Chris Parker's Personal Blog – Flying, sailing and photography, mostly. And gadgets.
We’ve arrived in Cape Verde at the end of Leg 1 of the ARC+ 2022. We had a wonderful sail here – 860 nautical miles – and have had a few relaxing days before we set out across the Atlantic on Friday.
There’s much more on Karen’s Travel blog and our Mistral Sailing blog.
We collected Mistral of Portsmouth at the beginning of August, and with the help of Bill, Sheila, Laura and Rory, we sailed her from Gruissan in France to Palma, Mallorca.
Since then we’ve been based in Palma. Quite a few friends and family have visited including Laura H, Calum, Ceri, Isobel, Mia, Tilly, Shirley, Jane H and Janice. More to come!
Mike of Guardian Yacht Services has been a great help with finding experts to repair and improve the boat. And there have been a few things to fix – tender motor, mainsail furling, a tear in the genoa to mention a few.
So far, apart from fixing broken things and learning how to splice dyneema into soft shackles, we’ve visited Andratx, Cala Blanca, Las Isletas, Soller, Deia, Pollensa, Port-Petro, Laguna del Salobra, some of those in the course of sailing around Mallorca. And now the weather is starting to cool down, we’re enjoying Palma even more.
Read more on Polarsteps and Mistral Sailing.
A few images from my Ricoh Theta SC 360 degree camera. Click and drag to see the whole image.
Finikas, Syros, Greece
Naxos, Greece
Naxos, Greece
Mykonos, Greece
Mykonos Seabus, Greece
B787 flight deck
Family fun in 2016
httpv://youtu.be/pokOLyLiuCw
The annual Round the island Race, round the Isle of Wight, that is, took place this year on 2 July. We entered, as usual, with some friends, having sailed the Solent for the previous few days.
Conditions were challenging, at times, but the big disappointment was the genoa jamming as we tried to take it down towards the end of the race. Hey ho, we had fun and there’s always next year.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98DyMhnRpJU
Music by Josh Woodward (buy it!), cameras were two Drift HD Ghosts and a Drift Stealth 2.
Preparing for the Round The Island Race 2014:
httpv://youtu.be/C8Skpmff6pE
A new website, Faces of Britain, is collecting portraits to commemorate the events of 2012. My team photo from the Round the Island Race made it into the Isle of Wight section!
I’m so proud of my team.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oXItwWi4Jw
After waking up in Swanwick Marina at 0350 we motored across to the start line at Cowes for our 0640 start. Conditions were pretty tough. We experienced Force 7 most of the day and we sailed with two reefs in the main until the last couple of hours. There was a massive swell at the back of the island – some commentators put it at 20 feet – which made the broad reach a real surfing experience.
Our tactics were “Stay out of trouble” which broadly succeeded! If in doubt, we chickened out.
We raced a Bénéteau Oceanis 43 in the ISC Class 4 Race. 180 boats entered this class but only 132 completed the race. Our time was 9 hours and 36 minutes, placing us 118th on handicap in our class and 25th in our sub-class.
All in all, over 1900 boats entered the race but only 1302 finished. The radio was alive all day with Mayday and Pan calls all day. We saw four boats dismasted and at least two multihull boats capsized. There were two man-overboard incidents. We witnessed four boats aground on Ryde Sands – we only avoided it by 100 yards or so.
Thank you Karen, Jonathan, Subhrendu, Simon C, Simon P, Tony, Robin, Claire and Esmy for helping to make the weekend safe and enjoyable. And thank you to Universal Yachting for letting us borrow their yacht, and of course thanks to the Island Sailing Club for organising it all.
Links: Slideshow from the Official Photographer Videos on YouTube Official Website Emergencies Galore Sailors rescued in rough conditions
(Next year’s race is 30 June!)
I’ve just discovered Windguru. It’s a weather forecast website aimed at sailors of all types.
There are highly detailed forecasts for many areas, and best of all, the basic service is free!
[iframe_loader src=”http://www.windguru.cz/int/distr_iframe.php?u=496443&s=275791&c=30cead9ea3″]
Yachtmaster (Offshore) Course complete, followed by Powerboat Level 2 and Powerboat Advanced. That’s all the sailing until we pick up our charter boat for our Greek holiday.
Thanks to all the Hot Liquid and Duck-2-Water Instructors for their patience, and all the new friends I’ve made along the way.
Some recent photos:
There are more photos on my Mobile Me site (and on Flickr): Yachtmaster Week 1 Yachtmaster Week 2 Yachtmaster Week 3 Yachtmaster Week 4 Yachtmaster Week 5 Yachtmaster Week 6
Not much in the way of blogging recently, I’m in the middle of a seven-week Yachtmaster Course. Here are a few images taken in the Solent, the English Channel, Cherbourg and the Channel Islands.
There are more photos on my Mobile Me site (and on Flickr): Yachtmaster Week 1 Yachtmaster Week 2 Yachtmaster Week 3