British Soldier - TransAtlantic Race - SitRep no 10

Britishsoldier
Sun 10 Jul 2011 09:47
Position at 0900hrs Z, Sunday 10 July: 49deg N, 24deg W (about 700 miles W of the Scilly Isles).

The last 48 hrs have been variable, often slow going and mostly beating to windward. Frustratingly the wind direction has been variable: sometimes we're pointing at the finish, other times at Ireland or even Iceland. And the HF propagation has been pretty poor, so not even sight of a synoptic chart to give us the general picture.

Snow Lion (a Ker 50') crept up from astern yesterday afternoon, and 14 hours later are still just about visible, ahead but to leeward. In this big ocean its quite extraordinary to know there's someone else not far away.

Two nights ago we were very closely tailed by a pod/school (we're split on which) of about a dozen whales for about an hour. The sheer luminescence as they trailed in our wake was quite a sight, made rather creepy by their synchronised appearances above water some 50 yards astern as we sailed close-hauled at about 7 kts.

Routine onboard is steady and at last the impossibly long-life hot-dog sausages are gone. Tinned tuna is 'in'. Fingers remain crossed the gas will last to the finish; just 2 brews a day is quite a challenge and we have gas trading discussions if the evening meal takes less time to cook than expected. Discussions on the finer points of the Laws of Thermodynamics and the efficiency of boiling water for both watches at the same time doesn't get over the "I'd rather have mine later" or constant demand for more brews! But these are minor points, the fog has gone and the sun looks like it might come out today :-)


TransAtlantic Race tracker: www.transatlanticrace.org/tracker

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