Answers and questions over the Marie Celeste Fracture Zone.
Fleck
Tue 5 Jun 2012 09:20
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Date: 5th June, 2012
Position 19:34.5S
66:35E
Look it up on the map if you don't believe me! So,
there is probably a patrol boat out here somewhere, and so, a lttle play within
a play:
Skipper: Hey look, Mate, mate (Skipper is
Australian, his mate is the Mate), isn't that the Marie Celeste?
Mate: No, Skip, it says Fleck.
Skipper: No need to take that turn of phrase with
me, mate. Anyway why doesn't it have its sails hoisted? You had better take the
RIB accross and have a look.
(Later)
Mate : Better call the white coats, Skip.
One guy on board. Naked and really thin: must have eaten the rest of the crew, I
reckon. Anyway now he has started on the boat: sitting there dismantling all the
cabin woodwork, singing along to Bruce Springsteen's 'Wrecking Ball', chewing a
piece of teak wood.
Skip: Did he offer any kind of
explanation?
Mate, No Skip, but I guess he has a right to prefer
Bruce to Kylie, if that the way his chemistry works, and in the circumstances I
just thought that I'd leave him to it.
Skip: Fair dinkum, no dramas then, lets just leave
the log blank, shall we?
The End.
So, here are the answers:
1) I'm not in the Goldilocks zone (again). I don't
want to arrive off Rodrigues in the middle of the night, and then sail to and
fro until dawn, and I can't get there any quicker; so I'm slowing down out here
where there is no inshore boat traffic, no reefs, and no acceleration winds.
Actually I do have twin headsails hoisted, to keep the boat pointed downwind: in
total about the size of the optimist's sail. Tonight and tomorrow I will sail a
little faster to keep better control, and then fingers crossed the arithmetic is
right, and I don't have to either heave too, or get there so late I have to wait
another day!
2) What poor taste: I'm almost a vegitarian
now.
3) The teak was damp and salty, it is from the top
of one of the main bulkheads, this is where sea water has been getting into the
inside of the boat, and thence to the bunks.
And the questions?
But how does the seawater get from the deck surface
to the top of the bulkhead, which is on the inside? I suspect that I know the
answer, because exactly the same situation arose on the other side of the boat
last year, and is still not resolved. Basically the hull and the deck: seperate
GRP mouldings, have not been joined together in a waterproof way. Water gets
between the deck and the hull on the outside, and leaks down into the cabin from
the inside. This is not a problem that is easliy solved, but a watertight boat
would be a nice advantage on the next quite rough passage to and around South
Africa. C'est la Vie.
The French joke?:
Rabbi, Englishman and a Chinese in a yacht sinking
in the Indian Ocean. Only room for two in the Liferaft.
Rabbi: I don't like the Chinese, we should feed him
to the sharks.
Englishman: Why ever don't you like the
Chinese?
Rabbi: They bombed Pearl Harbour, didn't
they?
Englishman: That was the Japanese!
Rabbi: Japanese, Chinese, they are all the
same!
Chinaman: I don't like Jews.
Englishman: Why ever not?
Chinaman: They sunk the Titanic.
Englishman: That was an iceberg!
Chinaman: Iceberg, Goldberg, Greenberg: they are
all the same.
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