The wrong way round the M25
Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Thu 8 Mar 2012 22:55
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8:05.4S 101:27.5W 827 miles
covered
We passed the quarter-way point today and are on
target for a 16 day crossing if everything goes well. We have had one
minor glitch so far, the mainsail outhaul (a line which pulls the back corner of
the sail down to the end of the boom) snapped and disappeared inside the
boom. Unless we can come up with a way to fish it out then we can only use
a portion of the mainsail (the reefing lines have separate outhaul points on the
sail but make it smaller). It is not a big issue right now because it was
time for us to turn directly towards the Marquesas, which meant switching
to the asymmetric spinnaker and that is more stable if the mainsail is reefed anyway.
Estella has noticed a small hole right in the
middle of the spinnaker. You know what they say, a stitch in time, but it
would cost us a couple of hours of sweating to take down the sail, patch it
up, and hoist it again. Nobody is in the mood for that, so when I write
tomorrow about our spinnaker ripping in half during the night then we only have
ourselves to blame.
We are now in good trade winds (steady wind of 18
to 20 miles per hour), and the crew has graciously admitted that my
decision to take a southerly route is less like "taking a short cut through a
housing estate" and more like "going the wrong
way round the M25". Say what they will, I think it will work out in the
end...
Nothing exciting in the way of photos today, so
here is a picture of Andrea's Galapagos shark (with the spinnaker in the
background) .
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