Day 3

We all completed our first night of watches (Day 2- 3) with a gusto that we had been told may not be sustained for the first 24 hours of watches- these are supposed to be the hardest whilst everyone adjusts to the watch system of 4 hours on and 4 hours off. Little to report of happenings through to 8am, apart from a colourful shooting star which was seen by the Port watch. We have subsequently been informed by James, that it was possibly the International Space Station- he has Google Sky Maps on his iPad.

Starting off the day with hearty breakfast prepped by the Mother Watch of myself (Emma), and Dave, of the very complicated feast of cereal and fruit, the whole crew was ready and raring to go. Still under sail at this point, we had covered around 181NM at 0900 and reached a max speed of about 11 knots, crashing through the waves with a speed and skill that would make Lewis Hamilton green with envy. As we were under sail, the boat was considerably heeled over, and so mine and Dave’s lunch-time spell in the kitchen cooking hotdogs was a bit of challenge.
However, the grub went down well, particularly the skilfully crisped up onions. We continued under sail until 2pm, when the wind died and so we had to switch to motoring taking the staysail down.

Although switching to motoring was a bit of a downer, we soon experienced another event to lift our spirits. A pod of 5-6 dolphins swam up to our bow and around the vicinity of the boat for a while, and so cameras at the ready, a few people tried to take photos, although predicting where they were going to jump up next was rather difficult, leading to a new respect for Attenborough and the like.

Having had the sun glaring down on us with little cloud cover for the duration of the voyage so far, a number of people have begun to resemble the crispy onions we had with our hotdogs for lunch. Sunburn is rife, the most crispy of us all so far is James who has discovered a new love of Dove moisturiser kindly rubbed in by moi on a regular basis, although the tops of my legs have discovered what sunburn is, and resemble a rather fetching beetroot shade.

Then came the part of the day I had been looking forward to the most. The Cleaning of the Heads, capitalised for cinematic effect, and no, not related to any kind of hairdressing activity, but in fact, the loo cleaning. On went the rubber gloves, out came the disinfectant and anti- bac spray, some hardcore scrubbing
and rinsing down later and there shone a clean head!

At this point, all of us are yet to have a shower- the last shower we had being on the morning while we were still moored up. The skipper rules this decision, and we are ever waiting on our toes to hear the glorious shout of “shower- time!”. In fact, this day has almost become the stuff of legends, and when it comes, it will be legendary, if not only for the reduction of the ‘manly’ smells of the boat for us girls.

Time for a lovely chicken curry for dinner; involving lots of chopping of veg, a quartet of runny eyes and noses (mine and Dave’s) caused by the many onions that needed to be chopped, culminating in a vat of rice and one of the curry itself on the hob gave us an appreciation of the work that everyone does on Mother Watch and even our old school cooks. Dinner was served a little late, due to the culinary flair of inspirational spices and flavours we were adding the curry sauce, and pure skill of the chefs (obviously), but went down very well, especially Dave’s inspired turmeric rice.

After a mountain, or should I perhaps say, tsunami of washing up, it was bed time for us two- as a reward for ‘mothering’ you get let off watches until the morning and so get a full night in bed which was very much appreciated and used to its fullest.

Fingers crossed that the wind picks up and we can once again get under sail.

Just a quick ‘Ahoy’ to my family and lovely boyfriend, I know you’re checking this everyday and miss you lots!

Emma Jarvis

Day 2

Last night everyone behaved really well and slept really well and managed to get up first call and had a well earned shower.

This morning as the sun was shining into Yarmouth harbour the group awoke at around seven to go for showers in time to prepare the breakfast at eight o’clock. After both watches had finished their breakfast they separated to set up sails and clean up the galley.

At around nine, the teams set sail up to Poole. All aswell until we sailed past the needles the swirl started to get better and the group started to feel the experience of off shore sailing in the English Channel and Adrian was so pleased and made up to feel the wind on his cheeks and he worked really hard with the rest off the remaining crew why others were ‘feeding the fishes’.

All being well everyone managed to get up and help everyone to finish the boat and get ready to eat pancakes which was prepared by John, Sarah and Darrion much to everyone’s delight.  After we have explored Poole we are going to tuck in a well earned sausage and mash.

Muchlove X

Sarah Jane Hughes Leader of tea making.

p.s. love the fact that challenger three is also called
Sarah! ;D

Day 1

Today we had a quick tour of the boat to see what and where things are because later on we would be leaving Portsmouth Harbour to go for our first proper sailing experience we couldn’t have asked for better sailing conditions! As it was nice and sunny (although it was a bit windy) we was split into two groups ‘Port’ and in that group was; Lucy, David, Darrion, Adrian, Amy S and Vicky the head of the group is Brian.

In the other group ‘Starboard’ and in that group is; James, Emma, Sarah, Grant, Amy C, Lydia and the head of that group is John. After our tour of the ship and learning the names of the different parts of the boat we began to get the boat ready for sail. We put up three sails the ‘Main’ the ‘Yankee’ and the ‘Staysail’ that was left to the Starboard group and the Port group prepared the Main sail. We learnt how to do the different types of knots like the ‘Slipknot’ and others. It took us a while to get it prepared for sail but when we finally did it was amazing! As we set sail for the Isle of Wight to a town called ‘Yarmouth’ we agreed that the positive way to success was to work together.

It was relaxing to sail on the peaceful conditions which brought us all peace to the mind as we were a bit worried that the sea would be rough. On our journey we learned to ‘Tack’ which was to lean the boat for it to turn we did this a couple of times to make the boat zig zag for it to go towards our destination. When we actually arrived at Yarmouth Harbour there wasn’t enough water for the boat to float, and had to wait for about 20-30 minutes for the tide to come in for us to be able to dock the boat but apart from that it was really good!

For tea tonight fajitas which was cooked by Lucy.

Everyone really enjoy it! We are looking forward to tomorrow.

From Lucy & James

Perfect weather. Some breeze to get us on our way. Fuelled and ready to go.

Freddie said he saw a whale……but no one else did. A steady 8 knot sail, as we past our last sightings of land until the Azores. Had first bite on fishing line but sadly it got away?

There are still plenty more fish in the sea, we’ve just got to find them!!

We started the 4hour watch system last night at 8pm, so now into work and sleep patterns.

Time to get out of sweaty cabin and back on deck- so far so good…

Day 1

After the night before when all volunteer crew met each other and shared a few drinks in bar where the conversation quickly changed to the challenge ahead.

Saturday was a lazy day in Marina, spent preparing yacht, hoisting sails from sail locker, washing vegetables and more vegetables. The delivery looked more like a London market stall. After all chores complete we ventured to the beach to swim in the glorious Caribbean sea. Some of us didn’t use enough sun tan cream and were then smothered in natural yoghurt to minimise the burn on their return.

A night of ‘our last shower’ before limited water supplies rule on the crossing.