out and let it play its games and we will just ride the wind g...

Start of Day 11 Position: 34° 05.3040' N 068° 43.5316' W Boat: All good with the boat and we are sailing again YAY We had a day of no wind except for short gusts and we bobbed to my delight but John and I differ greatly in that regard as he wants to keep moving all the time and I am happy to wait for the wind Our Diesel is at a premium and is being rationed so we cannot simply motor and because the agreement was to save it until the last bit of the journey because we may have fog going into Newport we will need the engine. that is why we simply had to wait it out but this morning at 5 am the wind started coming through and picked up to 10 knots and now we are sailing with the full main sail up and a huge gennaker sail and barreling along at 7 to 8 knots speed over ground We expect the winds to get stronger as we close in on Newport but die just before the port People: we are both fine Speed: 7 to 8 KTS Wind: 10 kts South Westerly Distance 69 miles sai...

Start of Day 10 Position: 32° 56.6123' N 068° 50.6773' W Boat: All good with the boat and we are motoring We get short gusts of wind from time to time and it gets us going for 10 minutes and then stops so we are constantly putting out and rolling up sails and also stopping engines and starting engines because the wind drives us faster than the engine does but it doesnt last long I can just imagine how it must have been for the the old days sailors who had no engines and they spent days wallowing with no chance of moving forward At least we have an engine albeit with now very limited diesel to fuel it. We left Grenada with 173 liters diesel and have had to motor over 63 hours due to no wind and another 18 hours to charge batteries because this boat has no solar or wind alternative power sources and the Lithium batteries although they are great in supplying power you have to nurse them well and make sure you dont let them discharge too much as well as be ca...

The Stove Incident I arrived in Trinidad to look at Crazy Sophia and settled in with getting the work done and because i was living on the boat with the kind permission of Powerboats i connected the gas to the stove and arranged to get the fridge working the shore power on and some coffee and Milk to make me feel comfortable (those were the important ones because lunches were served on the street at a really good price for great local food Friends of mine from Shady Lady were going shopping and i asked them to arrange a kettle for me and they did with happiness THe next morning I light up the stove and that was when I noticed the copper coloured filler around one of the burners but the plate worked well and Coffee was easy and for the next three weeks while the boat work was going on all was well except that the Brazilian Gas bottle could not be filled in Trinidad and it was huge and was staining the deck with rust. One of the other boats in the boatyard was giving away two Camp...

Start of Day 9 Position: 31° 24.4759' N 068° 36.1584' W Boat: All good with the boat and we are motoring because we are becalmed if we dont and the forecast is like that for the next two days but we have to manage our dieselbecause we cant motor all the way we dont have enough This morning was spent planning when we can run the motor and when we either bob or sail at 1 mile per hour People: we are both fine Speed: 4 KTS Wind: 2 kts Northerly Distance 113 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditions: its pretty flat at the moment like a blue glass table that has a small yacht disturbing it 24-hour mileage: 113 miles with around 615 miles still to go to Newport and now past half way with an estimate of 1235 miles sailed Comments: Not Much to report today again because its calm and we are motoring We hope to find wind in the next few hours but who knows the universe does what it wants Lets hope it is a quiet da...

Start of Day 8 Position: 29° 38.6679' N 067° 49.3199' W Boat: All good with the boat and sailing well. All went well and we sailed well all night on the gennaker with no storms People: we are both fine Speed: 5 to 8 KTS Wind: 8 kts south easterly Distance 145 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditions: good with average swells of 0.5 m but its pretty flat at the moment 24-hour mileage: 145 miles with around 725 miles still to go to Newport and now past half way with an estimate of 1075 miles sailed Comments: Not Much to report today because its calm and we are sailing at my kind of pace with a wonderful comfortable ride I loaded the first three or four or five episodes of the Airticket saga so there is enough to read without more today but beware i am going to add more soon and the next one will be the stove drama Lets hope it is a quiet day Kevin

We Arrived in Brazil with all the great intentions of Sailing on after a few days towards Capetown Well when we arrived the covid bomb had hit the world and we were in a very precarious position we weren't well informed and we didn't know how it affected us but fortunately we arrived six hours before Brazil closed its borders to sailors and we needed to get cleared into the country or leave as quickly as we had left French Guyana. Fortunately we had managed to get in touch with Brian who is a friend i made when sailing toward the Caribbean and knowing i had such a good person helping us gave me confidence so we asked him for his help and he adopted us as though we were family and made us welcome in true Brazilian style but add to that true English traditional style as well I will go into details of the Stay with our family in Brazil later, just saying that Brian got us through customs and immigration in one month after arrival and during that time we found out more and mo...

Start of Day 7 Position: 27° 24.9485' N 066° 46.6755' W Boat: All good with the boat and sailing very slowly. Last Night after low winds all day we put the Code 5 away and were preparing for the night sail when all hel broke loose and 40knots of wind came out of nowhere and I was on the foredeck sorting out the furler which was jamming when it hit well as you can imagine a drowning rat finishing the work as quickly as possible because if the sail came loose in that wind it would have shredded and we may have landed in the water (broaching) This morning at 2 am John decided to motor as the wind had died again and we have been motoring for 7 hours until we put another bigger sail up and tried that one but still there is not enough wind so we are motoring again People: we are both fine Speed: 5 to 5.5 KTS Wind: 3 kts south easterly Distance 138 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditions: good with average swells of 0.5 m ...

Start of Day 6 Position: 25° 10.7063' N 066° 12.5206' W Boat: All good with the boat and sailing very well. Since we are using the code 3 (another name for a huge sail biggest is code 0)even though the winds have dropped to 6 and 7 knots in the day this sail manages to get this boat going . We were turning the wind speed into boat speed with a factor of 90% and at one time we were sailing as fast as the wind with 7 knots wind and 7 knots boat speed (I have never done that before so another first for me) I wonder what a code zero would do but i just am not willing to give it a go now Sea state is comfortable and we are going along at good speed People: we are both fine Speed: 78 to 9 KTS Wind: 10 kts south easterly Distance 159 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditions: good with average swells of 1 m 24-hour mileage: 159 miles with around 1007 miles still to go to Newport and now 842 miles covered Comments: Th...

Start of Day 5 Position: 22° 33.4337' N 065° 45.4871' W Boat: All good with the boat and sailing very well. We spent two hours yesterday putting up the code three sail and the reason it took so long is because the specialised equipment the owners bought to fit it hadnt been used for around 5 months so it had siezed and the roller restraining strap had broken so we had to spend time servicing them and making plans for the strap No longer had we put it out and the wind came up and we had to put it away again But this morning we got it out and now the boat is saiing 8 knots in 12 knots of wind and reaching 10 knots at times wind at the moment is around 12 kts coming from 111 degrees so we are flying along People: we are both fine its just very hot in the boat so we spend as much time as possible outside in the cockpit Speed: 8 to 10 to KTS Wind: 12 kts south easterly Distance 157 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditi...

Start of Day 4 Position: 20° 08.4520' N 064° 42.0448' W Boat: All good with the boat and sailing very well. Its bumpy most of the time but getting used to that now Yesterday we had two squalls one of 35 kts and we tried putting the third reef in but the reefing lines were too short so while we were messing around the wind dropped and we reset the sail to two reefs and all was well even though i was soaked from spray over the decks and rain that hurt ti skin as it hit from the wind the second squall wasnt as bad so we just rode it out and while we were back in the cockpit we made a new line so we can now put the third reef in if we need it but i am hoping we wont wind at the moment is around 12 kts coming from 140 degrees and this boat does not like running so we are constantly changing course to fit the wind but we still are sailing at 6 kts average People: we are both fine Speed: 6 to 6.5 to KTS Wind: 10 kts south easterly Distance 170 miles sa...

Start of Day 3 Position: 17° 31.4997' N 063° 34.6909' W Boat: All good with the boat and sailing very well and very fast wind at the moment is around 20 kts on our beam so we are speeding along at 7 to 9 knots reaching 10 kts at times People: we are both ok Speed: 7 to 9 to KTS Wind: 20 easterly kts Distance 181 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditions: Choppy but good 24-hour mileage: 181 miles with around 1484 miles still to go to Newport Comments: Good sailing however inside this boat is extremely hot and sticky and because its low when the waves break over it they splash you properly and both John and I got swamped yesterday. I got it twice but wasnt completely soaked but John got a big one and was drenched and had to change. We have nearly completed the trip to BVI and before this evening we will leaving the Caribbean sea and be back in the Atlantic ocean. With these speeds and this boat we get thrown...

Start of Day 2 Position: 14° 39.6999' N 062° 35.6282' W Boat: THis is a very special boat and is really fast compared to the others i have sailed. Opela and Crazy Sophia are very similar but this is a very new racing cruiser and for those who want to look at what its about you can look up Pogo 12.5 on www.pogostructures.com Last night during the night we were able to get 11 knots speed in 17 knots of wind and before that we were turning 50%of the wind into boatspeed so that is very good energy usage Inside is very comfortable except for when i am cooking because i get thrown about a lot and the compromise for speed is great but saying that i am not happy at speeds above 10knots because i am a nervous sailor wind at the moment is around 17 kts on our beam so we are speeding along at 8 to 9 knots People: we are both ok Speed: 8 to 9 to KTS Wind: 17 easterly kts Distance 172 miles sailed yesterday Course: true , to Newport Rode island Conditions...