41:53S 60:39E
Tales of Amok's Adventures
Mike Jones
Sat 8 Jan 2011 17:36
Hello lucky people who are snug, safe and warm in still beds in still houses on terra firma...
We are battling some pretty strong winds down here with gusts between 40-50 knots, though it seems to be dying down a bit now. A cold front has just passed us which brought some pretty nasty conditions. We are still trying to maintain our course of 090 and with the strong westerlies, this means we are running before the waves. We've taken a couple of waves in the cockpit, which thankfully was designed with 3" diameter self draining cockpit drains. Nevertheless, when you are standing knee deep in Southern Ocean water which has temperature of about 12 degrees, it gets your attention pretty quickly.
Our boat speed is varying from 8-15 knots, with a incredible 20 knot speed registering after surfing down the front of a huge wave.
We reckon the waves are between 4 and 5 metres high; it's pretty scary when there's a breaking wave behind you and you know it is moving faster than you are. It's only got one place to go. The noise it makes is fearsome.
Conditions below decks are pretty difficult, you need both hands holding on to move around the cabin, which makes cooking very tricky. Pulling your pants up with one hand is also somewhat of an acquired skill, I hear you laughing, but try it; it's hard.
We managed to buckle our aluminium whisker pole this afternoon when a bridle broke; the whisker pole holds the staysail out square to the wind to maximise its efficiency. Collecting the 2 broken halves of the pole was fairly exciting, as leaving the raw ends near the sails would have meant untold damage. We managed to salvage the fittings from it so hopefully will be able to replace it with a slighter thicker walled version in Fremantle.
that's all for now lubbers, take care
Salty Sal
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