Finding Moksha: Crossing the Atlantic

Monday the 21st of November was the start of the Transatlantic Superyacht Regatta, a race that takes the boats some 2600 nautical miles from Santa Cruz in the Canary Islands to Virgin Gorda, in the British Virgin Islands.

Having only the normal crew, and Jack our "delivery crew" on the boat meant the race was never going to be exactly what we would be familiar with. It would be more of a delivery than a race for us, however once on the start line as usual, white line fever hit and we were all trying our best to get this machine moving.

The race started quite close to shore in 12-18kn of breeze, with a short beat to a gate mark. Once through the gate it was a 20mile leg up the east coast of Tenerife and around its northern tip, by midnight the first night we were going past Las Palmas and finally saying goodbye to Europe.

The first few days were all pretty good, settling in to our usual watch pattern of 2-6 am and pm we found ourselves making pretty good time with the genoa up in breeze that mostly hung in the 16-23kn range. However all good things must come to an end and the fourth night seems to be the catalyst for that.

After having an hour of sleep, we were awoken with drama's and an all hands on deck issue was met head on at 11pm (I guess this is where I drop the fact that Vagn was on the bow in nothing but a spray jacket and his boxers in 20kn+ which in hindsight was pretty funny). Taking over an hour to sort the boat out again, and by the time we got back to bed it was almost time to get back up for the 2-6am watch. That all went normal, until just before 6 when we gybed back west and the Genoa furler broke.

Doesn't really seem too big a deal, however when the sail is over 800m2 and weighs over 500kg, and the fact that we were heading directly for a low that was trying to develop into a cyclone, and that if it wasn't sorted we would not be able to gybe away from said wannabe cyclone. The weight of the situation, 1000 miles from the nearest spot of land soon seemed pretty heavy.

We eventually decided to jury rig the furler and wait for the breeze to die as much as possible before giving it a go, and luckily it worked and the sail was away. With that out of the way, we turned our heads back into the race however with our bladesail our new biggest sail, hitting the speeds and angles in the lighter breeze was the new battle, that would inevitably be lost (blade os only 480m2). After all the drama of the night, we finally got to bed at noon for some sleep before getting up for the afternoon watch - we ended up getting around 3 hours sleep in this 36 hour block.

The next few days were spent reaching across the atlantic weaving through the storms and squalls associated with the wannabe cyclone, sometimes averaging 15kn for over 2 hours at a time, I think we peaked at 16.8kn, with the small main and blade up. Steering the boat through this was such a joy, however after 6 days of that, my most enjoyable steering session for the race was the 2 hour block I did at sunset in 4-6kn of air. Keeping the sails in gear and boat moving in these airs and a 3-5m swell from the cyclone was a challenge, and a nice change from the freight train rides we were having up to this point.

In the end though, with the light air hanging around, and being low on sails, we decided to pull the pin, retire and motor the rest of the way to the Caribbean. Four days later, we arrived in Virgin Gorda, having 12 days to cross the Atlantic.

The boat who got line honours, Heitaros, did it in 8days 11 hours, she is a beast and is actually the highest handicapping boat ever, the last boat to finish, and the overall winner did it in 14 days. Once all the boats were in, it was presentation time at the new yacht club, it was a good chance to catch up with the other crews and like all decent sailing races we were in the cockpit of Karuba V into the early hours of the morning doing the woulda and coulda chat with the other crews - fueled by plenty of drink and humour.

And that's my adventure across the Atlantic Ocean.

The End.