Line Laundry
Catmojo
Matt
Sat 20 Nov 2021 08:20
All fine, still 6 to 7 knots motorsailing, sea around a metre swell, and a full-ish moon overnight.
Little bit more wind overnight to a massive 8knots from E ish, but I couldn't use the mainsail cos the lines were in the wash. See, I decided to use some of the very hot water produced by running the engine to have a shower, and then another shower. Then, I thought it would be jolly good to soak the jib lines in some of the hot water too. And why not the spinnaker and main halyards as well? I didn't take them off, just filled big buckets on the foredeck usinhg smaller buckets from the sink tap, and lifted downhaul lines to allow almost all the spi and main halyards to sit in a long soak overnight with laundry liquid. The jib/foresail lines had only an afternoon soak and quick rinse (no spin, obviously) so the jib has been back up overnight with free of Sahara/Lanzarote dust and far less nastily wiry.
I spent/wasted some of yesterday afternoon making a hose adapter for the galley sink tap to a hose pipe for the line-washing project above, to pipe the hot water directly to the foredeck, which eventually worked (only moderately) well with only limited water spraying around the saloon and galley from time to time, largely controlled by a towel over the tap. Well, the computer still works anyway.
There's two batches of lettuce bought on 16th, and all fine with the first so far. The second batch is extra-sealed around the edges with masking tape where I attempted (and largely failed) to suck air out of the container before finally totally sealing it down. But anyway, I can see it lasting at least a week or maybe more at this rate. No, not limp and nasty at all, and I could definitely rejuvenate it more with quick washing. I didn't wash the lettuces before storage btw, just broke off the individual leaves.
Late afternoon I found what seemed to be an abandoned boat, not moving, no sails up. It was static on radar, and as with most sailing boats out here it seems - no AIS. As I got closer I tried raising them on VHF. No answer. Binocular inspection showed it was a Jeanneau 49. There was finally some movement on deck and the motor was running, so all fine. French flagged but I didn't get the name. Three crew with estimated combined age over 210 years. I waved, they waved. As I moved past, they kinda guiltily pulled out a bit of in-mast furled mainsail and pointed west towards even less wind, but still hardly moving for the whole 2 hours as I approached and left them. Oh well. Maybe they were having dinner, or waiting for the ARC helicopters.
It'll be just over 450 miles direct back to Las Palmas at 830 GMT, which means 150miles VMG per day = just over 6knots average VMG. 6knots is 18-19 day crossing and fine enough. No rush.