31 Dec 2024

The last day of 2024 – news from the fleet on the 31st of December

The fleet all seem to be a little happier with the sea state today, many comments about champagne sailing conditions.

Mwera

Been a beautiful day of sailing so far! We’re busy fixing everything that broke yesterday and reinforcing things that we think are going to break 😂 all in all, just another day out on the ocean! Spirits are high, we’ve got spaghetti for days and couldn’t ask for much more ❤️

Atalanta

All smiles onboard, opened the hatches  dried out the foul weather gear and cleaned the good ship Atalanta today. Had our first shower this morning, just waiting for Mike aka ” Jesus ” to shower now… We found ourselves  in the SE trade winds finally, pumping the tunes. and drinking lots of tea. Absolutely epic champagne sailing conditions out here in the open blue water… Gerry

Magic Dragon

After the winds of yesterday we have the calms of today. Thankfully the big sea state decided not to show up as if it had we would have been making even less than our current low speed in these light airs. Skipper says that during his 5 hour post 1 am watch it was like being “a painted ship upon a painted ocean” with a minimum speed of 0.5 knots and a maximum of 3 knots. We are really missing our light and downwind sails at the moment but I suspect the mice at home (where the sails are stored in the garage) will no doubt be pleased with what must surely have become their bedding. The trades are due to kick in this afternoon and we can’t wait. In the meantime we’ve been using the calm to do a clothes wash and bake a cake. Vera was seasick yesterday and less than 20 seconds later was back tucking into biltong – our children are hard as nails! At present we have circa 10kn true wind speed from the south in fairly long 1.5-2m seas. Life is good!

Fryd

Fryd is now flying with the spinnaker up towards St Helana. All well aboard and the south African team have now recovered from their strange desease and everyone onboard are perfroming par excellence! Our young apprentence, Lars, is also starting to find his way arround the boat and is about to become a real salty sailor! Happy New Year to everyone in Cape Town! Cheers Jarl on Fryd

One Eight Magnus

All well on board. Magnus would like to wish one and all a Prosperous 2025. 🥂🎉🎊

Umoya

Day was good although still no favourable winds. During the night the wind died completely and we bobbed for hours. Spirit still good. All the adults emptied their stomachs into the sea for the fish. The youngsters are strong sailors and kept everything in. Mirco s deli is IOU’s cooking skills were skipped for a day. Currently finally heading the right direction. Spinniker is up. And doing 7 kits

TinTin

After yesterday’s stressful upwind sailing it was good to finally get the spinnaker up in the middle of the night. SE trade winds really began to fill in after sunrise and we are enjoying some lovely sailing at the moment. Also crossed into the Namibian EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) last night. Currently in about 3 000m of water. An oil rig has just appeared ahead of us. Looks as if she is under tow. Must go on deck now to see how best to avoid it!

Flica

We arrived in trade winds this morning, the sun is hot, the sea is warm and spinnaker is up….what a relief after a very wet, bumpy and uncomfortable 24 hours! Boat and gear has been dried out and tidied up and everything feels much more order and relaxed. Spirts are high and we are looking forward to our NYE onboard Flica and to find out what surprises Kerry’s NYE parcel has in store for us.

Wishing all our followers a very happy New Year! 

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