lundi 21 septembre 2009

ANNEX



ROUTES AND PREDICTIONS
For the Atlantic there were 3 main approaches :
- Classical route : Trinidad to St Martaan to Bermuda to Horta : 3100M / 5kts / 24H = 26 days; 3100M / 6kts = 22 days; 3100M / 7kts = 18 days - This would have been the most secure route with the most company. The advantage of favorable winds might have been counter balanced by the risk of calms (confirmed by boats in Horta) so 6kts was more likely than 7kts. Also I didn’t want to be tempted by more land falls and was definitely not into classical.
- Impossible direct route : Trinidad to Horta : 2500M / 5kts = 21 days - this was very optimistic considering the high percentage of calms and head winds, so I think we would be closer to 25 days or more. This was my fist choice of a route. I would have liked to cut it as tights as possible up to the bottom of the high and tack our way E till we hit the winds from the N, but doubts about the engine and the trades oscillating to ENE made this difficult.
- Optimal route Trinidad to St Martaan to 38°N44°W to Horta 2600M / 6kts = 18 days. This was my final choice. It felt me a lot of latitude, complicated meteorological navigation and the possibility to make up for lost time. The risks of calms persisted but we could always fall back to the W. I estimated 24 days
From the Azores to Perpignan as complicated more by the unpredictability of the weather. 1700M in 12 days

STATS
Overall distance traveled: 4600M
Sailed: 4000M
Motored: 600M
Trinidad to Horta: 2660M / 18.5 days = 144M / day = 6kts
Horta to Malaga: 1267M / 9.5 days = 133M / day = 5.5kts
Malaga to Perpignan: 651M / 5 days = 130M / day = 5.4kts
Trinidad to Perpignan: 4578M / 33 days = 140M / day = 5.8kts

CREW
Pippo Lionni, owner and skipper, USA, France
Founding partner in Parisian design firm: L Design; education in philosophy and mathematics; extensive mountain climbing experience, 53 years old; fluent in English, French and Italian.
French BPPPN training (CFIST, TIS, CAEERS…); French Coastal and Off Shore Navigation Licenses; VHF/BLU license CRR and CRO; Member Union Nationale pour la Course au Large
Racing skipper Gotland Runt 2003, 05, 06; Blue water skipper over 9000 miles in the Atlantic, Baltic, North Sea…
Navigator with skipper Lionel Peon Antonisa LAO 124’ – Cannes-St Tropez (1st in compensated time) and Voiles de St Tropez (7th in group Spirit of Tradition) 2002

Esa Vesmanen, Finland
Founding partner in Pure Design, great cook, 42 years old, Finish Coastal Navigation Licenses, Blue water skipper Baltic, North Seas, Racing skipper Dragon and Folkbot class. Esa was responsible for food.

Jörgen Wallin, Sweden
Fluent in English and Swedish, 66 years old, Naval Architect - Yacht Designer - Boat builder - Surveyor. 50 years of cruising experience in the Baltic and North Sea., Off Shore racing since 1965, Gotland Runt; Baltic Race; Horn Cup, Skaw Race; Fastnet Race; Chanel Race; Plymoth - Ta Rochelle Race. Presently the owner of a 6MR yacht of my own design.

Juha Myöhänen, Finland
Fluent in English, Spanish and Finish, 35 years old

Jean-Loup Thiers, France (from Malaga to Perpignan)
Fluent in French, English and German; 37 years old, French caostal and Off shore nav licences. 4 years in the French Navy. Currently Aircraft structure Engineer and instructor; Light sailing boats practice, day and coastal cruise, some experience around Britany and on Mediteranean Sea. Currently co-owner of an Hobie Cat 18.

NAOMI
Sparkman and Stephens, Swan 411/22, made by Nautor, Finland 1978.
LOA: 12.44m, LWL: 10.33m, Beam: 3.64m, Draft: 2.22m, Displacement:10 800kg, Ballast: 5200kg, Mast height above water: 17.53 + 1.3 = 18.83 m, Engine: 47 HP 4 Cylinder Perkins 4.108 Marine Diesel;

SAILS INVENTORY
Mainsail - 33 m2 - Doyle 5 batten sets of reef points () 5 Mainsail battens
Stackpack, Doyle (Carib vs) 2 Doyle stackpack battens
Genoa 2 - 135% - 65 m2 - UK Kevlar tape drive RF
Genoa 3 – 95 % xx m2 - UK Carbon Fiber Tape Drive
Gennaker - 124 m2 - Northsails G-AP2 Norlon 150
Storm trysail
Storm jib 5 -

WATCH SYSTEM
After studying different possible watch systems and talking them over with my friend Claudio Stampi Chronobiology Research Institute, we settled on all of us doing a 4 hour watch system with the possibility of breaking the 4 hour watch into 2 hour watches in rough conditions. This went well for the first few days but I was up for my watches and up to solve problems during the other watch so i was starting to accumulate fatigue. We switched to a 3 hour on and 6 hour off one person watch with me on call. I got more sleep and in the middle of the sea we all got used to being alone at night. The other big problem was the tendency to consider ones off hours as off meaning that not much community work was getting done while crew members were resting 18 hours a day. For the most part the 3 hour system seems preferable.
COMMUNICATIONS
While in Trinidad, Horta and off the coast of Spain and France we used our mobile phones and wifi in harbors for email and weather maps. While offshore, we carried an Iridium satellite telephone, mostly to down load weather gribs and transfer email. To keep the spam from filling our mail box. We have all forgotten what the world was like at the beginning of email when the smallest letter took hours to down load - this is what it will be like for us. To keep the pipe clean of spam, images, logos etc. we sent out a combined email every couple of days and down load an email sent by Raffaella at L design. We called a couple of times while at sea but kept it at a minimum.

WEATHER DATA
Off shore I used Maxsea gribs once a day, down loaded through the Iridium phone, the barameter, and our eyes. In ports I down wifi downloaded NOAA ATLANTIC SURFACE FORCAST, ATLANTIC WIND AND WAVE FORCAST and ATLANTIC 500MB FORCAST maps. While in the Med the Maxsea gribs were useless.

WATER
We left Trinidad with 3 full tanks = 250 liters, plus 2 20 liter cans on the SB rail and 2 20 liter cans ready for abandoning ship in the cockpit locker. Total: 330 liters. We ran the water desalinator once to test it. We consumed : 2.5 liters of water per person from Trinidad to the Azores. From the Azores to Perpignan we had all the water we needed.

FUEL
We left Trinidad with 130 liters in the tank plus 10 20 liter cans in the fore and aft cabins. We consumed .....

MEDICAL
Other than a few rashes, a bit of constipation and a broken inlay we had no chronic sickness. I had one accident when I was hit by the main sail block during an accidental gybe. Nothing was broken, i disinfected and covered the bruises with Homoplasmine, took an Aspirin, slept for 3 hours and forgot about it. We carried an extensive medical chest which we luckily did not use.

FOOD
We carried about 1 kg of food per person per day which turned out to be too much. We had fresh food for the full crossing.

CLOTHES
I carried the following clothes in air tight plastic bags in the clothes locker which I never used :
Foundation garments: Underpants 4 pair, Long under pants shirts 1 pair, Light socks 4 pair, Heavy socks 1 pair, Undershirts cotton 6, Light shirts 2, Heavy shirts 2, Long pants 1, Bandana, Bathing suit; Intermediate layer: Insulation pants, Insulation sweaters 1, Wool sweaters; Outer layer: Musto Gloves: boat and wool, Glove liners, Goggles ski, Boat shoes
My foil weather gear close at hand: Outer layer: Musto Parka and pants, Warm hat, Boots Gortex, Heavy socks 1 pair
I Also had the following items in my bunk locker which i used and washed as needed : Foundation garments: Underpants 2 pair, Long under pants 1 pair, Undershirts cotton 2, Sun hat, Long pants 1, Short pants 2, Belt; Intermediate layer: Insulation sweaters 1, Crooks

BUDGET
The deal was to divide the following costs: Iridium rental and communications; food; cooking gas; fuel; life-raft inspection: charts, yard preparation other that regular upkeep and new installations; harbor fees, taxes, along the trip till final destination; eventual boat and sail repair :
estimated to be about 2000 euros per person. Total common costs came to about 6 250€.
I paid for boat costs, plus fuel costs in for the last leg of the journey.