Tuesday 16th February: No doldrums yet
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Tue 16 Feb 2016 17:07
Still bowling along with a good breeze from astern, mostly F4 but occasionally gusts to F5. In principle it should be going down and getting lighter all the time but instead it has actually picked up since day-break. So much the better for our progress of course. Polaris was no longer visible last night as it's now too close to the horizon although the plough was clear, but in contrast the southern cross is clear ahead.
We have used the boom without mainsail hoisted as a second jib pole by pushing it out on the stbd side by means of the gybe preventer and hanging a pulley off the end through which we've routed an extra yankee sheet. This stopped the yankee from slatting around and we had a very peaceful night. But now there's so much string leading forward from the cockpit!
- 3 lines to the jib pole
- sheet and guy for the second jib
- 2 sheets for the yankee
- extra guy for the yankee
- boom preventer
- mainsheet
- running backstay deployed port side
all of which have to be fed through each other in exactly the righty way and through the correct deck pulley. Routing the yankee guy took at least 3 goes and an hour. It's still rolling about as well.
Just after dark we got within a couple of miles of a ship for the first time: a factory fishing boat probably but it wasn't transmitting on AIS (so very likely it was fishing illegally / using banned methods). We also jolly nearly ran over a buoy - it passed about 10 feet off the beam - which we think must have been one end of a long-line for fishing as we were over a sea-mount which rises very steeply from >5000m to about 500m from the surface.
Today is hot! Few in the depths of a UK February will sympathise, but golly it's baking. 30.5°C in the cabin and humid. Rather too hot for much enthusiasm for maintenance tasks although we unrove the main halyard and washed it since it, and indeed all the running rigging, is brown/orange from the dust in Cape Verde which apart from the look of it also puts abrasive into the mast-head sheeves. We've rigged a sun shelter as with all the string about we cannot put the bimini up safely. We have the Welsh Dragon to port and the RNLI to starboard between the spray hood and the wheel. We must look very colourful and eccentric!
Contact with G4ABQ again this morning but Jon can't hear us, or at least our signal fades almost immediately we start the conversation. It could be a problem with our transmitter, but the major factor apparent here is that the sun rises at almost exactly the same time which is very possibly affecting the atmospheric propagation between us. Still, we'll try again tomorrow and if that's still no good we may have to attempt another time or band.
Fiona's notes on life aboard. We use all the water twice if we can, rinse water goes over the salty rigging or around the loo to keep it from smelling, washing up water is used on our ropes and we washed ourselves into the bucket containing the halyard today so showered before the rope got its turn. The fresh veg is holding up so far in its hammock, but in this heat we are very very reliant on the fridge. How Slocum coped with his barrel of potatoes and the odd fish and onion we cannot imagine. They were a tough bunch the old time sailors.