life saving drill

ALICE'S ADVENTURES
ANDREW AND CELIA SHARPE
Tue 30 Nov 2010 12:06
Firstly, well done 4ES.  We hear that you did a brilliant assembly to the whole school all about my adventures. Give Oaky a hug from me!
 
Before the start of the ARC all the boats had to have a safety check.  Alice passed hers with flying colours.  When the crew arrived they were all shown where the safety equipment was kept and how to use it.  Everyone had been on a sea safety course beforehand as well.  There were refresher seminars run by World Cruising Club in Las Palmas which we all went to as well.
 
After a couple of days of a pounding going west, we got a longer range weather forecast today from the ARC office that Chris Tibbs had written.  Having seen this report we then tacked and are now heading south again, hopefully away from the storms that are brewing further north and also to pick up the trade winds when they eventually start.  Yacht Skiathos which is the next one in our class passed very close behind us after we tacked and we spoke to them on the vhf.
 
This morning the wind is much lighter but still on the nose and the sea is calmer but with a huge swell still.  It is a lot more comfortable and we can start to clear up a bit. 
 
Roger is hand steering as it is his watch, Chris is washing the salt off the windows, George is making new lures as ours keep getting lost and Andrew is catching up on a bit of sleep.
In the middle of the night the autohelm decided it had taken us far enough and stopped working.  We are now having to hand steer.  Trying to find out what is wrong with it as it works for a few minutes then comes up with the message "drivestop".  By putting it back to standby and back to auto it works again for a few minutes. 
 
ALICE and her crew
16.53N  29.52W
1277nm on log