Essential Things for this Passage

So to get the most of the crewing of the Rapier 400 a few items extra to dental floss and Gaviscon and other sailong essentials have been aquired.

My sail bag now has stuffed inside;

1. SELFIE STICK and Samsung Note 3 with photo and video software. Essential for the sunrise photo when alone on watch to look fantastic with a little bit of editing.

2.  Four Charts of this passage. Important to know where your start, where you are going, what's along the way where are you now, no really all essential get it wrong and the next stop could be USA. The boat will have its own but when Jane and I return it would be nice to have a passage and pilotage of our own.

3. Go Pro knock off with 3 batteries and 74gb storage for the Dolphins, Whales, Big Weather and sailing really really fast. Big winds promised from Ibiza to Cape of Vincent (Portugal)

4. Kindle to catch up on reading cruising is great but when a tack could last 2 hours and your not at the helm for 6 hours what else is there to do? Suggestion via blog comments please.

5. A blog. Something to do at airports that have the stores boarded up. Something to challenge a Dyslexic to beat predictI've text and spellerr checkers. Something to read in dotetage about the days when the body worked and the world seemed safer after all what's a Force 9 Gale.

ALL PART OF THE PLAN

Jane's gift for my Birthday is the longest sailing voyage its part of the plan

Yes there's a plan for our aspiration, our dream. To sail away to Med, across the Atlantic and back to Old Blighty.

This Blog is a record of planned passage (a sailors term for a trip/journey) to help bring a BroadBlue Rapier 400 from Ibiza to Falmouth, Cornwall, UK, and this is the latest and longest passage for me so far about 1600Nm excluding tacking. The boat is a 40' Catamaran capable of 16 knots (fast for a Sailboat) launched only a couple of years ago. if your interested in the Cat just click to the website http://www.broadblue.com/rapier400/

BroadBlue Rapier 400 at anchor

Why Sailing?

Its all down to Jane, my smart and beautiful wife. Last year on holiday in Greece walk along harbours after dinner Jane comment that for the price of the Resort Hotel we could have had a Boat.The next day at the hotel lounging on the beach with WiFi that reached the lapping shoreline (literally my feet were in the Med and Samsung Note in hand) I discovered that Jane was right, again! BUT if we wanted to get the most then of independent sailing we need to have "Sailing Papers" ideally become Skippers. As for the comparative price Jane was right we could have a boat and freedom as a Resort Hotel.

Jane and I qualified as RYA Day Skipper this May. In fact Jane has seniority as Skipper to me as she completed her written papers ahead of me, I was out on a 3 days sail. Since then we have sailed with family, friends and strangers (who have become friends, sailing is a friendly activity) on a various boats 36' FP Maha Catamaran, 40' Nautitech Open 40, a couple 36' Sloops, a 47' Pilot Saloon and 38' Nobby Manx Gaff. Since May Jane has accrued nearly 1000nm with a passage down the Atlantic Wall and I have nearly 2000Nm including 2 crossing of the English Channel at night.

Together we are sailing as much as we can as crew on different boats to gain time under the sail. Experience the good and not so good such as blowing up to a Force 8-9 Gale 9 (about 40 Knots up to 47 Knots), we got an hour worth of storm conditions, exhilarating, no really. Last weekend out on the Solent it blew to F6 (about 25-30 mph) at which point all the race boats disappeared and the Furling Line was jamming stopping us reducing foresail, we hauled in as much of the sail we could for a safe run home beart Lymmington. We accept the challenging times to help us on the future. All part of the plan.

Ibiza to Falmouth Cornwall

I will join the Rapier on 31st August in Ibiza. It is expected to sail out on the 2nd August latest, with passage taking 9 days and nights. The passage below is 1646Nm  but is probably going to be in the region of 1800Nm as we will be under sail and motor. There are 2 proposed stops of 12 hours for fuel, water and visiting bars, essential for good crew morale.

Well this is the first post and there will be others as I discovered 3G/4G Mobile Signals are good along the coasts.