Position 18:33.5N 037:12.6W
Mariposa Blanca Move
Skip- Andy Petty. Owner hard at work in office!
Tue 29 Jan 2013 19:36
Log 4033
Noon to noon day 10 136nm
GPS to go 1557nm
Hi everyone,
Before I forget, I have a message from Mike to Jackie: "Thanks for the message. I thought I had left my wives at home! Thank you for reminding me but there is plenty of time yet!"
The smoothest night of the trip so far was used effectively by all to get some quality sleep. The day dawned bright for once and soon warmed up so that all the team were in shorts for the first time. Overmight progress had been good but we soon put the spanner in that works by hosiitng the cruising shute before breakfast and immediately getting it treble wrapped around the forestay! It took the 3 of us about 2 hours to unwrap it, drop it and restow it in its sock so breakfast was never taken. By this time the wind had backed anyway and we then hoisted the second jib up the second forestay and spent some time organising the pole on the main genoa and the various ropes to acheive a stable downwind setup. Not so easy as the boat is short of winches and cleats so some cunning tricks have been employed to gte this lot working, which it has been very satisfactorily ever since. The wind eased to around 12 knots but we continue nearly dead downwind on a heading of 280 at about 5 knots with this arrnagment. The boat still rolls a lot however so moving around remains a one handed challenge. When Adrian commented upon the large number of ropes used and rope tails in the cockpit, Mike told him that was nothing when compared with Jemima Nicholas with all sails set and cruising shute up!
I told Adrian he was very lucky that this training school was willing to provide hands on experience about getting out of the sticky stuff with wrapped cruising shutes where most schools just talk about it but he replied that on his Clipper Venture, they always cocked up the kite hoists so he had seen it all before!
However, it has become clear that the civilian training undertaken by Adrian has been lacking in some respects, to during today he been learning some proper naval nautical terminology, like "check away", "down slack", "ease" and "get the kettle on SINKER". The reason why Adrain has nicknamed himself SINKER is related to his previous experience on a delivery trip, where the team decided to abandon the yacht to the liferaft and get a free lift to Tarragona from a passing ship.
Also, on the subject of Adrain, he would like to thank the thousands of people who emailed in advice on fishing - well he got 2 tips from Jan anyway! He decided using a lump of tuna wrapped in one of Mike's socks might not work as the sock would cause toxic polution for at least a 2 mile radius! The thought processes did cause him to re-evaluate his fishing techniques however and he has decided he may have more success if he actually removed the corks from the hooks before casting the lure astern.
Chicken curry is on the menu for this evening and we still have 2 more meals from fresh food which is not bad for a tiny fridge and 3 people. Thereafter we move onto canned food and the incentive to get to the destination will be enhanced I am sure.
Still no visual sighting of the gremlin although we debated he may live at the masthead and it was he who caused the kite wrap this morning. There be no volunteers to ascend the mast and check, we will have to wait and see.
Expecting light winds from tomorrow for a couple of days, despite our dive south over the last 3 days to try and avoid just that scenario. Diesel usage so far has been mean, only running the engine at low revs for 2 hrs daily has kept the batteries well topped up and now the solar panels are really helping. We have a diesel tank of about 130ltrs plus some 110 in cans extra and estimated usage to date is about 50 litres. Our 20 day perfect target for the trip is unlikely to be acheived but 22 could be still "on". We have firmly picked up the equatorial current pushing us west at around 0.5 knots which is helpful.
Have a good night.
The Mariposa Blanca delivery team
