Re: Day 17 Unwanted visitors
Jacana
David Munro
Tue 27 Jan 2009 21:10
|
The last 24 hours has seen remarkably steady
progress with another 199 miles scored for the 7.00am to 7.00am 24 hour run. We
have had winds ranging from 15 to 19 knots which has seen Olive out of her bag
and on display. We made a drop an hour before dawn when the wind
pushed up to over 20 knots and we hoisted the orange spinnaker which we
held until mid morning when the wind dropped off again. We have very choppy seas
similar to a channel chop, there are two distinct wave patterns competing with
one another. We are running deep for the day and the seas tend to
throw the top of the mast around, spilling the wind fom the
spinannaker - we are having to sheet on a little more than we would like for
best performance but it does stabalise the boat. Every six hours we are gybing
the boat to make the best use of wind shifts, we have been waiting on a Grib
predicted shift all day which should put us straight back down the Rhumb line.
Because of the choppy seas and winds upto 20 knots,
we don't gybe the kite in the conventional way, rather we drop it, gybe the boat
and re-hoist. In order to gybe successfully the spinnaker must be gybed
before the main boom other wise it collapses and you are almost guaranteed a
wrap. In a short chop it is very difficult to hold the boat dead down
wind to achieve this, when we wrapped and tore Olive, it was because the boom
came accross before the spinnaker had filled. We now have the whole routine down
to 6-7 minutes which sounds a long time but are not racing around the cans but
trying to keep all the working parts on the boat together.
Yesterday morning we had an incident that left us
uneasy for most of the day and into the early evening. At around 8,00am we
noticed a vessel approaching us from the south west, she approached almost on a
collision course before turning and passing along our side port to port at half
a mile distance. The boat at first looked like a poorly maintained trawler but
on closer inspection had no fishing running gear. Paul likened it to a boat that
had been built on scrap heap challenge (see attached photograph).What was
distinguishable was at least one RIB on a derick with an outboard on
the aft deck. The boat went past us and then turned behind us
broadside to our course. She then appeared to turn back towards us before
stopping in the water. She had placed herself directly into the sun which at
8.00 was not high in the sky and we could not see what she was upto in the glare
off of the water. We were sailing at 10 knots and gradually we left her behind
in our wake, 20 minutes later she was out of sight. The boat had no
distinguishable name and was not flying a flag. We are not in a fishing ground
and there is no commercial traffic to speak of 750 miles off the Brazilian
coast. The coast of Venezuala has a reputation for piracy but that is some 1000
miles away - needless to say we turned off our "Sea-me" which enhances our radar
image and kept a good look out to our stern. We have taken various precautions
against unwanted visitors - 36 hours on we feel they are half way back to Africa
from where they probably came.
We are now a couple of days away from the finish
and have set a target to finish 4th on the water, a tall order as we
were last but one boat on the water 10 days ago. It is a very tricky approach to
Salvadour, the last 50 miles can be very frustrating as the winds go light once
we come into the influence of the land. Watch this space.
Nature watch
As we approach South America there are more sea
birds, all of which we can't identify, Chris thought he saw a parrot this
morning but he hadn't even got out of his bunk.
|
