This trip was really the completion of the first leg, France => Portugal.  My original itinerary was to sail directly from Les Sables to the Algarve, southern Portugal.  However, do to a delay in the commissioning, I left France 3 days late and could only sail to northern Portugal near Porto.  The next leg of my transatlantic adventure is from Portugal to Canary islands.  From southern Portugal this is a 600 nm bluewater voyage on the rhum line.  From Porto it is a good 950+ nm voyage.  I did not have enough time to complete the voyage from Porto to Canary islands in the time that I have allocated in November, so I decided to take a long weekend and complete the first leg.  This way I am sure that I can have the boat in the Canary islands on time for the ARC, and  participate in the transatlantic regatta to St. Lucia in the Caribbean.  Below is the Sea Si log entries for this trip.  The log is posted real time on a different website:  www.skymate.com  click on the weblog tab and you will find the Sea Si entries.

Sea Si Log

Oct. 6, 2007  Povoa de Varsim _/) Albufeira

Barometer:1028 millibars

Position:  N40.19 W09.11

Current conditions: Mostly cloudy, wind SSW 5 knots, seas flat.

The Sea Si crew for this short cruise included my wife, Joana; Antonio (his wife, Vanessa, was also supposed to be here, but couldn't make it) and Paulo, a dear friend from Tavira.  We left Povoa de Varsim after refueling at 9:30 am.  The barometer read 1028.5 millibars.  We had fog with a visibility of 300 meters.  The  wind, S < 5 knots; seas, less than 1 meter.  The first few hours on watch were spent looking for fishing/lobster trap buoys trying to avoid catching one and getting the propeller fouled.  It was a real obstacle course, but we made it out.  We were motorsailing heading SSW with a compass bearing of 220, however, there was absolutely no wind, so in reality we were just motoring with the main up.  The seas were flat calm and the sky was grey with fog for most of day.  We hoped that as the day progressed the sun would show and burn off the fog, but it didn't happen. At midday,  a pod of dolphins showed up and swam along the bow of the boat.  They are always entertaining to watch.  How effortlessly they can slip through the water and keep up with the boat never ceases to amaze me.  We had a late lunch. I prepared some lentils with rice and a salad with some fresh Portuguese goat cheese.  We still had some left over French bordeaux wine, so we were all set for vegetarian lunch.  After lunch, we took turns taking a siesta. Finally with the sunset the sun appeared and the visibility improved.  We still continued in a windless hole.  We were definitely in the middle of a High pressure.  The wind started shifting to the west as the night fell, but still not enough to sail, but it did help our motosailing and we were able to average 7.0 SOG for a good while.  We are settling into our night watch schedule and am writing the log just prior to my 9-12 turn.

Tito

Oct. 7, 2007Povoa de Varsim _/) Albufeira

Barometer:  1022.75

Current conditions:  Partly to mostly clouldy, wind N 5-10 knots, seas 1-2 meter swells.

The night was moonless and sky cleared up revealing stars we had never seen before.  So many stars as a matter of fact it was hard to identify the known constellations. You really learn to appreciate a GPS in this situation.  Either the clouds cover the stars and you can't see any or there are so many you are not sure which are the one you can comfortably identify.  The wind picked up and we rolled out the genoa and were actually motorsailing at  better than 7 knots for most of the night.  We were sailing about 8 - 10 miles form land  and a few miles from the shipping lanes.   We could barely see on the horizon the big cargo ships and tanker.   One of them, however, must have been coming form Porto, passed us up from behind less than a mile away from our aft port side and then crossed in front of us setting off all our radar alarms.  Antonio was on watch, and handled the situation perfectly, I came out of my cabin when I heard the alarms but everything was OK.  I stayed awake for a while and did a segment where the Portuguese coast has some dangerous rocks a few miles off shore (las islas Berlengas).  We could see the light house on these rocks about 2 or 3 miles away.  Paulo then woke up and did his 6 - 9 o'clock shift and I went back to sleep.  By day break we were approaching Lisbon. The weather had improved slightly, still not much wind, but at least it was favorable from the N.  The fog had lifted and the seas had a 1 -2 meter swell rolling through from the E.  If we would have had 5 more knots of wind it would have been perfect.  We continued motorsailing towards the southern tip of Portugal, Cabo de San Vicente.  The crew were entertained with their books, magazine or just absorbing the sun rays. 

At midday a pod of dolphins showed up again.  We pulled out the spinnaker and installed the sock and hoisted the sail after lunch and it added about a knot to our speed, but still had to motorsail.  For lunch we had chickpeas with a tomotoe sauce and fried eggs, rice and a lettuce and tomato salad.  After lunch, Joana and I laid on the bow trampoline for a long while watching the spinnaker fill and collapse with the wind, like one watches a fire burn the in the fireplace.  We chatted and discussed the details of my Atlantic crossing. 

We covered approximately 162 miles over the 24 hour period, mostly motorsailing at an average of  6.75 knots.  Not bad considering the engines were only being run at half throttle (75 amps) the  whole time.  The only problem I have identified, and I am not sure it is a problem, is the house battery voltage is around 11.9 to 12 V.  I am not sure whether the 72V/12V down converters are working properly, or if they are designed to maintain 12 volt charge instead of a healthy 12.5 or 13 volts.  I need to investigate this a bit more on my return to Miami.  However I suspect there is a problem here. 

Tito

Oct. 8, 2007Povoa de Varsim _/) Albufeira

Over night the house battery voltage continued to drop and went as low as 11.0 V.  I definitely have a problem recharging the house batteries underway.  I suspect one of the 72/12 charger is defective.  Each of these transformer is capable of delivering 25 amp, however, my amp load while running is usually between 30 -35 and may reach as high as 45.  I tried turning off the inverter and that help regain a bit of charge and brought the battery bank back to 11.5 volts.

Paulo did the 12 - 3 shift while we approached the Cabo de San Vicente(CSV).  We were sailing on a run, wing-to-wing with the main controlled with a preventer.  The wind picked up a bit last night and we were motorsailling at 7.5 knots most of the way.  When I took over from 3 - 6 the wind had shifted NEly and I changed the setup for a port broad reach.  I chose to pass the CSV about 8 miles off shore since it was another moonless night and I didn't want to worry about getting the propellers fouled in a fishing buoy.  We were close to shipping lanes and could clearly see the  big fellows out there, but at a healthy distance.   The wind and seas picked up, as one would expect close to these capes, and we started sailing.  Much to my pleasant surprise both motors were regenerating!  I was in mode 5 when the generator under the control of the platine did a system check and turned itself off.  I had been motorsailing till then, but decided to put the throttle in neutral to see how much wind there was.  I then engaged both throttles into forward gear, and it happened.  The port and starboard motors were both regenerating!  We sailed for the rest of night gradually losing speed as the wind subsided as we passed CSV.  Antonio took over the 6-9 shift and he continued sailing.  When I was awakened by my alarm it was about 9 am and we were sailing at 4.5 knots.  I turned on the motors and started motorsailing Albufeira, our destination.  We had sailed (motorsailed mostly), another 165 nm in 24 hours.  We are approximately 30 miles away to our port of call, and hope to be there about midday.  Tito