Extract from the logbook of an Atlantic sailor

"Like many other sailors, I have long had the dream of
dream of sailing across the Atlantic and being able to wear
red pants with pride."

No one else in my family has had any inclination towards this type of long-distance sailing. My dear wife Kerstin mostly appreciates day trips with dinner and night rest in a cozy harbor, which I also think is a wonderful sailing life. However, the dream has always been there in the back of my mind about the longer sailing. However, I realized early on that if it was to happen, it had to be together with others than my loved ones. During Christmas 2018, the whole family including adult children were on Gran Canaria and had a nice week in the sun. During this week, I went several rounds in the ports on the island and enviously watched boats that were heading out on the big adventure. Imagine being able to spend several weeks on the high seas. The desire to make the dream a reality grew and once back home I started searching the internet for possible options. I soon found More Sailing in Gothenburg, which arranges and mediates charter sailing in both the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. More Sailing also usually sets up with boats in the annual ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) race between Gran Canaria and St. Lucia in the Caribbean. On these sailings you can follow as a "paying crew". This year they would participate with two catamarans of type Lagoon 52. I was first skeptical about sailing a catamaran but soon got used to the idea. After some discussion with More Sailing, I finally signed up for ARC 2019 starting in November. Now it was finally decided! As a start of the preparations for this adventure, we had a meeting with the entire prospective crew in the spring of 2019 in Gothenburg. We would be 10 people on board, including a skipper and a "first mate" from More Sailing. The remaining eight people were "paying crew" just like me. It was very exciting to meet the whole gang who would spend a month together on board. None of us knew each other from before so it was a bit of a social experiment how we would get along and function as a group. As everyone knows, it is not so easy to get away and have private time on a sailboat. However, it turned out that everyone was very nice and positive. Our "team building" started directly during this first meeting.

In mid-November it was time to start the adventure in earnest. According to our plan, we would first have a week together in Gran Canaria before starting. The boat was already in place in Las Palmas when we came down. It was brand new from the shipyard in France and had been transported down the week before. Our first week was packed with activities. First of all, we had to stock the boat with all the supplies you need for about three weeks at sea. There were many rounds to various shops and many deliveries of goods to the bridge. Since there was a freezer on board, we also cooked a lot of basic food that was frozen. We also bought a lot of fruit and vegetables that were stowed on board and hung in nets. It was important to wash everything carefully so that there were no stowaways on board in the form of cockroaches and other bugs. It is not easy to plan food for ten people for such a voyage.

During the week in Las Palmas there were also various activities from the ARC organization. There were many different interesting lectures to attend. Experienced long-distance sailors, meteorologists and other specialists gave talks on everything from safety, weather, astronomy and food planning. There was also the opportunity for a lot of socializing between the crews. It was very international in the harbor with about 190 starting boats from many different countries.

In order to participate in the ARC, there are quite high safety requirements for the boats. This applies to both personal and boat equipment that must be in place. The days before the start, inspectors from the ARC organization came on board and made a thorough review before getting the green light to start.

After an eventful week in Las Palmas, it was finally time to take to the sea. The starting field outside the harbor was full of boats and those of us who were a little unaccustomed to handling a larger catamaran quickly learned how to sail and maneuver this somewhat unwieldy vessel. It is really a different feeling to steer this type of larger double-hulled floating vessel when you are used to single-hull boats. However, we got a good start and were soon speeding along in the sunshine on a sloop with the gennaker raised at 10-12 knots in the fresh wind. We now had about 2700 nautical miles ahead of us before finishing in the Caribbean.

Although we were almost 200 boats at the start, the field soon spread out and after a day there were no longer many competitors left in sight. We quickly got into our routines on board with watchkeeping, cooking and leave. We had set up a rolling watch schedule that involves three hours of watch and then five hours of free watch. This meant that you never got to sleep more than five hours in a row, so you had to use parts of the free watches even during the day to sleep so that you got your rest. However, it went very smoothly to get into this routine and adapt the body to divide the sleep.

Sailing a catamaran is a bit special because the boat does not heel. In rough seas, there is of course a seaway with movements up and down and that the boat stomps. However, it does not tilt, which means that sea stowage of all things is not as critical and that you can move a little easier on board without holding on all the time. I had expected that at least some of the crew would suffer from seasickness in the first few days. However, only a few of the crew had minor problems during the second day at sea. After that, everyone felt fine throughout the trip.

The accommodation on board was quite comfortable with cabins where we lived two in each. There was also access to a shower in fresh water that you could treat yourself to about every other day. We had a watermaker on board that converts sea water into fresh water. All water used for cooking and washing came from this device. However, we had bunkered about 350 liters of bottled water for drinking. It is easy to forget to drink enough in the heat, and we had to be alert to the slightest sign of headache, which is a symptom of dehydration.

After about four days at sea with a southwestern course in the direction of Cape Verde, we were down at latitudes where the trade winds are predominant. This wind blows from NE and E. We then turned west with a course towards the southern Caribbean. When sailing at these latitudes on a westerly course, you basically always have slush and bilge in varying wind strengths. You may think that this sounds quite comfortable but it can also be frustrating when the wind dies down and the sails twitch and flap in light downwind conditions. There can also be stronger winds and then you must always be careful not to suffer an involuntary gybe. Therefore, you always have some kind of preventer to avoid damage. Another wind phenomenon that occasionally occurs here is so-called "squalls". These are localized vertical village clouds that form over the relatively warm sea surface. They are quite similar to the thunderclouds we have here at home, but without the thunder. However, they can produce heavy rain and strong winds that come quickly. You should therefore keep an eye out for these so that you are prepared to reduce sail if necessary.

After a week at sea I really started to feel that wonderful feeling of the simple life on a boat.
This is when most things revolve around watch keeping, weather, wind, eating and sleeping. I can really appreciate this to be completely disconnected from mail, SMS, TV etc. There was also a wonderful camaraderie on board with many confidential and deep conversations on night watches under a fantastic starry sky.

After 10 days at sea, we passed the theoretical midpoint of the journey, ie 1350 nautical miles to St. Lucia. You have to respect these distances. You should also respect that out here you have to manage on your own. If something serious should happen on board, you are far from land and can at best get help from another boat that is nearby. Therefore, it is important to be careful and avoid injuries. On board our boat we managed to avoid any serious injuries. These were mostly hand injuries from handling falls and sheets. Sailing gloves can be quite useful sometimes..... We also had a lot of exciting wildlife experiences while sailing. One day a small finch came and landed on deck. It turned out to be a small goldfinch. It seemed to be quite tired after a long flight over the sea. We put out water and a small bowl of seeds on the deck, which he immediately pecked at. This little bird stayed with us on board for several days. He made some flights around the boat when we were changing sails and other things on deck, but he always came back. After a week, however, he disappeared. We wished him good luck and hoped he found another boat to rest on because it was very far to land.

Often flying fish flew over the surface of the water around our boat. These small fish perceived the boat as something dangerous and used their flying ability to escape. Occasionally, however, they would land on deck by mistake. In the mornings, we had to take a turn on deck to clean up the flying fish that had been misplaced during the night. Once a deck hatch to one of our cabins was left ajar. A flying fish managed to fly straight down into the bunk of a sleeping crew member. He had a rude awakening and sheets that smelled faintly of fish for the rest of the trip.

For most of the voyage we had fishing lines dragging behind the boat. We got a bite quite often and thus added to the food supply. The fish that were most often caught were dorado, also known as mahi mahi. This is a fine food fish and delicious dishes were prepared from this catch. We also got tuna on the hook once. Fortunately, it was only about 10-12 kg and we got it after half an hour of struggle. Tuna can be much larger and we probably would not have managed that with the fishing equipment we had on board.

On a few occasions we also saw large schools of dolphins playing and jumping around the boat. You can never get enough of these amazing animals that move so smoothly in the water. When they came, they were usually groups of 20-30 that stayed around the boat for 15 minutes or more. You got the urge to jump in yourself. It was quite a pleasant bathing temperature with 29 degrees in the water. In the afternoon of the 18th day at sea, we sighted land! It was St. Lucia and also the nearby island of Martinique. We crossed the finish line in the early evening and slipped into the port of Rodney Bay in St. Lucia. On the dock when we docked was a welcoming committee with representatives from ARC. They welcomed us and offered rum punch, which is a local punch of rum you drink a lot in the Caribbean. During the days we had in Rodney Bay there was a fond reunion of crews from our competitor boats. There was a lot of partying and more acquaintances with rum punch.

Although the sailing had gone fantastically well with a good atmosphere on board, it was nice to be ashore. An extraordinary experience that I will carry with me all my life.

Now I can also wear red pants with pride!

Magnus Jeppsson