Crew from the Ark to the Arc
Beoga's Madventure
Henry and Marina Lupton
Fri 20 Nov 2009 18:15
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We cant believe the weather reports from back home.
Joan Cormac and Dermot arrived yesterday, had they
tried to day they would not have been able to leave county Galway.
Bad enough with the french beating us at
handball.
Hopefully we won't encounter weather systems like
that enroute. Forecast is good right now and it tends to be very steady at this
time of the year. Water temp has cooled which is the initiator of the
hurricanes. Hence everyone waits until this time of the year to go
east.
The extra hands helped tick off some of the
outstanding jobs. Its much easier get up the mast with folk to help bounce the
halyard.
In true fashion each little job is more difficult
than planned, takes ,longer and invariably involves a trip to the
chandler.
The deck light bulb was blown,
the replacements bulb, plus a sparea, plus the replacement pulley block
that I spotted in the morning plus the bit of rope we needed meant that the bulb
ended up costing over €50. On the way down the mast i spotted the main pin
holding the forestay (and the mast) up was not fully retained by its split pin.
Two items ticked off the list, one more added. Better to spot these things in
port than underway!
Provisioning is underway in earnest. Its amazing
the amount of food and drink taken on board each boat. Joan and Lara are
packing as I type. Seems the lads were in the way so we are refreshing ourselves
in the sailors bar ahem... Well we were up the mast earlier and
stuff.
I suspect our blogs will be boring from now on with
food being the highlight of the day. Although if the delivery legs are anything
to go by I will not be too interested in food for a few days. I've given up on
the antisickness drugs and the electro acupunture watch only distracts you with
shocks which is even more unpleasant that feeling seasick.
Huge numbers of people arrived in the last few
days. The place is really buzzing. Anticipation is building. The farewell party
is tonight as folk tend to take it easy the night before the race.
The organisers fitted the 'yellow brick' to the
boat today. We are in the racing fleet but there are few others in that category
with biminis, spray hoods, water makers, furlers and tons of books. Cants see us
losing sleep over trim settings either. The whole fleet sends in a message
once a day via satelite phone or ham radio giving their position. This is then
put up on a google earth showing all the boats location together. The yellow
brick sends this postion automatically every 6 hours so its a bit more up to
date for the paranoid racers ( I'm cured despite what many think!).
This position report will be of particular interest
to Ms Doyles class in Strandhill National School who already have us on the wall
chart courtesy of my niece Eimer.
The link to this viewer is http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/viewer.aspx .but
it wont show anything until next sunday.
Regards to all at GBSC. We are missing the laying
up supper this saturday. Our thoughts are really with Michael, Miriam and Pascal
who were supposed to be heading off with us.
Pa and Mir have been planning this with us for ages
and were in the thick of all the organising and boat deliveries ( of Beoga and
previous boats). Its the toughest place to be right now. As MIchael says the Atlantic isnt going anywhere (although much of it is
being sucked up and dropped on Ireland right now) and the boat needs to come
back home too.
Better go here. The
lads beer glasses are empty and they are glancing around for the
waitress.
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