Solo Atlantic Row 2011

Conditions over the past few days have continued to make progress slow as I snake my way South. With the winds predominantly in the ESE and E it is hard work even just to make West at times, with all the weather pushing me in a W/NW direction. The priority right now is to maintain progress South without heading too much further West- at this latitude the further West I go I am most likely just going to get Easterly winds at best, whereas heading South will hopefully bring in NE winds which I need. With any luck as I write this the weather will be starting to turn in my favour. A large depression over the Azores is sending down a northerly swell, height about 3-4m. Whilst this will create a cross swell here and make for a pretty uncomfortable 24 hours or so, it will really help to push...

The last 5 days have produced a mixed bag of weather that has culminated with me currently being on para-anchor whilst I get my head down with the winds having turned into the SE. A para anchor is used out the front of the boat to stop it in the water and slow the movement of the boat caused by the wind etc and with the weather pushing me north as we speak I took the decision to minimise this as much as possible whilst I get some sleep. With the strong weather a few weeks ago that pushed me West I was unable to get South as much as I would have wanted, meaning that the priority at the moment is now to get down under N20° before making any more great advancements West. With the winds likely to turn into the SE as I close in on Barbados, it...

Since my last blog the weather has turned fairly light which has made for some pleasant conditions the last few days. Both yesterday and today there have been long periods of a light breeze at most, making rowing fairly hard going. It is different to what I experienced heading out of the Canaries as I still have some current moving me along, so it isn’t quite the experience of treacle I had back then! With the light winds the seas calm down and it has been a quiet few days. With these conditions it has thus given me a chance to attend to the small maintenance jobs on the boat to keep her running in good order. Fortunately these has just been minor things, greasing the slide rail, replacing sheep skin, tightening steering etc. But also getting overboard and giving the hull a clean. The last 3 weeks have caused a...

As I hoped for in my last blog, the weather over the last few days has been good- fair winds and calm seas. Even with the drop in the conditions, I still have had 16-22knots most of the time and the swell has dropped to 1-3m. Even with this drop I have still been able to make some good progress and on day 19 I passed ¼ miles covered. As of now, Saturday night, I have rowed 764 miles with 1786 nm to go, which gives you a fair idea on how I am getting on. My body, which has been holding up pretty well since the beginning , is just starting to show small signs that the last few weeks are starting to have an effect. Nothing serious in any way and very much to be expected from the lifestyle I am currently leading! The main thing to be careful...

The sea state has now calmed enough to be able to write this blog, the last 4 days have thrown up some strong conditions that are now looking likely to be behind me with some slightly lighter, although still favourable, conditions for the coming days. The weekend brought with it some fairly high winds and big swell from the East. Over Saturday and Sunday the winds were reaching up to 27 knts and with a swell of 4-5m, controlling the boat proved more and more difficult. In these conditions good miles can be made if they can be harnessed, although quite often then main objective is just to keep the boat the right way up. This year alone I am following 5 boats across the Atlantic that have been capsized with 4 subsequently rescued so I was happy to go cautiously and make miles where I could and deploy a drogue...