Date: 12/26/2006
Name: Jim
email: jhubbard56@comcast.net
subject:
Re: Dave Eastbury's ARC recap


After returning from his transatlantic adventure, Dave Eastbury emailed the following recap:

"ARC - Atlantic Rally for Cruisers 2007"

"I expected a big adventure and I was not disappointed. Sailing the Atlantic for 2858 NM was arduous at times and relaxing at others depending on your job of the moment. In fact just getting to the yacht was a major trip for many of the crew including me. I left home on Saturday afternoon and arrived at the boat on Monday.

"I finally read Northern Childs daily logs when I returned home on 21 Dec and must admit Julian captured a lot of the daily life quite accurately. Missing of course was the adjustment to a watch system that initially taxed the entire crew. It took about 4 days before the off watch members showed a face on deck simply to enjoy the day. Even then if the previous watch was stressful and some were, bunk time was a prime consideration for the entire off watch team no matter the time of day. Getting one's prime sleep time between noon and 6 PM was not an ideal situation but that occurred only on alternate days. The four hour schedule at night also proved difficult on the nights when you had 6pm to 10pm and then 2am to 6 am, but you got to sleep from 6am to noon on that day.

"The crew discovered together that the Atlantic is far bigger than we imagined. It wasn't the distance that made the big impression, it was the power of the sea and the wind. Our boat was 22 tons (44,000 lbs) and the waves moved it about as easily as if it was an SJ21. On that subject there were many days when an SJ21 would have quickly been destroyed in the wind and waves we encountered far offshore. Although we were not racing, anytime the wind dropped below 16 kts it was spinnaker time and this was carried until the wind had built to about 23 kts and then we switched back to twin headsails, a staysail and a full main to get the best performance from the boat. Typically a reef in the main was not even discussed until the wind was over 34 Kts. This only occurred once in a squall and we did reef when the wind touched 36 Kts. The reader should appreciate our rhumb line was almost dead down wind the entire trip. Carrying a huge spread of sail wasn't particularly difficult unless things went wrong. The great difficulty was steering the boat in the following seas and strong breezes. This difficulty was compounded at night when it was cloudy or before the moon rose. Steering often proved to be a great mental as well as physical challenge for the entire crew.

"Another thing we expected and weren't disappointed was the continual rolling under the press of sail. The roll cycle was about 11 to 12 seconds and usually was from rail to rail. Add the large swell passing under the boat and you have a motion that is difficult to live with on a continuing basis. But we adjusted to that as well and moving about always required a hand simply to hang on with. Conditions below where always interesting but it didn’t keep us from our bunks, complete with a lee cloth used every day.

"Taking a shower in the head with dimension just large enough to stand and turn around while she rolled and pitched was always a challenge. The challenge was made more difficult because there was no outside view as horizontal reference. Imagine showering in a blender. It wasn't for the queasy, but personal hygene is a great motivator in the tropics.

"During the crossing 2 boats (65') were dismasted, a 48' blew out 3 spinnakers and a jenniker, 2 boats had steering failure, one boat was scuttled after the skipper was taken off after jumping overboard twice, and one boat was found adrift with no one on board."


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