Day 2, 126 miles covered with style if not speed.

Calypso's Web Diary
Joe Drury
Sun 5 Jun 2011 18:06
Hello all,
 
I've just had some lovely emails, thanks lovely alex (my password is the usual one with 1 instead of I.) ooh criptic... Mum and Kath, thanks for the emails, keep them coming! You asked where I was, I think you can look at the AZAB website and look for my tracker. Alex knows, ask her, I'm sure she'd like to hear from you anyway.
 
Andrew, lovely to hear from you skipper, thanks for the update, I'm pushing quite hard now in 15 knots of wind from the sbd quarter, I've taken the spinnaker down as I don't fancy wrestling with it in a F6, due later tonight maybe. I expect everyone else will be hard at it too, let me know if I've gained some in the next few days as I've lost everyone by sight, AIS and even Radar now. I'm happy with only 10 miles to make, I thought (as one does, I suppose) that everyone was miles away by now, reality is theyre just over the horizon! Hooray! 
 
At the moment I am heading in the exact right direction making 6 knots and surfing down some pretty big rollers. My log speed is near 7 so if the wind holds when the current turns I'll be really tanking. Cali is good in downwind conditions, apparently other bigger vessels hate it as they are a lot more twitchy and swing about, making their helmsman's life hell. Meanwhile, on a 1974 Dufour I am typing away and drinking coffee, the windvane doing all the work admriably.
 
I must say the Class 1 boats (and some C2) are more the gentleman's way of doing this race. We may not be as fast as the Open 40's but we have all our comforts (cushions, soft beds etc) and my wooden panneling and teak sole makes me feel all homey rather than a tin tube for storing sails in. A funny bit I've just remembered from the start, Tamarind, solo skippered by a renown AZABer was blasting out some music as we were doing our timing runs, I think it was ride of the Valkyeries or something... very good. I expect he'll be nearly there by now. Can anyone tell me who's in the lead?
 
A fishing ship is annoying me, it is following me and is setting my radar alarms and my two AIS alarms off every 5 minutes as either one of us shifts course. F/V Miren, if you are reading this, piss off.
 
Breakfast today was lovely, I had toast and butter, cheese and ham and sliced mushrooms, a fag and a coffee and then a haribo-feast, to give me the energy I needed to wrestle with the kite. I've suffered some small failures, One was a gibb quick-release shackle that shed its pin (i've never seen one do that before...) that happened at 4 in the morning, thanks Neptune you bastard, and one of my spinnaker blocks has had it. Luckily, I have spares but it just goes to show how much force is on these big downwind sails.
 
Planning tea, I'm thinking pasta with spicy red pesto, parmesan slices, chopped onion and garlic and the rest of the mushrooms.
 
tata for now,
 
Joe