l'Olonnois : the movie :-)

Part I : Norway - Portugal
Part II: Madeira - Cape Verde

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Souvenirs du Cap Vert

Jolie lecture sur Tara Tari: Pêcheurs du Cap Vert  et une jolie photo, qui plaira aux collegues (allee de tourbillons de Karman generee par les sommets du Cap Vert)
Bonne semaine!
T.

Faux depart (False start)

English summary below

24/11/12, 17h UTC

Nous sommes partis Mercredi 21, et tout allait a merveille sur ce debut
de transat. Au grand largue, l'Olonnois filait a 6-7 noeuds en route
directe vers la Guadeloupe...

Sauf que 24h apres le depart, Jeudi 22 vers 11h, alors que je barrais,
j'entend un gros SCHLANG sous mes pieds. Au meme instant, la barre a
roue devient molle. Clairement, nous venions d'exploser une drosse de
barre, un cable en acier qui connecte la barre a roue au safran, via une
grosse piece circulaire appelee "le secteur" de barre. Aussitot,
j'enclenche le pilote automatique (qui agit directement sur le secteur),
et appelle le reste de l'equipage pour m'aider a acceder au secteur de
barre pour voir l'etendue des degats.

Et degats il y avait... La drosse bien sur, coupee net au niveau de la
gorge qui la guide sur le secteur. Mais ce n'etait pas tout. Au moment
ou la drosse a lache, le safran, pousse par la vague, envoie le secteur
de barre sur la butee du verin du pilote. Le choc cree une fissure qui
part quasiment du centre du secteur, et traverse un de ses rayons en
diagonal, en passant par un percage que l'on avait fait pour monter la
piece de connexion avec le verin du pilote. Bref, au moment ou l'on voit
ca, on comprend qu'il faut tout de suite arreter le pilote, qui, en
pompant, risque d'endommager encore plus le secteur! Nous sortons la
barre franche de secours, et mettons le bateau a la cape (genois a
contre, barre sous le vent), pour demonter completement le verin du
pilote. Le secteur est maintenant deconnecte de tout, rien (de plus) ne
peut lui arriver.

Nous essayons brievement de continuer notre route au portant, avec la
barre franche de secours. Intenable. Les efforts des vagues au portant
sont considerables, et le bras de levier de la barre de secours est trop
faible. Il nous sera tres difficile physiquement d'atteindre les
Antilles ainsi. Conclusion: il faut reparer, et vu les degats, cela
implique de rentrer a Mindelo...

Il y avait clairement de la deception dans l'air, mais je dois dire que
je suis assez fier de la facon dont l'equipage a reagi: la situation a
ete analysee froidement, et ce qui devait etre fait a ete fait pour la
gerer au mieux. Autrement dit, j'ai deux nenettes de compet' a bord.

Donc depuis Jeudi 13h, nous faisons route, en louvoyant, vers notre
point de depart. On remarque que les alizees, et la mer qui les
accompagne, sont comme une piste de ski, ca descend bien plus facilement
que ca se remonte, surtout avec notre bateau charge pour une transat!
Mais le but est proche: a l'heure ou je vous ecrit, nous remontons le
passage entre Sao Vicente et Santo Antao, et Mindelo est en vue.

Bilan: On va avoir du retard, on ne sait pas comment on va pouvoir
reparer, on n'a d'ailleurs pas encore pu verifier que tout va bien pour
le reste du gouvernail.
Mais dans notre malheur, nous avons eu un peu de chance. Tout le monde
est sain et sauf, et cette avarie aurait pu avoir arriver 8 jours apres
le depart, et non pas 24h. Dans ce cas la, il aurait ete inenvisageable
de faire demi-tour. Et il ne va pas sans dire que nous avons appris
deux-trois choses au passage.

"Haut les coeurs" donc, on va reparer tout ca et repartir. Et puis il
faut dire que le Cap Vert... y a pire comme endroit pour un sejour force!

Hop, la bise tout le monde,
T.


English summary:

We were sailing towards Guadeloupe for 24h. I was steering when I heard
a huge noise below my feet. We clearly had broken one of the two cables
connecting the wheel to the quadrant. As we examined the quadrant, we
found out that the shock caused it to crack. We therefore could not use
neither the wheel, nor the autopilot, which acts directly onto the
damaged quadrant. As it was impossible to repare such a damage at sea,
and sailing downwind with the (short) emergency tiller was found too
tiring, we had to turn around.

We are now approaching Mindelo, after 60h of sailing against the trade
winds with the emergency tiller.

Everyone is fine, and we found ourself lucky that this did not happen at
mid-trip. I'm quite proud of the crew who analyzed the situation
quietly, and acted perfectly.

The following tasks are now to check the whole steering system for
damage, repair, and sail away from Mindelo for the second time! All in
all, Cape Verde is not the worst place to be stuck in ;-)

Cheers!
T.

La visite de Maitre Coq

Le Vendee Globe est une course difficile pour les marins... et le materiel. Le bateau “Maitre Coq”, skippe par Jeremie Beyou en est la preuve. Rupture de la tete du verin qui fait basculer la quille de son bateau, et pouf... l'aventure s'arrete au Cap Vert. Pour etre precis, a Mindelo, ou nous l'avons vu arriver hier. Dur dur, on lui souhaite des courses plus chanceuses avec ce bateau qui a vraiment de la gueule.

Maitre Coq a son arrivee a Mindelo

Quant a nous, c'est depart imminent pour la transat. Probablement demain mercredi, puisque l'alize a l'air etabli. Souhaitez nous de la chance et du bon vent pour ces 16-17 jours de navigation!!

La bise tout le monde,

T.

Visiting Cape Verde

Hello everyone, here Eloise from L'Olonnois =)

I arrived on board last Friday and I will stay with Marie and Thomas until Guadeloupe so you may read a few posts from me during the coming weeks!

I arrived Friday night after a long long journey from Norway. Marie and Thomas welcomed me with a great dinner to make me feel like at home from the start and they succeeded! They have spend the few days before my arrival to prepare the boat for the crossing and we had plenty of time to visit around.

We started by a walk through the small local streets until the summit of a hill in Mindelo from where we had a great view of the bay “Porto Grande” where L'Olonnois is moored.

Sunday was dedicated to a visit of Santo Antao, the island next to Sao Vicente. The island is very dry on the coast, but the high mountains are often covered by humid clouds and they get very green (and wet...). We went there with the local ferry and explored a valley (riberia) on the northern side of the island. The mountains are very steep, some villages are attached on the ridges and the villagers have build some impressive terrace on which they cultivate many fruits and vegetables. People were very talkative, happy to speak a bit of French when they knew a few word and to hear our little Portuguese skills...

After such a long and exhausting hiking day, we decided that this Monday morning would be perfect without any morning alarm clock :) We took time to analyze the weather forecast and we might be able to leave in a couple of days! Therefore, the day was used to some various small tasks to get ready. We also tested the local habit of napping after lunch which we all appreciated! Tonight we will experiment the local night life, starting with a little restaurant recommended by our mooring-neighbors about which we will tell you more in the next post!

Final approach to Mindelo and first feelings on land.

Our last day at sea before we reached Cape Verde Islands was a very fine
day with sun and good wind. For several days we had begun to find
"flying fishes" on deck in the morning. And since the weather conditions
were now quiet, we decided that it was time to us these gifts from
Neptune to try to fish. We have two fishing lines on-board, one light
one for small fishes (as mackerel for example) and one stronger one for
bigger fishes. This day, we used the strong one... and that was a wise
choice! Half on hour later, we had a catch, and what a catch! "Vlad la
dorade" was 1.20m long and weighted close to 11 kg!! Thomas had to use
all his strength to roll the line in, and taking this monster on-board
had been another of a fight! A special thank you to Mathieu for the
fishing line, to Neil for the harpoon (with which we manage to take the
"over-fighting" fish on-board) and to Philippe for the diver knife. It
is now time to be creative to find ways to eat all this fish without
getting bored. We already tried the simple fish-in-the-pan way (good but
a little dry), the fish-cake (very good) and I made yesterday two big
sterilized cans (to be eaten later). Let's see what will be the idea of
the day!

We arrived then in Cape Verde in the evening of the day before
yesterday. We began to see land late in the morning but we didn't anchor
in the bay of Mindelo before the beginning of the night. Mindelo is
located in the island called Sao Vicente and the entrance of the bay is
facing a relatively narrow channel between Sao Vicente and Santo Antao
islands. We had read in the pilot that strong venturi effects could take
place in this channel. And venturi effect we had! The wind picked up
from 10-15 knots to 25 knots inside the channel, and with sharp
breaking waves and a 4 knots current straight in the face, the approach
was anything but quiet. The boat was strongly rolling from one side to
the other as we were pushed by the waves and despite our 6-7 knots of
speed over water, we were not sailing more then 2-3 knots over the
ground. When we finally reached the bay, it was dark already, and
orientating to find the anchorage place was not so easy, But we finally
made it and we set off the anchor just in time for a well deserved
"aperitif", followed by a good night of sleep (without boat watch or
change of sail in the middle of the night :-) ).

Yesterday, after a lazy morning, we touch land for the first time in 8
days. The first contact we had was with the people from the immigration
office and the maritime police. Both spoke French and all the
formalities were done in half an hour, way faster than we expected!
The city of Mindelo is relatively small but full of people. Streets are
definitely a place like any other to be sited, chatting, doing some
small repair jobs, selling fruits or cigarettes... and together with the
noise of the cars, taxis and buses, this gives the foreigner a feeling
of "life". Mindelo is miles away from all memories I have from Africa,
the streets are very clean, there are supermarkets around each corner,
pubs and restaurants all over the city... but one thing is definitely
the same than in my memories from Ivory Coast some 15 years ago, it is
the smile over people's faces and their tendency to help promptly even
without you asking, the dogs laying everywhere in the streets and a
certain amount of begging people here and there.

The plan for today is getting done with the repairs/maintenance we have
to do before the transat, find an internet connection to get the weather
forecast, wander through the city, do some fresh food shopping and
invite our neighbors for a drink!

Have a nice day everyone!