Another Glorious ARC Day
Flyer of Lorne
Dave Sturrock
Thu 27 Nov 2008 05:10
|
21:20.30N 19:04.89W
Wed 26 November, Days Run 149NM
The temperature continues to rise as we make our
passage South. The NNE or NE breeze has been more consistent today allowing
better progress to be made although we continue to head South rather than West.
Our log distance is considerably less than recorded on the ARC website as I am
reporting actual distance travelled through the water compared to VMG towards
our destination of ST Lucia. There are fascinating times ahead regarding tactics
as there appear to be more than one large area of very light winds in which you
could all so easily sail into. Although trere is a god trade wind flow
established around latitude 20N, this does not look although it will be
sustained for more than a few days. We have only sighted one yacht today which
was around 8NM astern and heading in a more Westerly direction. Like our
competitors I am sure, large chunks of our day revolve around position reporting
at midday, sending and reading e-mails and then trying to plot where our nearest
class rivals are. Richard has made up a spreadsheet so we can track our class
and see where we are.Whiole it may look like we are struggling on VMG, I am
happy with our boatrspeed with the blue beast continuing to fly and tow
Flyer along behind! The e-mail has been invaluable for keeping in contract and
with support. I contacted Charlie Ambrose the Hanse Scotland agent with a
technical problem regarding our battery charging cycle. First thing in the
morning he was on the Sat Phone to give advice along with Jeff Rutherford which
was a great response. We are able to charge the batteries no problem, but each
successive cycle was drawing them down less and causing us to have recharge them
again due to low voltage problems. We are now going to change the way we are
charging, limiting this to 1 hour cycles to re-set the smart regulator each
time. The other routine we never miss onboard is mealtimes. We still
have fresh vacuum packed meat in the fridge so no need to go fishing just
yet and Buster is taking the lead in providing noursihment for 5 hungry
crew, no easy task as you can imagine.
After dark this evening we had another visit by
some dolphins. This was another amazing show by nature as each one that
approached left a bright trail of phosphorescence behind. This was truly
spectacular and although I have seen plenty of phosphorescence trails
before, I had never seen them made by dolphins.
Dave Sturrock
|