early morning blog friday 30 November
Imagine of Plymouth
Arthur
Fri 30 Nov 2007 11:46
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What a beautifull night!! As the moon is coming up
later now so we had an amazing stary night. unfortunately arthur and myself know
nothing about constallations but i bet you could have made a few up. last night
we let henry do all the steering. henry comes in the shape of a large hydraulic
ram, never falers and does as you tell it. unfortunately it does not see the
waves coming so steering action is pretty violent. during night we saw 2 light
of boats in the far distance. latest report from shoreside is that we are 65th
overall including the 40 odd raceboats. so we are pretty pleased with ourselves
especially as we have not used the engine much. instead the generator is doing
overtime as the autohelm + other systems at night draw approx 13 Amp. we also
use lots of water for daily showers and washing up. unfortunatly the washing
machine has given up. luckily we all have plenty of stuff and it is definatly
shorts and t shirt. at night there is still a bit of a chill. chris and robert
are still wearing full sailing kit whilst rudy sits at night in
shorts!!
Sleeping was a interesting experinece last night.
We sailed and constant average of 8 knots, which is very fast for a heavily
loaded cruiing boat, and it was rolling and pitching and every direction.
Comparsion to a bucking bronce was not out of place but this one lasted for
approx 10 hours!! rudy tried 3 different beds enventually wedging himself
underneath the dinning room table. This worked!! mark who sleep in the bow of
the boat felt like he was being taken around and F1 track. Chris has now wedged
cushions around his body in his double bed and did not seem to notice anything
anymore, not even the 28 squall which came through!
So dawn broke and beautifull sunrise which we
caught on camera. Arthur wanted to get the 200 mile day so decided it was type
of the asymetric. It went up and we went very fast but unfortunately in the
wrong direction. We where dpinn 10-11 knots an certainly wake up the rest
of the crew! Anway after 45mins it came down again and polled the jib
out. Wind has now also increased to 20-26 knots and is set to stay so we are
making good progress. Speed is between 7-9 knots depending if we go down or
up the wave. Everybody has had showers, we got the washing machine working
and fresh bread is in the oven. Sun is also shining so we are all happy. Going
to do a rig check to make sure nothing is wearing through as the miles we
have do so far is what most cruisers do in year.
So that all the news from now from Imagine of
plymouth. Position at 1142 is 22 01 553 N and 028 21 155 W
We are eagerly awaiting our 1400 position report to
see how we are doing. Need to hand over to Arthur who needs to report
to ARC race control at 1200.
All the best! Rudy, Arthur, Chris, Robert and
Mark
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