6. Half way??
Telefonica Black
Lance Shepherd
Fri 24 Jan 2020 18:22
|
16:31.138N 026:51.067W - Number of gybes: 6 - Distance
to Antigua: 2000 nm
Max speed: undefined - Speed winner of the day:
...
Oof.. it was a difficult day today. After a
relatively quiet an uneventful night with an average of 18 knots of wind we
changed the J4 (jib) to the A7 at 1000 and not soon after we hoisted the A2
(a really big Asymmetric for lighter winds). Just when we hoisted the A2 the
wind dropped to 7 knots and on occasion it was even less.
So sailing wise it was not a challenge at all. With no
wind the temperature rose rapidly and we were allowed to take off our life
jackets. Those off watch practiced a little bit on their knots, we threw buckets
of Atlantic water over ourselves to cool off, Pierre (who will be
introduced in a later blog) played the Ukulele.
Yesterday the same Pierre started a story (4 lines) and
the next person had to continue the story based on the last line of Pierre his
paragraph and so on. 10 People wrote 4 lines and it was hilarious. Today we
played the story which was mainly about David, Alex, a mermaid and dolphins.
Pierre brought a professional microphone and we used Johannes his camera to
record it all. Drew became the narrator as everybody got to play their
part. Personally I can't wait to see the result and just maybe we will post it
on Facebook as soon as we have wifi in Antigua.
Antigua.. the goal of this trip. Today is day 6 and
theoretically we could be half way, but we still have 1953 nm to go. The
last 6 days we have not really done the shortest distance but we did the fastest
track possible under the circumstances (wind force and direction). At 1800 this
evening we gybed to starboard tack and with a heading of 275 degrees this should
take us straight across to Antigua. The big question now is: when will we
arrive?
Since everybody seems to have an answer we decided
to start a raffle today. Everybody had to fill in the date and time
they think we will dock in Antigua. Thanks to Lance and Claire there really is
something at stake: the winner gets a real Telefonica Black T-shirt! Lets just
hope we do not have too many more days like today.. With days like this it is
also impossible to nominate the maximum speed winner and that takes the joy
(pressure?) out of helming when there is nothing else to do.
But... we saw whales!! It was a group of 3 and they were
a bit far away, but we saw them none the less. A great experience for most of
us. It was a shame that Jose his drone (yes he brought a drone) had just landed
safely back on deck. The footage he was able to take of Telefonica Black was
mesmerizing though and knowing Jose he will make a great movie out of it.
Obviously we will also share this as soon as we are back on wifi.
It is nice to have no reception, to be disconnected from
the world for a while, but I am sure that most of us can't wait to get back
online and share their awesome experience onboard Telefonica Black.
At least 6 more days to go..
Angela
|