Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
02h00 GMT 29 January 2014
02h00 GMT
We have 20nm to go...
Winds currently 20-25 from behind...9-12knots boat speed..
Nice swell with occasional surf (just like the brochure said for the race...ha ha)
We have 20nm to go...
Winds currently 20-25 from behind...9-12knots boat speed..
Nice swell with occasional surf (just like the brochure said for the race...ha ha)
"YOLO 25NM"
We have reached the 25NM mark.. and have reported to Echo
21 already.
Currently 20 knots from behind and doing 8-10k
all nicely shaven....TRADITION!!!
With 40NM.. Skipper comes out of the Companionway..
has become a tradition with the Skipper(besides
the last race) where he disappears and reappears as his former self.. much to
the amusement of the crew..
Ian Coward at the beginning of his last night at sea..
He has been challenged to wear his beard for a month on
his return to South Africa.. Lets see if he has the courage.
30NM from RIO...
Hi All,
30NM from finish.
Currently have 20 knots from behind. Doing roughly 8knots.
Expect it to slow down later.
s/y YOLO
Picture of the skippers hands...
Although we wear gloves most of the time while working
the boat, the conditions take their toll...
LAND HO!!!!!
LAND HO
winds are currently 10-20 knots, nice angle.. Land in
sight..
Currently we can tune into the Brazilian radio stations,
We are sailing at good speeds.. 8.5-10 knots. very nice sailing.. and fun to be
at the helm again.
Conditions are very hot, in the 30's.. hot and humid
below decks..
Our ETA is still around just after sunrise or thereabout
as we still expect a light patch.. but who knows...
All well aboard s/y YOLO.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Oil fields and more...28 January 2014
Been some evening.. With a nice breeze up the Chuff..
between knots.. Problem is that there is a SW swell set.. The swell is around 3
metres plus the normal sea state in line with the wind.. So we would go
barrelling along with swells sweeping as side on with some rolling to boot. A
difficult course to hold.. and quite disorientating as there has been no moon
to speak of and most of the sky covered with wind cloud.. Still we did our best
and got some good miles done in this period.
Early AM had us sailing through the Oil Fields.. This is
an area which are full of oil rigs.. and their support craft.. so one needs to
be wily.. So a busy evening.
Yesterday during the day, Yolo spent most of the day
tight reaching in a light breeze of 7-10 knots.. Again with the SW set a
"rolly" day, but due to it being a tight angle (as planned) good
speeds were maintained. At the Oil field we encountered lots of maritime
traffic and then picked up a current change. Right now we have just over 150NM
to Rio. Our wind forecast should be OK till we are in the final
50 miles or so... and then the lottery begins. We will
have to monitor.
How technology has changed.. we now monitor the maritme
traffic with AIS.. where we can view they other vessels speeds, directions,
distance from us etc..
position report 10am (SA time) 27 January 2014
Our position this AM is as follows:
S23-08-95
W37-21-39
almost there....27 January 2014
This past 24 hours has bee reasonable in progress.. still
with its light patches and shifty conditions and the usual cloud effects.
Winds have been low but our angle is quite hot so it has helped to keep up our
numbers. As things stand our ETA is Wednesday.
Saying this, there is a light
pressure zone that is slowly moving Westward behind us we need to be mindful
of.. as if it does there is nothing we
can do.. also not to mention the Caabo Frio to Rio section which is known to be
very light.. We will try for best vector into this zone then the rest is out of
our hands.. Many a position has been won or lost in this last 50 Zone.
24 hours
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
race within a race...news 26 January 2014....
Yesterday started with some good breeze. As the day bore
on the breeze increased and eventually went forward with us sailing a bit lower
then our layline but sailing at a good pace. By mid afternoon we decided to
sail best VMG and did some sail changes and a course adjustment.. soon after,
some more sail changes as the breeze slowly sucked away.
We spent
2-3 hours in
near no wind conditions and then slowly in the early evening the breeze
filtered back, with some more sail changes and during the course of the night
the breeze setting in for a more reliable evening of sailing. Good VMG was made
throughout the night. We are happy with our vector at this point in
time. Hopefully the winds will play ball.
All well aboard. Focussed on Perie Banou to try and beat
them on corrected time. Right now both boats are roughly committed to their
final routings and then there is the inevitable Cabo Frio to Rio Passage...
where it can be a lottery..
news 25 January 2014
Yesterday am started with good breeze.. there was also a
little birdlife noted in the AM. Our highlight was us passing a tanker. It is
really amazing looking on your AIS and figuring out how far away they are,
their heading and speed.. simply by watching a screen. The ship can see us in
the same way as well as we have a proper AIS transponder.. On Yolo we can watch
it on the laptop plugged in or on the tablets via wireless.. we have this
function wireless aboard.
As the afternoon wore on the winds died away a bit
which meant we needed to sail higher then best VMG to keep the kite filled. It
went down to around 6knots.. This carried on into the early evening.. at the
same time there were lots of oscillations so continual trimming was required.
During the Evening we needed to gybe few
times and do another kite change. Early this AM we noted the outer core chafing
on the guy, whcih required setting a temp guy while we did the repair.. As I
write it, the repair is underway.. and then we will switch to the original
again.
Perie Banou is our main competition for now. They are
playing a good game.. and it would seem in the dead downwind in the light stuff
they are quicker. Yolo does not like Dead downwind.. so hopefully sailing
better to our Polars will help.
Currently we are sailing close to VMG Making fair
progress. Our speed is currently 7.5ish knots.. and we have around 612 miles to
go.
position report 10am (SA time ) 25 January 2014
Our position this AM is as follows:
S23-04-75
W32-02-10
Friday, January 24, 2014
BLOG report DAY 20...
This past 24 hours has been quite pleasant, besides a
couple of hours yesterday afternoon when the wind dropped and left us going
slowly for a while, other then that pleasant sailing.. No sightings yesterday
except for some Fairy Terns. Assume they are based off the Island of Martin Vaz
of Trinidade, the Islands we are passing that are over 100NM to the North of
us.
We are keeping tabs on our nearest opponent Perie Banou
who seems to be holding onto the lead.. I think it will come down to the crunch
right at the end who will be the decider.. and who transits the Cabo Frio-Rio
section. This section in known to be a bit of a lottery, windless at times,
with the winds varying with the different times of the day. We are working
closely with our routing software to vector in on the best angles for Cabo
Frio. There is still a lot of distance between us and the finish and need to be
careful.. the weather can also throw some curve balls at us.
Temperatures are now very hot with water temperatures at
27.5 deg. We try to keep in the shade as much as possible.
position report 10am (SA time) 24 January 2014 - DAY 20
Our position this AM is as follows:
S22-51-11
W29-32-92
Thursday, January 23, 2014
BLOG report - 23 January 2014 10am (SA time)
Over the past 24 hours, we have had fairly good breeze..
besides the rain clouds yesterday morning which were quite vicious as they
brought up to 30 knots suddenly with them.
Yesterday YOLO sighted two fishing
vessels.
At the moment YOLO is making good VMG. We are currently sailing in
15 knots, with a cross sea state of around 1.5 metres.. so awkward to steer.
All
well aboard.
position report 10am (SA time) 23 January 2014
Our position this AM is as follows:
S22-21-84
W27-02-19
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
update 22 January 2014..
This past 24 hours has thrown everything at us.. from
clams with sloppy seas having us drop all our sails to wait for new breeze
again.. to nice breeze, rain clouds with up to 30 knots in it, which sometimes
has us dropping the kite in a hurry if it is the light one up.. over this past
hour we have had a rain squall come in at 35 knots necessitating a hurried drop
of the kite and a hoist of the jib to transit the Zone.
Overall the night has
had good speeds for which we are happy with and can hopefully make up for
yesterday's dismal day... Up ahead we are hoping for reasonable breeze and VMG
today and some of tomorrow but expect a 6 hour patch tomorrow to be very
light.. We will keep watching the gribs to see if it changes.
We are asked about our ETA.. Always hard to predict...
but we guess conservative around next Wed.
position report 10am (SA time) 22 January 2014
Our Position as at this AM is:
S21-18-05
W24-32-77
s/v YOLO
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
news...21 January 2014
These past 24 hours have been frustrating.. with light
winds. During the day yesterday it was fickle with wind shifts and chaning
strenths, at Sunset the winds died down and shifted, so after almost 2 weeks the
jib was hoisted again for about an hour when it all died down to nothing. With
the sea swell the main was slatting a lot so it was dropped as we were not
moving anyway.. This gave us a chance to attend to any chafe issues. Main was
down for 2 hours.. and then the rainclouds fired up.. With us quickly
rehoisting, getting the kite working and off we went.. But after every
raincloud there is a calm. and this is how the night went.. with lots of
shifts..
The conditions last night were exactly as our Gribs
forecasted.. so not a surprise.. just makes it a very slow crossing.
As one can see a definite split in the fleet between the
fast and the slow boats.. The fast boats managed to sail and stay ahead of the
weather system whereas the slow boats could not outrun it.. Leaving us
"wallowing"
All well aboard Yolo this Am.
BEst to All.
Monday, January 20, 2014
position report 10am (SA time) 21 January 2014
Our position this AM is as follows:
S20-30-56
W22-32-39
Frustrating night past.. with lots of dead calms and rain
clouds in between..
shift and sleep patterns on board YOLO...
We are often asked how we manage this being Double
handed. Firstly we always maintain a watch..24/7. We operate on a two hours on,
two hours off.. this ensures optimal helming and during the day limiting
exposure to the sun. This does not mean the rest of the time is R&R time..
there is navigation that happens, maintenance, cooking, cleaning.. So ideally
one tries to catnap during the day an then during the night-hours to get around 1.5 hours at a time.. this can leave one at times wanting
for more.. but this is how we do it.
Temperatures aboard are hot, currently
with a water temp of 25.5deg, So nights are hot and humid and daytime is hot
hot. With little wind it aggravates things..
Aboard we try and helm as much by hand rather then the self steering, this
saves power and hopefully allows us to optimize as well as to keep us
occupied.
position report 10am (SA time) 20 January 2014
Our Position this AM is as follows:
S20-26-29
W20-57-98
Sunday, January 19, 2014
NEWS from YOLO 19 January 2014
Yesterday AM Yolo had good breeze but as the day wore on
the winds became fickle again with lots of kite changes and Gybes to be had.
Looking at the breeze it looks like the tail enders will benefit most as Yolo
has been concertinad into the system. AS the system changes those behind are
less affected. Yolo now needs to sail her "socks" off to have any
chance of a podium. The moon is rising later and later and soon we will have no
moon at all.. making for dark sailing unless we have clear skies.. which we
have not experienced too much of late. The water temperature has been up to 25
degrees but is now back to 24.5.
Conditions are very hot during the day.. With one taking every precaution against the sun.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
news from YOLO 18 January 2014
Hi all,
This last 24 hours has been a bit improved.
We still made
some more Northing till late yesterday, when at sunset we gybed and made more
Westward. Most of the day has been filled with wind and a slightly confused sea
making steering awkward. The moon rose slightly later last night with it giving
a bright seaway to sail in. No need for torches to find thing.. Our current
strategy is to work westward but we are aware that there are still light
patches ahead.. Hopefully we will able to skirt it by gybing and Northing
again.. We will have to see.
Friday, January 17, 2014
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