Saturday downwind
Catmojo
Matt
Sat 13 Jun 2020 11:45
880nm to the Lanzarote waypoint now, which is a random spot I chose at the southern end of Lanzarote a few miles south of Marina Puerto Calero. Motoring up from the south will avoid dodging so many fishing boats and other stuff on the eastern side of Lanzarote, I hope.
Downwind sailing time at last. Most east to west transatlantic trips are almost 100% downwind, nice and comfy easy sailing, you just fling up as much laundry as possible and see how it goes. James has already been muttering about clingfilm, otherwise known as Gladwrap or in Dutch "huishoudfolie", and on a memorable (slow) transat he awoke to find that I had wrapped the stuff all over and around the forward guardrails for an extra 1/4knot. Deeply unimpressed at the now very messy boat appearance, he said it would be only okay if it was Kevlar Offshore Racing Clingfilm, but simply awful with ordinary kitchen stuff, so we took it off.
With wind now at more than 100degrees, I might try the (very likely nightmare of a) "endless" furling gennaker than the previous owner left with the boat before (probably) flinging it overboard like the last one, perhaps wrecking it a bit first, maybe.
Otherwise it's the Pirate sail, but not really downwind enough for that yet - it needs wind coming at the boat from over 120 degrees (as seen from the helm i.e. wind coming from anywhere between 4 and 8 on a clockface) or more although I do remember flying a similar sail at 100degrees with James in yet another only partially successful experiment.
Thanks again for all the messages. You can message 160characters at a time from IridiumMessaging, or email to Catmojo on the mailasail server dot com - don't press "reply" else it goes to James, and don't send anything but your text.
Also, don't forget that all the emails and messages are public amongst the crew. Imagine getting scolding or sulky emails from friends and family as if you were still at school, eh? Maybe Sam's contacts are competing amongst each other to send Most Embarassing Message. Still a week to go yet, and Sam's Dad is winning easily with his after-hours drunk-texting. One idea might be to use another language - Ampi has Spanish, Anna has Dutch, so maybe Welsh or Polish might be an option? Sam is more concerned about his Being Andy Murray's Body Double For a Photoshoot contract (yes really) and hopes that Penny's text was a joke - he'll be back in the UK soon!