Carnage! 16:33.1N 047:45.6W
Audaciter
ItchyFingers
Mon 12 Dec 2011 20:52
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Whoa,
Last night was proper chaos. We can get weather reports
from a server via our sat phone called 'GRIB' files which basically show wind
speed, wave height and swell height etc and the one I got at midday yesterday
showed a front coming through bringing strong winds with it. As all weather
comes up from the Equator we decided to head south a bit to avoid it. Well,
thank fuck we did. It said 20 knots would be the wind speed near the edge but it
was more like 25 gusting 40! This downwind makes you just roll from side to side
throwing everything all over the place.
It came on just after dark typically but we were
prepared, well sail wise we were anyway. We put a reef in the mainsail and
furled away the genoa and braced ourselves for the squalls. The swell
height was huge and it pushed the waves up from a two storey house to
a four storey house style. These were coming from all directions. One minute you
were surfing one hitting 10 knots, another time what seemed like a little
running ninja of a wave would come and head butt you right on the beam knocking
you 40 degrees off course. Sometimes this happened all at once, a cheeky
little combo that just sends you into a death roll which rocks and rocks until
everything you stowed away has been kindly rearranged by the sea. The
mechanism from the lock of the heads (toilet) door decided to give up, probably
from the pressure of everyone holding onto the handle for dear life when a wave
hit, so that was out of action for the night. There is a locker opposite and the
door for this is nearly off it's hinges, again from us being thrown into it. At
one point I was thrown out of my bunk. Fucking carnage. This
went on for about 18 hours and being at the helm even just for two hours was
draining.
Today it has calmed down and we are making good time. We
averaged 7.5 knots over the last 24 hours which is good for a boat our size and
the top speed has been 10 knots and we have worn away the miles from 2100
to 800. We are nearly there!! Touch wood. Dickon caught a Dorado which are
getting a bit boring now if I'm honest with you and George caught a 20
kilo Tuna. Wonderful. We shall eat well for the next few days.
Out x
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