Dawdling along in the Doldrums
Caramor - sailing around the world
Franco Ferrero / Kath Mcnulty
Sat 14 Mar 2015 14:15
Saturday 14 March (start of day 7)
Sunrise in mid Atlantic listening to Jimi Hendrix, Ginger Baker and co. playing Voodoo Chile. Ace! Try falling asleep on watch to that one! Generally we are having a good passage. There is enough wind so far, the skies are blue if a little hazy, the ocean is blue and vast, and the temperatures proper hot. We are only 5 degrees from the equator now and the difference a few degrees make is amazing.
By lunchtime we aren't exactly dawdling anymore. We are flying the spinnaker and our speed has risen from 3 knots to 5 knots.
Franco shouting at the lazy guy to "get out of the water"
Recap of the last few days
When we finally got a decent breeze from the trades it only lasted a couple of days before going light again.
Wednesday
Still flying twin headsails and Caramor is going fast. The sea got a little lumpy and when combined with the speed made sleeping difficult overnight.
End of Day 4, 0900 Thursday 141NM.
Changed to genoa and mainsail. Started fast but began to have problems with rafts of floating seaweed fouling the hydro vane of the self steering. We ended up lifting it or of the water and hand steering all night. Very tiring.
End of Day 5, 0900 Friday 125NM.
Sargasso weed
Winds light and weed still a problem. Had to take the Aquagen generator impeller out of the water as it stopped turning when it had collected 20kg of seaweed. The weed thinned out during the afternoon and Aries did most of the steering. We heard Tenerife Radio shipping Warning on the VHF, from 2,200 NM away! The Metz Manta may be a good aerial but that is ridiculous!. We took advantage of the calmer conditions to have the weekly fresh water shower we allow ourselves on passage.
End of Day 6, 0900 Saturday 88NM.
Franco Ferrero
Caramor
Nb The lazy guy is the guy rope that isn't being used but is rigged ready to control the spinnaker pole if you change sides.