A game of two halves
Fleck
Fri 8 Dec 2006 12:34
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Noon position: 16.46N, 37.35W
24 hour run: 155 n.miles
Estimated position noon Sat 9th:
The news on this otherwise unremarkable day in
paradise (rolling version) is that however you define it we are at the half way
mark, probably a little more. Excellent days run yesterday (the result of all
our sail changes the previous day perhaps!?), and have set a little more
sail this morning to enable the ropes to be moved around a bit to reduce the
wear (chafe). We are sailing at pretty much our maximum hull speed, and extra
sail area just makes us surf down the waves a bit faster, but also puts much
more stress on the rig: Although the other boats seem a little faster, we are
content, and will get there in one piece, I hope! The other Vancouver in
the event is more than a day in front of us, but he did use his engine for 12
hours at one stage, and he has a special downwind sail called a twizzler,
whereas we have just our 'woking'sails. We have excuses for poor performance:
it's our NHS background!
To celebrate we are having gin today, and Chicken
Tikka Masalla (tin from Bristol, Thanks Vicky) for supper. We also have a jar of
goose liver pate, but will keep this as a treat tomorrow, when home baked
bread to go with it is due!. We still have a few apples and oranges, and several
ripe and one still green tomato. Overall plenty of food, and the crew well
rested, despite difficulty of sleeping as we roll from one side of the bunk to
the other.
Yesterday afternoon saw a ship, possibly a warship,
miles off on our port side. The first sighting for several days, and nothing
since. We see lots of flying fish flying, but only one tiddler in the scuppers
this morning.
It was good to get various news snippets from the
outside world yesterday, and many congrats to Heather on her offer of a place at
Southamton, I wonder if Olivia has heard anything? Conny says we are 213
position, which seems very generous to me, I can only identify two boats
behind us, our no. is 245. I need to know which day Conny and Hannah are
returning to the UK in January
Richard andGeoff.
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