Northern Child Passage Log

Northern Child daily log 8th December 2009

Daily Log Number 16, ARC 2009, Tuesday 8th December. 1900 UTC
Position: Rodney Bay Marina!

We've arrived - 15 days and 4 hours after having left from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Our fastest run since sailing Northern Childs' first ARC in 2001, when we think we arrived just before last light. Each of the last nine years has fitted into the pattern of the earliest arrival on the Monday and the latest arrival on the Friday of this week. Arrival date obviously depends on the wind and the route sailed: this year we have been lucky and have been able to sail on the rhumb line, the shortest distance between Las Palmas and St Lucia and we have sailed a total of 2,764 miles.

On board the atmosphere is one of excitement, satisfaction of a job well done and a certain amount of disbelief that it is all over. Land and normal life are so very different to the routine we have had on board over the last 15 days, and it will take a certain amount of time before we return to normal. I am not sure whether the inevitable hangover will help or not....

Our run into the finish was very exciting - the wind came forward enough for us to set our reaching asymmetric spinnaker 15 miles out from the northern most point of St Lucia, and once the asymmetric was up and pulling we unrolled the big genoa and swapped him out for our smaller heavy weather jib. The last mile into the finish is upwind and it is normally a sound move to put up a small headsail - after the repair holding all the way across the Atlantic it might have been pushing the big sail a bit too much I feel! As we sailed closer and closer on to the north tip of the Island, it became apparent that we were part of a group of four yachts all heading in at the same time - A Beneteau 47.7, who owes us a huge amount of time on handicap in our class is right alongside us, also with a spinnaker up; great fun.

A big cheer for ourselves as we finally crossed the line, everyone safe and sound. Sails down and stowed away, motor on and in through the cut into the marina in a huge tropical downpour! Looking at drenched people as we enter I can see a whole range of emotions - pride, sadness, excitement as well as disbelief that it is raining! The mooring lines get passed ashore, the motor off, calm descends. For a second and then, mayhem! Rum punches are handed over by the ARC organisers and champagne opened by the crew - let the festivities commence!

I have put together these logs for you, the readers: I hope that you have enjoyed following our progress across the ocean and if you feel persuaded to try a little of what we have experienced then please come and join us in the future - more on www.northernchild.com Thanks to each and every crew member, you have made this ARC your own; let's hope we all sail together again sometime in the future. Thanks as always to home office support, my wife Magali; you have put together a great crew for us to enjoy this ARC, thank you for all your email support and for posting the logs.

That's it for now, we have a rendezvous scheduled with the crew on the beach at Spinnakers Bar for an afternoon involving sun, rum and fun! Julian, Northern Child. THE END

Northern Child daily log 7th December 2009

Daily Log Number 15, ARC 2009, Monday 7th December.
Position: 14.03N 60.32W

Having been threatened with big winds for the last 24 hours we were hoping for a quick run in to St Lucia. This hasn't happened: what did happen last night was a horrible cross swell that chucked the off watch around in their bunks so much, that it was one of the most uncomfortable nights of the passage. Oh well, almost in!

As I write this it's 8am local time and with 29 degrees at the chart table and more on deck it's very hot. We are now only 33 miles from the north tip of St Lucia and with the four hour time difference we should cross the finish line at about 1300 local time or 1700UTC. A perfect time to arrive - with enough time to check in with customs, have a quick drink and a shower and then off to dinner. We couldn't time it better if we tried.

A quick Happy Birthday to Victoria, Simon's wife - we will make sure that Simon celebrates your birthday for you tonight!

Now that we are so close, or maybe even in St Lucia by the time you read this, can I remind you that it is much cheaper if you are contacting people on board to do so using their normal email address and cellphone numbers. There are plenty of Internet access points, blackberries should work and the majority of service providers have roaming agreements with the Caribbean networks.

Most of the crew have booked into a hotel for the night tonight to unwind with airconditioning and long showers. Our crew meal tonight will be at Spinnakers on the beach overlooking the finishing line: Steve Nelson has brought forward his flight to Tuesday so that he can get his eye looked at in the UK, so this will be our celebration of the last 3 weeks together - don't expect to have too many coherent conversations on Tuesday morning if you are calling one of the crew!

As I mentioned above, Steve's eye has steadily improved over the last few days and yet again there has been good improvement overnight, but in reality he needs a proper ophthalmic doctor to decide what to do next. Luckily Steve has managed to bring forward his flight to Tuesday, so he should be in the UK and having his eye examined on Wednesday. Steve, you've been a great crewmate, your patience and advice with all things to do with computers has been most appreciated. We wish you best wishes for continuing improvement with your eye and a total cure.

As I finish this log we are now 25 miles from our waypoint off the north tip of St Lucia and then it's a half hour run to the finish line. Everyone on board is getting pretty excited and both watches are on deck, anxiously scanning for the first glimpse of St Lucia. There will be one more log after our arrival in Rodney Bay Marina to wrap up the log. For the moment, a bientot, Julian, Northern Child

Land Ho!! Just before pushing the send button there was a cry from on deck - land in sight, brilliant!

Northern Child's daily log 5th December 2009

Daily Log Number 13, ARC 2009, Saturday 5th December. 1240 UTC
Position: 15.23N 54.32W

This morning's log marks a very sad occasion for me, the last owner and current skipper of Northern Child. Last night I lost an old and trusted friend; I know it's inevitable, life passes and life goes on in his absence. One can only hope that the big American spinnaker is floating around somewhere, together with the blue and yellow spinnaker, in spinnaker heaven! What are you going on about, skipper? I am sorry to report the demise of the trusty Big American spinnaker. In the darkest part of the night, a nameless watch had what is commonly called in the trade a clusterf..k. The result of said incident, after 20 minutes of retrieving bits of sail from the ocean, is that the American is no more. No longer shall his bright red, blue and white colours lead us forward, dancing over the ocean waves. No longer will he guide us along our moon-path to St Lucia. The American special relationship with Northern Child is at an end. Farewell friend. Rest in Peace.


A fitting send off for a trusted friend, don't you think? There is always good news as well, and the good news is that no one was injured, we are still heading for St Lucia, the sun is out and it is 29 degrees centigrade at the chart table already at 0830. Of the three spinnakers we are carrying, two have fallen by the wayside in the last couple of days and so we were nervous about flying another one last night. The consequence of having a comfortable, stress free night is that we have lost some miles on the opposition. I have to get back from current, preserving the boat mode, to pushing hard mode and at the moment it's not happening; instead we're enjoying breakfast on deck in the sunshine watching the waves rushing by. I'm sure that if I smoked cigars, it would be one of those sit back, chill out cigar moments. I don't, so breakfast it is instead.


As I write this the sun has been up for an hour and we have just crossed the 400 mile to St Lucia mark. With a couple more good days runs, we should be able to nail this on Monday - pretty good really. My personal objective is just to try and get the crew across the finish line in the light if possible, as it so much nicer to approach the Island during the day. To us, having sailed 2,300 miles to get here, the remaining 400 miles don't seem that far, but the reality is that it is still five times the cross channel distance from the Hamble to Cherbourg. The winds look set good for the remainder of the trip, and in fact what we on Northern Child are now looking for is good, strong winds to have a really strong run in to the finish. There is the prospect of increasing winds in the next 24 hours, so fingers crossed.

Having finished the brief resume's of the rest of the motley crew, it's time for me. I'm 39 years old again (not likely, someone's muttering, plus 7 is more like it...) and married to Magali with two boys, Pierre and Max; without a doubt the best thing I've ever done. I went to Sandhurst Military Academy as a youngster, served in the British Army for six years and have been sailing professionally for the last 22. In 2001, my French wife, Magali and myself decided to buy Northern Child and have run her around the Atlantic circuit every year since: winter in the Caribbean, early summer in the UK and late summer in the Mediterranean. This is my 13th ARC Rally from Las Palmas to Barbados and more recently St Lucia. A year ago we sold Northern Child to Christian and Lucy and I am continuing the boat handover with them, whilst Magali looks after the bookings of clients from our home office in France.

Wheels and pilot Steve have an unlikely story, but I shall repeat it anyway.... bear in mind whilst reading this that Steve is a pilot. During one of their night watches they saw what they first of all considered to be a falling star in the infinity of space, but as it changed colour from white to orange to red, they realised it was a meteorite and it was going to splash down pretty close to the boat. The object disintegrated as it neared the surface of the sea and they estimated the splash down within a mile of the boat. Of course my first question to them was ‘what happened to the little green men....’

I am delighted to be able to report that we have had a big improvement with Steve’s eye this morning, which obviously is a huge relief to both Steve and myself. Doctor Julian will continue the treatment for another 24 hours, and we will review the situation again tomorrow morning.
Despite our trials and tribulations we have covered 179 miles in the last 24 hours towards St Lucia and now have 380 miles left to run. If everything goes okay from now on, a big if (!), we could arrive in daylight on Monday. A bientot, Julian, Northern Child.

Northern Child's daily log 3rd December 2009

Daily Log Number 11, ARC 2009, Thursday 3rd December. 1240 UTC
Position: 18.09N 49.07W

It's raining again... I can hear the song in my head, but I just can't sing it! I turned on the radar a minute ago and all I got was rain showers all over the place, behind us, both sides, everywhere. There is absolutely no way the watch on deck can do anything other than laugh as they sit through yet another squall. Most squalls don't really come to much, but some - wow, do they dump rain and at the same time the wind shoots up. In fact over the last 24 hours the only time we have felt like we are going well is when we have been under a squall.

It's now mid morning out here on the ocean and still with little wind but a better direction, we have been able to put the Swedish spinnaker back up and are at last going reasonably well again. Having just said that, there is a big black ugly cloud behind us bearing down on us like a freight train. I will have to just go and take a look. Okay, that was easy, it looked horrible with a sheet of rain being blown horizontally out towards us; we reversed the process, spinnaker down and headsail out - we're getting quite good at this now.

We do have some great, unique moments out here; dolphins are always welcome, and indeed last night both watches were kept company for a while by dolphins. During the afternoon we were being chased down by another rain squall and Wheels was driving; behind her and in front of the cloud was a perfect rainbow, framing her like half a halo, horizon to horizon, it couldn't have arranged itself better.

The big event of the day was that with the boat speed dropping to almost zero and a gap in the squalls, Rebecka pleaded with us for a swim and won - hope that you like the picture of most of the crew in the water. Quite a lot of funny suntans, aren't there? It was a very brief window of opportunity and we picked up another squall within minutes of getting back aboard, so we were very lucky.


Today's featured star is Juha from Finland. Juha is 49 with his 50th coming up in February, and decided that having celebrated his 40th by driving a formula 1 car, he would celebrate his 50th by sailing across the Atlantic ocean. Juha is married to Seija, and has four children Timi, Tiia, Noona and Patricia. He makes his living as an entrepreneur and lives in Tampere which is 170 kilometers from Helsinki. Juha started sailing dinghies and for the last 10 years has cruised every year in the Mediterranean with his family. Juha is normally at his happiest when we are trying to get a spinnaker down in too much wind, and he can wrestle the out of control cloth down with lots of Finnish exclamations.

We have had a slow 24 hours, very slow, but have managed to sail 125 miles towards St Lucia which is a bit of a miracle really. Having taken the opportunity to have a mid Atlantic swim, however, we don't feel upset and look forward to the wind picking up again later today. We are still trying to treat Steve's eye infection and again just have to be patient to allow the medicines time to work. A bientot, Julian

Northern Child's daily log 2nd December 2009

Daily Log Number 10, ARC 2009, Wednesday 2nd December. 1240 UTC
Position: 19.09N 47.16W

We have had rain in the last 24 hours, a lot of rain in fact. Both watches have received equal deluges and therefore no one feels left out..... As we discussed yesterday, the other downside to where we are is the lack of breeze which has meant progress has been a little slower than late - oh, how I do hate being right!

The practical problem we are finding with the weather pattern at the moment is that with continual rain clouds and squalls bearing down on us wind direction and speed is extremely variable. You come up with a surefire idea about sail trim or putting up a spinnaker or whatever it is, and then almost immediately when you've made the change the wind alters yet again and what you did proves to be totally unworkable! Of course there are three ways out of this: 1 Give up and motor - no way. 2 Just chill, drink rum and think that the wind will come good when the wind comes good - hmmm, not sure that is a Julian solution. 3 Make the crew work harder by trying lots of ideas. Ah, now we're talking. In the last two hours alone, Christian's watch of Vladimir, Steve Nelson, Robert, Rebecka and Juha have had a rain shower with 20 knots, beat into the wind with the boat heeling over at 30 degrees so that the starboard side deck is under water, put a reef in and out, run out of wind and put the spinnaker back up. It's a good idea to keep people busy! What fun they're having.

Simon's watch had dolphins in the moonlight last night - ahhh. Luckily the dolphins were on the moonlit side of the boat so that the crew were able to see them jumping and diving through the silvery waves. That was without a doubt an extremely precious moment on board.

Steve Nelson has had an eye infection for a few days and we have been treating it with a fairly first aid type approach. We haven't been able to clear it up however, so this morning we made use of radio medical advice and used the satellite phone to talk with an A and E doctor in a hospital in Portsmouth via Falmouth coastguard. There is a system in place where the coastguard can almost get an instant connection to a doctor for us, but in this case the very helpful lady doctor wanted to refer it to an eye consultant. Wait for this though, within 20 minutes they had got back to us with an answer - how amazing is that when we are in the middle of the ocean? On board Northern Child we carry a huge inventory of controlled and prescription drugs, and we have been able to match two different eye medicines with the recommendations from the Portsmouth eye specialist. We have started a new treatment regime with the addition of Dexamethasone sodium phosphate which we will carry out for 24 hours before reviewing the situation - we'll let you know how we get on.

Two pictures of crew members today. The first is of Robert who spent 35 years all over the world working for the UN. He is married to Sandra and has three children Marc, Rachel and Paul, together with 2 grandchildren and a third on the way. He started sailing dinghies 35 years ago with Sandra, and for the last 10 years they have moved onto sailing cruising boats with friends. Robert has also sailed an ocean passage on a 48 foot ketch from Phuket to Sri Lanka. He has had a longstanding ambition to sail the Atlantic and has found it to be the experience of a lifetime. 'I have enjoyed every minute of it, there's been no downside at all.' We are looking forward to meeting Sandra who will be joining Robert In St Lucia next Wednesday.

The second picture is of Vladimir, our Russian crew mate. Vladimir comes from a little place in Siberia, the closest city being Krasnogarsk, 4,500 kilometers from Moscow. He is married to Olga with two sons Ivan and Stepan. Vladimir started teaching himself English 3 years ago because there was no one in his area he could learn it from .... Since childhood, Vladimir has always had the idea in his mind that he wanted to be a sailor, and started with 2 weeks at a sea school in Gibraltar in 2006, there not being many sailing opportunities for him in Siberia. In 2008 Vladimir sailed on the Costa Brava for two weeks, again with an English sailing school and is now sailing his dream, the Atlantic, on Northern Child.

Over the last 24 hour period we have sailed 175 miles towards St Lucia in very tricky conditions, so we are delighted with that result. We now have 835 miles to run, although the next 24 hours will be pretty light, there being only 9 knots of wind at the moment. A bientot, Julian, Northern Child.

Northern Child's daily log 1st December 2009

Daily Log Number 9, ARC 2009, Tuesday 1st December. 1240 UTC Position: 20.25N 44.21W

We have had a day of two halves, and some of the nicest sailing we have had on the trip so far. Monday afternoon and the skies were generally clear apart from the odd massive rain cloud. Monday night saw an increasing wind overnight and we managed to keep the spinnaker up until 0600, with both watches enjoying incredible runs in the moonlight trimming away on the spinnaker sheet. This morning the skies are totally clouded over with squall lines threatening all over the sky and occasionally liberally dousing us with heavy rain. I have just been speaking with Alan on deck, and his watch are absolutely drenched but roaring with laughter as they change the trim of the headsail.

The weather picture ahead of us is quite complex, but shows a large area with very unsettled conditions, where the trough originated. We can expect mixed fortunes with lots of squalls and rain mixed in with some light winds, and once we emerge the other side in a couple of days time, we should see the winds go back again to the north east and the skies clear out again.

Our drowned rat of the day picture is of Alan enjoying life in the sunny trades! A retired businessman living in Epsom, he is married to Deborah and has two step children, Louise and Duncan. Alan has been a diver since his 20's and was persuaded to start sailing by a diving buddy 15 years ago. Since then he has owned two sailing boats in Chichester and has sailed the Isle of Wight area, the Solent and the English Channel. Alan has always had it inside him that he wanted to cross the Atlantic and decided that the time was right. 'This trip' says Alan, 'is everything I hoped it to be - absolutely exhilarating and a challenge. It has exceed my expectations, a great boat and a great crew'.

Our ETA competition is providing lots of continuing interest; as our speed is varying a lot at the moment, so one guess becomes more accurate than another. Suffice to say that at the moment the Northern Child record is achievable, but I am hesitant to say more than that. With an area of lighter winds expected from Wednesday evening into Thursday, we can expect to turn in some shorter daily runs.

Living on board during the last 24 hours has been much more of a challenge and sleep has been difficult to get as the boat has been noisy in all respects and moving around so much. Even Robert, very well adapted to life at sea and sleeping well, has just poked his head out of the aft cabin unable to sleep. We continue to have squalls going across us, winds up into the thirties with accompanying rain showers, and then dying winds as the squall moves away. The only relief is that they are quick to pass and it warms up very quickly again, allowing a quick drying process in the heat of the day.

With good following winds over the last 24 hours, we are delighted to have sailed a fantastic 201 miles towards our destination, a great effort put in by all the crew. We will reach 1,000 miles to run to St Lucia by lunchtime ship's time, which is now two hours behind UTC (Universal Time Co-ordinated). UTC has replaced GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) since the UK government didn't want the expense of running the atomic clocks: it is now done jointly by, amongst others, the French and the Americans who no longer liked the reference to Greenwich! So, all in all a mixed 24 hours with many more highs than lows and good progress. A bientot, Julian, Northern Child.

Northern Child's daily log 30th November 2009

Daily Log Number 8, ARC 2009, Monday 30th November. 1240 UTC Position: 21.20N 41.01W

Wind and seas have calmed down out here over the last 24 hours which has made living on board much more comfortable. As we approach the area of the trough we are getting the winds that we expected - lighter. This is all very well as it is nice to be a little more comfortable, but of course the result will be less miles run towards St Lucia and Spinnakers bar!

One of the biggest things to happen to us, definitely to Rebecka anyway, was the arrival of Lucy's carrot cake. It was voted the best cake ever by Christian (well, it would be, wouldn't it!) but Rebecka was quickly addicted and has spent half the night searching the galley for the remains. Rebecka had even dispatched four separate search parties to look for it, until it was finally located at breakfast time this morning - you got it, carrot cake for Rebecka for breakfast. Who says we don't eat well out here? Actually, I was quite getting used to a good cooked English breakfast over the last couple of days, so returning to normal breakfast this morning was a bit of a shock.

Curious things seem to happen at night and Wheels (Sheila) is convinced she saw two aliens last night. Well, not exactly aliens, I think it started out that she saw two stars being 'snuffed out' (an American expression apparently) but it soon turned into aliens, not sure how! Why is Wheels called Wheels I hear you ask? Wheels sailed across the Atlantic with me in 2008 from Antigua to the Azores to the UK and on board with us cooking that year was Carly; apparently on British TV there is an advert for a car insurance company called Sheila's wheels, so obviously we nicknamed Sheila 'Wheels' and it has stuck ever since. Wheels is our senior crewmember and hails from near San Francisco, California, lives on a ranch with horses and loves doing crazy things like sailing across the Atlantic. Always seasick for the first day or so, Wheels always picks herself up and just keeps going: Wheels has developed into a damn fine helmswoman in the time she has been on board. Reporting a Lady's age would be unfair but suffice it to say that there are grown up children and lots of little grandchildren running around, so you get the idea. Independent and strong willed with an adventurous spirit she is a kind person with a smile and a nice word for everyone; what more could we ask for in a crew mate?


Sunday afternoon at Happy Hour, 1800, saw us reach the half way mark of 1,350 miles sailed from Las Palmas and 1,350 miles left to sail on the rhumb line to St Lucia. We celebrated with rose (can't find the French accent on this keyboard) wine and opened the competition for best guess of estimated arrival times into St Lucia. The spread is from Vladimir with the earliest time of 1200 next Sunday to 1800 next Tuesday from Ben. Some guesses were more technically worked out such as Simon who put a lot of thought and calculation into his arrival time of Monday at 1600 hours, whilst others such as Robert came completely out of the left field at 0832 and twenty seconds on Tuesday! Probably the sweetest was Rebecka who came up with 1515 on Tuesday, based solely on the fact that her fiancee would have flown in by then and could meet her on the dockside..... ahhhhh!

I refused to put down an ETA as I would definitely cheat and we would arrive right around my guessed time, but I did put in a word of caution - there are still 1,200 miles to sail, we still have to get across the trough and anything can and does happen at sea. What is for sure is that everyone is up for getting the best passage time to St Lucia since I bought the boat in 2001 - our earliest arrival was in 2001 with my wife Magali on board and we arrived in the early evening of the Monday. In 2001 we had high winds and took a real southerly course going right down to the Cape Verde Islands; this year we have so far been able to follow the rhumb, or shortest, line so saving on miles. If ever there was to be a year when we could possibly beat our best time, this is it!

Talk of sailing comfortably for the last 12 hours was making me nervous and from about 0200 this morning I couldn't get out of my mind that we weren't making enough progress towards St Lucia. 0400 and I couldn't wait any longer, so went on deck and started the gybe, turning the back of the boat across the wind together with Lucy, and Simon's watch of pilot Steve, Wheels, Ben and Alan. It sounds easy, but the watch on deck has never gybed before in the dark and there are a lot of sails and ropes! Ably assisted by the bright moon, in an hour we had the boat heading on the new course with the Swedish spinnaker up and setting us nicely on our way again to St Lucia. Having promised the crew that we would do as little spinnaker work in the dark as possible, because that is always when problems occur, the new watch on deck at 0600 were surprised to find a spinnaker up!

As we make progress to the west so dawn and dusk become out of sync with boat time - the sun rises later and later in the morning. The time in Las Palmas is four hours ahead of St Lucia and so to compensate for this we occasionally put our watches back an hour resulting in the on deck watches during the day each taking an extra half an hour on deck. Today we will put our watches back an hour, thus tomorrow morning the sun will be rising at 0600 rather than 0700 as today.

Ben's son Tim has his 20th birthday today, so Happy Birthday Tim from all the Northern Child crew! There are no birthday's on board this year, a rare occurrence on a long passage with 13 crew.

We have made slightly less progress towards St Lucia than we would have liked in the lighter winds, but have still managed to sail 187 miles towards St Lucia in the last 24 hours, with 1,208 miles left to run. Our next target is to break the 1,000 miles to go to St Lucia mark, which should happen sometime tomorrow afternoon/evening. All is well on board, a bientot, Julian, Northern Child.

Northern Child's daily log 29th November 2009

Daily Log Number 7, ARC 2009, Sunday 29th November. 1240 UTC

Position: 21.43N 37.44W

Today marks a big day for the crew of Northern Child - seven days at sea, the end of the first week, probably seven days longer at sea than the majority of the crew have ever sailed in one go before. There's not much out here in the way of other vessels now but we have had a report of an abandoned fishing vessel in our area, so it gives extra impetuous to a good look out being maintained at all times.

We know that the weather will change to scattered rain and thunderstorms perhaps 24 - 48 hours ahead of us as we encounter a developing trough. However, for the moment, we are enjoying another sparkling day, with bright sunshine and fair winds gently pushing us on our way towards St Lucia. The watch on deck are telling each other stories again and we are a happy bunch sailing along in calmer seas under the blue and yellow Swedish spinnaker.

It looks like we will be unable to avoid a system ahead of us called a mid Atlantic trough, or wave, which is essentially an area of low pressure lying in a roughly north/south line. With fair weather ahead of the trough and showers, a changing wind direction and lighter airs behind, the trough will form a major obstacle to our progress west. There are no hard and fast rules, but normally the trough will either move west with us as we catch it up or it can stall completely and we will have to find a way through. Either way, we will have to come up with a cunning plan to deal with it over the next few days.

Our speed is measured in nautical miles per hour, or knots (noeuds in French). This unit of measurement deserves mention as it isn't quite the same as a statute mile. The term knot comes from the old days of sail where the watch keeper would literally have a piece of wood, called a log, thrown over the side attached to a piece of knotted line. Depending on how many knots disappeared as the line was streamed, so the speed was called. A little over 1.17 statute miles to the nautical mile, means that if we are travelling across the ocean at 9 knots, then we are doing roughly 10 miles per hour, or 15 kilometers per hour. On a nautical chart, one nautical mile is measured from the latitude scale on the side of the chart.

The picture today is of Ben steering in the early morning just after dawn has broken. Ben is part of the Simon, pilot Steve, Wheels (Sheila, more on that later) and Alan watch, currently on deck from 0600 to 1200. Ben is 54 and Dutch, is married to Myrte and they have two children: Tim who is 20 tomorrow and Katja who is 17. Ben started sailing as a child when he built a small wooden boat with his brother and father and sailed it from the age of about 12 until 19. 3 years ago his brother bought a Dufour 525 and Ben has really got back into sailing, both with his brother and doing courses leading up to his skippers ticket. As a family they charter in their favourite location, Greece and Ben was prompted to come on this trip to experience a longer passage and night sailing. He was persuaded to join by reading the old logs, so beware of the force - you can get addicted, there may be side effects!

Still happily celebrating the passing of the 1,000 mile mark, Lucy did a full English breakfast for the watch on deck for a second day, meaning that both watches have now been suitably rewarded. There are no vegetarians on board and the smell of bacon wafting around the boat first thing in the morning is pretty tempting to say the least! Of course, being up for both these watches writing the logs, I managed to sneak in and pretend to be part of both...

We have just instituted an ETA competition, and hoping that we are going to make the half way mark this evening roughly at happy hour (change of watch at 1800) we have called for all the crew to submit their best guess by 1800. Times will be in local time St Lucia and tomorrow I will let you know the spread of guesses. Half way by 1800 after seven and a quarter days is very good progress for Northern Child, but with the trough ahead it is likely that we will slow down somewhat over the next few days.

Yet again we have sailed another good 24 hours run towards Spinnakers Bar, St Lucia, 195 miles. Lucy is baking a coconut and carrot cake, but is agonizing over doing a banofee pie for tonight and handing out the carrot cake tomorrow, or both today, or... decisions, decisions! Have a nice Sunday and spare a thought for us out here on the Atlantic. A bientot, Julian, Northern Child.

Northern Child's daily log 28th November 2009

 Daily Log Number 6, ARC 2009, Saturday 28th November. 1240 UTC
Position: 21.55N 34.09W

Everything ends up changing: grass gets longer, leaves fall off the trees, I get older. Some things don't: in this case the breeze. Wow, we have been so lucky, it's just unimaginable that here we are finishing day six in essentially exactly the same winds as when we started back in Las Palmas. Winds from the north east at 15 - 20 knots, sometimes a few knots lighter, sometimes a few knots more, up to 25. What does this mean to those of you who perhaps have never sailed a boat in your lives? Perfection! Simple. If God had sat me down on the dock in Las Palmas and said, 'Julian, Old Man (well, being God and kind he might have said Young Man) what can I do for you regarding winds in the next week?' I could only have replied 'God, that's really kind of you, north east 15 - 20 will do just fine'. You get the idea. Which also leads me to the inevitable conclusion about the existence of God. Religious scholars can stand aside, I've solved it, existence has been proved.

Now where was I? Oh Yes, on board Northern Child heading westward across the Atlantic. You can probably tell from the above that conditions have been extraordinary yet again and we have just had the most amazing continuing daily runs towards St Lucia. I am not sure we are going to break any records because there is still a huge way to go, but we have been consistently reeling off 8 knots over the ground really since we departed Las Palmas. We had a spot of light, pretend rain for 10 minutes during the night, but apart from that the rain has stayed away completely.

Back to reality and our featured character for today, pilot Steve. Character is the right way to describe Steve - if only half the stories are true then he's led a fairly full life! Steve is a young 54, doesn't actually believe that he's 54 at all, married to Anne with two children, John and Rebecca and is a corporate private pilot. Currently flying a sparkling new Global 5000 with evidently a great team that he respects and enjoys being with, Steve is based in the Mediterranean. Living the life of the rich and famous, Steve considers he's just doing a driving job with good food... A Hobie cat sailor in the Gulf, Steve counts himself as a novice sailor and says his house is covered in pictures of boats, not planes! Having flown over the Atlantic too many times to mention and seen the sailboats below, Steve was chatting with Al in the plane who knew of his sailing ambitions, and who suggested doing the ARC with Northern Child. Reason's given were so that he could experience big seas and the potential solitude of ocean sailing. Steve's other great passions are fly fishing and biking, he owns an R6 and a Fireblade, and both of these activities would inevitably point him towards solo sailing sometime in the future. 'Every day that goes by', says Steve, 'I just love it more and more.'

The chart table is by the main hatch leading on deck and I just had a lovely exchange with our Finnish crew member, Juha. 'Hi, how are you doing Juha?' Juha replies: 'Good, Very good! Couldn't be better!' That's what we like to hear.

Today the moon has to have an honourable mention in the log. Take a look outside the window tonight, wherever you are, and if it's a clear night take a long look at it; now imagine us sailing along, all alone in the middle of the Atlantic, but sailing over a magic sea, every wave illuminated by the rays of the almost full moon, almost light enough to read by. You look at it, we look at it, connection. Distance has been reduced to nothing, to infinity, we're under the same moon. Life's good.

We stormed through the 1,000 miles sailed barrier Friday evening, and now have our sights firmly set on the half way mark, or 1,350 miles from Las Palmas. If the winds stay up and progress continues like this we should reach half way by Sunday evening where, upon reaching this goal, we will deserve a little celebration! The only slight blip on the horizon is an emerging trough ahead of us, and I will be keeping a close eye on how this will affect our progress over the next few days. Normally we would expect decreasing winds and a change in direction, but let's see.

We have sailed another 193 miles towards St Lucia in the last 24 hours, yet another solid, consistent run. Just short of the 200 mile mark, it is nevertheless noteworthy because it is yet another day's run at 8 knots over the ground towards St Lucia. We have our small Finnish spinnaker up at the moment (white and light blue) and we are rocking and rolling our way through the waves and swells towards Spinnaker's Bar. All's well on board, a bientot, Julian, Northern Child

Northern Child's daily log 27th November 2009

Daily Log Number 5, ARC 2009, Friday 27th November. 1240 UTCPosition: 22.10N 30.39W

Some you win and some you don't! We had been sailing beautifully under spinnaker all day until just before dark when the whole eastern horizon was covered in a mass of big, ugly grey clouds bearing down on us. Taking the view that the approaching mass of clouds were threatening squalls, rain and winds in fact just damn unpleasant, we took the spinnaker down and set our big headsail out on the pole again.

Big grey ugly cloud formations in these latitudes can bring two things: the above mentioned squalls (yuccy) or in fact not much at all, and in this case we had not much at all. Trouble is, it remained grey and threatening most of the night, not much happened and as a result we have had a bit of a slow night. But, there's always a but, we didn't break anything in the dark hours, we had a comfortable, stress free night and an hour after sunrise we have our smaller spinnaker back up in 20 – 22 knots of breeze and life has got a bit more interesting with lots of on deck crew having to continuously trim the spinnaker, all good stuff. Now there's no big genoa to mend, it lasted through a second night (wahoo as Caroline would say - or something similar), we have to keep the crew busy.... Idle hands breed an ill wind and all that stuff!

Of course, ever since the spinnaker went up the wind has been consistently higher than before we put it up - c'est la vie. For the last hour we have been rolling pretty massively and the extremity of each roll is announced by a chorus from on deck as the team trimming wonder if the roll is ever going to stop! We have had a nice target ahead of us for the last few hours, not sure what boat it is but we are finding it difficult to overtake so are presuming he is a lot larger than us - from the tracker you will see that we are fairly well up the fleet with the big boats.

Our 'star in a reasonably priced car', to borrow a phrase, today is Simon. In good military fashion, I volunteered him to be the second watch leader based on the fact that he is one of our younger crew members and is a partner in a Bavaria based in Mercury Marina, on the Hamble. Simon is a financial lawyer and married to Victoria with a stepson called Henry. Due to the current financial climate Simon found that the office was a little bit quiet and decided to take a month to realise a long held goal - sailing across the Atlantic.

The Yellow Brick tracker we carry is broadcasting our position, course and speed via satellite back to the internet on a continual basis so you can track our position throughout the race on http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/viewer.aspx and http://www.northernchild.com/.

The rolling today makes typing this log interesting, to say the least. I'm not much good at typing at a desk anyway, but when not only the keyboard is trying to shoot off the chart table with each roll, but also each roll is trying to forcibly eject me from the chart table seat, typing takes on new meaning! The odd clatter from the galley accompanied by quietly spoken mutterings from Lucy occasionally announce she is having the same problems!

We mentioned that it is important to have goals on the trip and we have a nice one coming up, hopefully this evening; we will have sailed 1000 miles from Las Palmas on Sunday. Today's daily run of 185 miles is respectable and had it been ARC 2008 when we had very light winds, we would have been delighted with it. Our daily runs towards St Lucia this year have been so good and so consistent that we now expect high runs - always difficult. Wind is looking good for the next few days, so who knows? A bientot, Julian, Northern Child.