"Luskentyre leantcomfortably intothe wind, hertransom bit intothe sea and sheaccelerated towardsEnglish Harbour"34 www.oystermarine.comPhoto: Nico Martinez
headI neverwas goodat analogies – itwas exhilarating yetboring, relaxing yet tiring,Peter Cockcroft, Patrick "Beach" Seakins,MatthewWatters(skipper),LenDelicaetseat-of-the-pants yet predictable anda whole lot more. If you are wonderingwhat the red deer analogy was – squalls.Tropical squalls are curious beasts, mostevenings they were as regular asclockwork. About an hour or so afterdark you began to see their reflection onthe radar repeater in the cockpit. Themoon did not rise till much later so it wasincredibly dark. We wound the main in alittle as a precaution and as the smudgeon the radar caught us up, the windwould normally increase by up to 15knots. Having got used to them weenjoyed their arrival for the first week orso, but when we were in the glorioustrades proper with winds rarely droppingbelow 18 knots for about five days, thesesame squalls became a pain. Theyactually acted as a barrier to the normaltrade wind flow. As they approached,the wind would drop and veersignificantly. As the squall passedthrough you would have asleigh ride which could, insome cases, last for as longas forty minutes, only thenwere you able to revert tothe original course.sign and readings which we haduploaded via SatC just three hours earlierwere on the weather fax. This reallyshowed the value of what we were doingfor other mariners in the same part of theAtlantic as us.Indeed other than food, DVDs and thecrew’s general poor standard of humour,the weather, and in particular the wind,became of almost obsessive importanceto us. We became fixated, or was it justme, on getting to Antigua as quickly aswe could. Getting an extra half a knothere or the prospect of losing the wind ina couple of days became the centre ofour lives. But 400 miles out from Antiguawe had a pleasant surprise – Capercailliethe huge Swan we had been alongside atthe fuel dock who left later that eveningwas in VHF range about ten miles awayfrom us. Incredibly we had kept pacewith her the whole way over. Moreevidence of the relative speed of ourcrossing was to follow that eveningwhen, after almost eleven days withoutseeing another boat we passed within200 yards of a Swan 57. She had left twodays before we had and yet we were toarrive in English Harbour six hoursbefore her.First light and a grey squall cloud,probably the biggest yet, came thunderingfrom the East. We could just make outPeter Cockcroft, our man from the BBC,setting up the scientific instruments tomeasure air and sea colour as part of ourweather researchShirley Heights in the gloom about sevenmiles ahead. This was not the Caribbeanwe had been expecting.Luskentyre leant comfortably with thewind, her transom bit into the sea andshe accelerated towards English Harbour.We had made it. As we hardened up andturned to starboard for the harbourentrance, as if on cue, a dolphin jumpedclear from the water welcoming us toAntigua. Why do we sail – I cannot think?Mark Blythe - OWNER OF OYSTER 56, LUSKENTYREFACT BOXLuskentyre is available for charterin the Windward Islands, basedout of St Lucia. Typical charterscover the stunning Grenadinesincluding Mustique, Bequia andTobago Cays. Matthew yourBritish skipper and George yourlocal cook are on hand tomake your holiday a dream.Call +44 (0)1865 858383or visit our websitewww.oysteradventure.comAs we made our steadyprogress across the Atlanticwe soon found the bestweatherfax came from USCGBoston. We were also impressedto see that Luskentyre’s callCrew Photos: Mark BlytheBeach gutting dinner, or was it lunch or breakfast? Wecaught and ate so many Dorado we soon lost count!www.oystermarine.com35