Blue Peter Boat
Flyer of Lorne
Dave Sturrock
Tue 9 Dec 2008 10:43
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14:21.15N 49:30.20W
Monday 08 December, Days Run 162NM
A steady NE trade wind of F4-5 had become
re-established today allowing Flyer to clock up a good mileage on the log. We
had a busy start to the day when the SWAT team were called into action on the
foredeck to haul down our NO 1 Gennaker following a broach in 20knots of wind.
My policy in the ARC has been 2 strikes and you are out ( OK sometimes 3) in
terms of broaches. This has been to prevent the run of gear failure we had in
the Med and so far this has been successful.
Flyer continued to make 8knots with the Genoa
unfurled in glorious bright sailing conditions with a relatively flat sea. The
wind eased a little at 15:00hrs so we hoisted our No 2 Gennaker the Blue Beast,
the first time this potent weapon had been unleashed in 4 days.This increased
Flyer's boatspeed to 8-9knots to keep the log ticking over at pace. This was a
short lived outing however as we doused the Gennaker and unfurled the Genoa once
more at 18:00hrs as the breeze increased above 20knots.
We have only seen one yacht to the South
during the night which we slowly overhauled. Latest positions put us 8th in
class and exactly 100 in the ARC fleet so we continus to make good progress. Our
own class fleet is now at a very interesting stage as there are 8 yachts
including Flyer who are on a similar longitude West but stretched out over
180NM in latitude behind the leader Savage. This means we will have a drag race
to the finish as each of the yacht's will be on converging courses to St
Lucia.
Chieffy and Richard have made excellent use of
empty water bottles and duck tape to rig up many anti-chafe devices, hence
the subject titrle to this e-mail. These include using a length of 2inch plastic
hose to lead the Gennaker tack line over the bow. Despite much use of tape
to cover the bow roller and furling drum and mousing on the tack line itself,
this was still subject to chafe. By leading the line through the tubing this has
now been cured. They have also rigged up protective covers again made from empty
water bottles to cover the troublesome swan neck fitting at the mast and the
self tacker block, both of which attract the Genoa sheet to snag on. We also
have preventers permanently rigged on the main boom and on the Gennaker sheet to
control these when Flyer is subject to a rolling motion.
I have also been really pleased with how our waste
management onboard has gone with all our plastic items being compressed and
stored in cockpit locker spaces but taking up a lot less room than I expected.
There is of course no food waste as any leftovers are dealt with by one of the 2
garbage disposal units onboard, I will leave you to work out who they
are!
Flyer has also been included in a school project
which is being run by Class 8G at
St. Pius X Magherafelt during Geography lessons, they kindly pointed out we have
crossed the mid-Atlantic tectonic plates recently so will now be safe from any
sub sea volcanic activity!
Dave Sturrock
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