Sailing around the World ( presently at sea between Cape Town and St. Helena )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 15 Jan 2011 11:06
FRIDAY   14th   JANUARY  2011
 
00.00hrs  Overall distance from Cape Town to St. Helena .................................1,714 miles
               Distance travelled ,..........................................................................1,114 miles
               Distance to destination,.......................................................................600 miles
 
It was a very, very windy night, with winds blowing up to 36 knots,  we were well reefed down and had an exciting sail , to say the least.
The sea state was rough , with breaking waves everywhere. But, not a bother to " A Lady "
 
Later, about 08.00hrs, we started the generator and walla, it worked perfectly,  the lack of fresh or sweet water in the manifold
was the problem last night when it shut itself down suddenly.
While we were at the generator, we cleaned the water filters too, and they were full of weeds and barnicles, so we used concentrated
vinagar  to kill the living barnicles.  great stufff.
 
09.00hrs, Radio Call.   We are just about holding our own on the fleet, however ,Wild Tigress took more miles out of us.
Tomorrow will tell a lot,
 
Midday , we covered 208 miles in the last 24 hours, we were delighted with that again. even with a foul tide against us,
shortly after, we got out the blue spinniker ( as Terry christened it,  " The Bag of Fear "  ) and hoisted it aloft,
this added a knot to our speed and also makes the boat much more stable.
It took us 35 minutes to hoist it, and the deck looked like speggty junction. blooming ropes and strings everywhere,
but we managed it all ,
 
We had a beautifull sail, the weather cleared up and we had a very sunny and warm day, with relativly flat seas.
 
We had a roast chicken, roast potatoes and Asian salad for the fresh stuff. all very tasty. No drink.
 
We had a beautifull sunset as we crossed the 00.00 GMT longtitude ( nowadays called UTC )  so were are now officially in the West.
and out time is the same as that in Ireland  & England ...
 
We decided to keep the kite flying for the night , as it was such a pleasent night. Our much loved starrey silent orchestra playing
up there in the sky for us.
 
We all spent the night comming and going ,so the official night watches went by the board.
 
 
Our favourate rugby team, " MUNSTER" is playing today in a do or die match for them.  come on guys, up munster. !
 
thats it for now,
 
Signed :-   Stephen Hyde, ( skipper )