Return Leg: Day 9 - Day 9, really?!

Halcyon
Rob Withers
Wed 1 Jul 2015 09:18
Pos: 48:35N 8:54W

We're now officially in British waters - which is good. This is the
9th day, so if we had been like Andrew Mills who only took 6 apples
because he was confident he'd finish in 6 days - well, we would be out
of apples!

The wind hole predicted by the grib files duly appeared yesterday
afternoon. However, the unusual sea-state made it different. The sea
was glassy smooth with barely a ripple, but underlying this was a big
swell with a really long wavelength. James, standing on the granny
bars, couldn't sea over the swell at times, so I guess they must have
been 3.5-4m trough to peak. The unusual smooth surface, however, meant
that Halcyon could slip along even in very low wind speed without being
stopped - so frustrating a couple of days ago. The apparent wind
picked up as we slid down the swell before dying completely as we
stopped in the troughs. Anyway, we managed to keep moving all the time
- albeit at glacial speed and have been able to make decent progress.
We've been making 5kn in about 8kn of true wind for the last 12
hours, which has made significant dent in the DTR.

There was a big pot of nutella, which sadly broke early in the trip.
James couldn't bear to throw it away, so it was decanted - minus most
of the shards of glass - into a tupperware container. We've just had
crepes for breakfast - a new innovation that we really should done
earlier. The nutella, with a hint of broken glass, made for a great
breakfast.

We're starting to estimate our finishing time. However, this trip has
made us very aware that an unlucky break with the wind can add days to
the time - so let's just say I hope to finish before the official race
end (23rd July). Hopefully tomorrow I might be able to firm up on that
estimate.



Rob
pp James