Sailing around the world,
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sun 16 Jan 2011 10:23
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SATURDAY 15th JANUARY
2011
00.01 hrs .Our distance to Destination
is ( St. Helena ) ...........................................463
miles,
We had 2 reefs in the mainsail and the bag of fear flying, the wind was
SSE 18 / 20 knots,
The seas were flat and weather good.
07.00hrs. The wind increased to about
28 / 29 knots , se Skipper got Sham out of the Scratcher ( bunk )
and we took down the spinniker, and it was a tough
job, we were perspiring so much when finished, one could squeeze us
dry.
But, but, " Murphys Law " came into the
picture , and 10 minutes later, the wind dropped away down to 12 knots..
ahhhhhh,
after all our trouble, damn " Murphys law
" we will have to take out a contract on Murphy to have it
assassinated.
We were whacked , a coffee and a nap to recharge
the batteries, thats the human batteries.
09.00hrs Radio Call, We gained ground again
on the fleet and reduced " Wild Tigress " lead from 48 miles to 13
miles.
That really pleased us, even though we really like
everyone on that boat, and the skipper " Sean " is Irish, Well, the
Independent
republic of Donegal.
10.30, We decided to hoist the KITE , As we were
getting the thing ready on the deck, the foot blew over the side and
caused panic
for about 3 minutes untill we had it back on
board, Shortly after, we had the KITE flying , nicely thanks very
much.....
Spinnikers in the water / sea is not good
news, It brings back terrible memories of the spinnikers on the " 1720"
sports boat.
Skipper tore at least 2 masts out of his 1720 over
the years all because the kite got into the water and bang, wallop,
bye,bye mast. ohhhh the pain of it all, not
to mention the cost and inconvenience.
THE SPINNIKER :- the 2 spinnikers
we have on board are 1. the " parasail " or KITE as we call it, and the other is
the
blue spinniker or " Bag of Fear " as Fr Terry
named it, When putting them up or taking them down we use a " Sock "
system,
.This sock is about 12" wide and made of strong
light sail material, aand is the length of the sail.
when we hoist the spinniker, it is inside the sock,
when it reaches the top of the mast, then we pull up the sock to the top
and the spinniker opens out nicely, taking it down,
we just pull the sock back down over the sail and it snuffs the sail
therebye making it easy to retrieve and put
back into its bag on deck.
Midday, We spotted a sail on the horizon ahaed of
us, It has to be " Wild Tigres" and whats more 6 / 7 miles is
about the limit of
our vision. , so that means we have taken
a lot out of them...
We spent time relaxing and cleaning the floating
Ashtray , oppppps , we really mean the cockpit.
But, but, we really like the smell of the pipe,
well thats for now.
The day was just magic, beautifull flat blue water
, and clear blue skies, what more do we want,
Ohh, a Gin & tonic, and we did, gosh , it
tasted fantastic.
06.00hrs, Roll call, everyone had a good day and we
got the position of " Destiny"..... we were worried that she may have gone
well past us as she did not give her position for the last 2 days. but now she is
139 miles away from us.....and not out front.
Skipper , did the dinner, His Hungarien sweet and
sour goolash speciality, with creamed potatoes with a small bit
of
horse raddish sauce mixed in to give it a little
kick. it all tasted wonderfull and not a scrap left over,
were we hungry , or was it a good meal ?
Yesterday, skipper got his dates all mixed up
regarding the " Munster match " that is being played on Sunday
.....
Before we sign of, A BIG HELLO to Paul
Hassett & Bill Walsh from all on " A Lady", Skipper, Aileen, Sham and
Emily
Thats it ,
Signed, Stephen Hyde.
( Skipper )
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