A night of contrasts...
Akarana
Graham Deegan
Wed 2 Dec 2009 13:33
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Yesterday we learned a lot about this ocean climate
and fixed a few problems that will improve our performance in the
future.
Last night was another learning
experience...
The Preacher and Sparks did a good job till
midnight, making up for lost time.
The Doc and I took over at midnight.
Akarana was cruising nicely under .75 oz Spinnaker ....but there was a
large black cloud looming astern with Akarana's name written all over it.
I decided after the earlier experience that it was prudent to stow the
kite keeping both the kite and the men dry. This we achieved just before
the rains started and we settled into white sail reaching into stair rods of
rain. The expected gusts did not materialise.... insted the wind
headed and we were eventually on a tight fetch with the wind varying
between 6 and 16 knots. We headed high in the hopes of finding the
other edge of this monster... but no other edge was found, only thunder,
lightning and stair rods of rain. We had hoped to hand over to the new
watch with a clear sky and all set fair, but shortly before 3pm we had to
hand over a miserable situation to the Nipper and Mum.
Things went from bad to worse for the Nipper.
The rain continued and the wind died. For 4 hours Mum & the Nipper
struggled.... eventually dropping all sails and resorting to the engine
for half an hour.
Meanwhile I discovered my bunk in the aft
cabin to be soaking wet. Somebody kindly shut the window but was
unaware that the screws need to be tightened like a submarine.
......result a very wet bunk. I exchanged bunk cushions with some from the
forepeak and fell fast asleep.
I woke at 6:00am to go on watch to discvover a
bright sunny day with the spinnaker set and Akarana sailing very happily.
What the Nipper did not say is that we had only just emerged from the cloud and
that they had just finished setting the sails. The Nipper looked quite
dissapointed, but was very tired and retired to his bunk
gratefully.
Onward...onward... The spinnaker is still set
and apart from some close brushes with wind disturbing clouds, the day is
rolling along and the miles are falling away.
The Nipper came back at about 10:00am a
refreshed man ....and smiling.
 The Prof
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