1,000NM to run! 17:52N 45:20.8W

Ceilidh of Lorne
Dave Sturrock
Sat 8 Dec 2012 13:22
ARC Day 11
 
Ceilidh continued to make great progress in the last 24hrs with a Daily Run of 193NM
At 00:20 this morning we had exactly 1,000NM left on the rhumb line route to St Lucia.
The wind gods had favoured us yesterday with a 20-25knot NE breeze filling in as against a 10-14knot forecast.
We did have another joust with our code 0 gennaker in 10knots of breeze which gave us plus 8knots boatspeed for 2 hours.
However as the wind increased to over 16knots we went for a furl and drop. This time the process was executed perfectly with all 6 crew involved.
Just shows practice makes perfect with this sail.
Overnight sailing was very difficult with full cloud cover and a quartering swell making it hard for all watches to hand steer.
Our forward progress sometimes felt that you had just finished a long version of strip the willow as Ceilidh corkscrewed onwards.
This was probably the darkest 12 hours of night sailing on the whole trip so far.
We continue to receive lots of support by email with the most distant so far being Nova Scotia!
Now down to the nitty gritty as the crew have a sweepstake for our ETA at St Lucia:
Dave 08:00 on 13 December
Mags 10:00 on 13 December
Janet 10:30 on 13 December
Paul 12:00 on 13 December
Richard 16:00 on 13 December
Neil 18:00 on 13 December
The burbler and garbler show ( B&G) has been in full flow as the course to our final destination becomes ever more important.
The next verse of our Christmas song:
On the 6th day of Christmas my skipper gave to me, six happy crew!
Life on board:
We decant our drinking water from 8litre bottles to 2 litre bottles, the empty large bottle is then used to store crushed cans and plastic. All our rubbish is stowed in the Lazarette (boot) where it will finally be disposed on arrival at St Lucia.
The sextant was in use for a midday sight yesterday, the heaving deck meant accuracy was at a premium but some progress was made.
Now it is very warm and humid onboard seems like al the crew favour a daily wash!
 
Dave Sturrock