" A LADY TRIP " Sailing around the World,, ( presently sailing from the Dutch West Indies to the San Blas Islands) distance 645n miles
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 16 Jan 2010 16:28
|
FRIDAY 15th January 2010
07.00hrs We were all on deck ,having doged a
very shower and by now the wind had moderated to a more comfortable
32knots,
We had covered 211 miles in the 24hrs since we left port.
08.30 We were approx
45 miles north of Columbia, we now had to gybe onto port in big sea's, so this
operation took the guts of 30mins
being very carefull not to do any damage to the boat.
09.30 We ran the generator
for a few hours to charge up the batteries . The boat has 11 batteries in
total, 3 no 12v batteries & 8 no 24v batteries.
These batteries run the ship, the lights, the plug sockets, the electric cooker,
the a/c system, the washing machine, fridges, freezer
T.V.
, auto helm, winches, windlass, and hydrolics, plus radio's, navigation systems,
computers, and a host of other stuff.
When we are at sea , we usually have to run the generator between 4 and 6 hours
per day. the generator is a 19hp westerbeke diesel engine
and
produces about 8kva.
11.00 Our course today is
236 T distance remaining to the San Blas Isl is 400miles
distance
travelled
231miles
wind
speed
20knots
13.00 we had a salad for lunch, and
later the skipper finished reading the " THE BANKERS " book,
frightning,
16.00 We hooked a large fish, in fact
so big we could hardly reel the begger in. After struggling with the fish for
about 1 hour
( and we
could see it jumping about 500m behind ) we lost him ,in fact he broke off the
hook . ahhhhhh what a pity
THE ONE
THAT GOT AWAY
Donal made the dinner and that was devoured in the
cockpit, but ( always a BUT ) the bloody wind was rising all the time along with
the sea's
so we rolled in 2 reef's in the Mainsail; and
headsail,
By 22.oohrs , the wind was now a steady 40 knots,
gusting to 48 knots
Kevin and Donal were on watch untill 02.oo and
Stephen and Aileen were on duty from 02.00 to 07.00
01.30 a huge rogue broke over the boat and filled
the cockpitwith sea water and much of it came in through the hatch and drenched
the works
down below..
Later the Skipper and Aileen witnessed a mean 45
knots , gusting 54 knots regularly, at this stage we got all hands on deck,
started the engine
and put the boat head to wind and rolled up the
Mainsail and the Yankee , THE SEA's were huge , so we put up the Staysail and
returned to our course
We touched 14.6 knots at on stage while sliding
down a wave,...This caused vertical walls of water along the whole length of the
boat and was amazing.
Our grib file told us we would have a stiff breeze,
around 30knots, They underestimated a little on that one and we were on
the verge of putting
on the BROWN TROURSERS, but then, ""
A LADY " stood the test well.
07.00hrs, Donal appeared in the hatch and relieved
Aileen and Stephen. happy to get into the bunk
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
|