Kotari - blog
Kotari
Mon 7 Dec 2020 11:59
Day 13 or 14 - 5/12
We have got to the stage of the crossing were personal records are being broken!
- longest at sea (this applies to all the crew)
- longest miles covered in 1 hit (I have now joined the rest of the crew in this as Hawaii to LA was my previous at 2200 odd miles)
- Most we’ve ever lost track of what day/time etc it is also!
- Deepest water swam in (somewhere between 3 and 5km deep
Having started in the Canaries which is in UT/UTC/GMT whichever you want to call it. We are still running the boat on this time although our meal times have shifted.
The sun has just set (15-20 mins ago) at 2100ish and it won’t rise again until 0930ish tomorrow.
This is UT messing with us a bit. We want to keep it as the boat time for navigational reasons and not to mess with our 24 hour/days miles clocked etc.
Luckily on a watch system we’re not too worried about jet lag on arrival as our body clocks are totally screwed anyway!
This morning a few minutes after extending the fishing line off the bag it buzzed with enthusiasm and so I jumped to meet said enthusiasm… Again I’m not sure what I caught but actually I’d say it caught me… within minutes I was knackered and thought it would take me and the rod but we had a good duel (I was losing) for probably 10-15 mins before the line - rated for 40 pounds of load - snapped. That was the mornings excitement
Oh also last night as it was so calm I built up the courage to put the drone up (I find what works best is just getting it all ready without thinking too much about it that way you’ve committed).
In the Solent I’ve had issues with Oyster catchers/ Aka Drone haters, almost knocking it out of the sky on several occasions, so I felt pretty chuffed about not having to worry about that 1000 miles from land…. Oh how wrong I was, not even 30 seconds after launching, there’s a bloody bird hunting it down… much to the crews amusement. I managed to avoid this unknown variety of bird and got some great shots.
The landing however was a right old sphincter clencher… the water was so calm but I didn’t quite anticipate the rise and fall of the Atlantic swell which must be a good few meters.
Anyway got the drone back in may hand after bringing it over the boat and letting the boat rise up towards it, almost lost a finger, but didn’t, so its a winner!
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The last few days have been quite hard I think in that it’s been very light winds/slow going, with a bit of motoring which is a little meh, while also starting to get uncomfortably hot. I realise if you’re reading this from the UK and your heating is broken you’ve understandably got bugger all sympathy. I’ve managed over the last week almost now to never where more than 1, or maybe 2 items of clothing at any one time…. Most of the time the nickname “captain underpants” has been pretty spot on….
Anyway, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We finished a stint of motoring this morning through a day and night of max 3 knots of wind to make it to the SW side of this high pressure and got using some light wind spinnaker trimming have almost got our way out all together.
We are hoping that around 0100 UT the wind will increase enough and back (anticlockwise) to the NNE allowing us to head on course for St Lucia with the Asymmetric up under moonlight. This will be the theme for Sunday, (Editors note actual wind kicked in at 13.00)
Then Monday, a further increase in wind and veering (clockwise) back to the ENE so we can pop the mast-head symmetric (my fav) up again to take us the last few hundred miles.
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Sunday 6th December! - Day 14
At 1300 UT/UTC/GMT marks the 2 weeks since the start.
It’s been 2 races in one. The first half being a fair old rollar coaster and learning how fast we can go while breaking as little as possible (I didn’t learn quick enough, more on that)
The second half has been a slow and frustrating oven.
This morning was an absolute tease, we were expecting more favourable winds around 0230 this morning and they came, only 12 hours later. We had 5 minutes in every 30 mins this morning where the wind would pick up and we’d accelerate, only to drop off again!
Urgh
Since this afternoon however after the 1200 position update (we were the slowest in the top 20 boats by a long way and I hope that means the others were motoring…) the wind has picked up and we’ve seen speeds of 7-8 knots for the first time in too long! Our Swedish friends on Sandvita have overtaken us by 7 nm (dtf) but I’m hoping that by being further south we will get the better wind and strength and angle, faster and take them back again… time will tell!
This evening we were just discussing how wonderfully stable and fast we were with the big mumma Symmetric and should keep it going overnight when the beak (the end of the spinnaker pole that attaches to the guy/spinnaker to hold it away and stablilse it) decided to let go of the kite. It seems that needs looking at tomorrow but we now have our cute small cruising shoot (user friendly sized asymmetric spinnaker) up. I’ve been pining after the big Asym which we’d probably be getting an extra 2 knots out of if I hadn’t decided to fly that at night and get blown out by a squall… lessons learned!
There have been no fish apart from line breaking leviathans (one more line stripped off the rod) which I have serious muscle aches from my failed attempt to reel one in yesterday…
We’ve cracked into the tinned food in full swing with some corned beef, baked beans and rice pudding tonight! It was originally sold as Sunday roast rib of Beef surprise.
Very excited to get to St Lucia, our eta is Wednesday so in theory only 2 more FULL days to go!
Hopefully there will be some converging with the fleet as we come in and I hope those far north and east of us don’t get completely shafted by the high pressure!
In theory the conditions should be consistent and dreamy but not holding my breath just yet!
Hope very much that all is well in the world and it’s not going to be some CV-19 28 days later type scenario… that would make me sad
All the best, going to sleep now to sound of a boat sailing rather than wallowing/flapping it’s way west!
Signing off
RP x
Ps - my phone hasn’t survived this trip - green screen of doom, so contact upon arrival may be… challenging
Fingers crossed it just needs some wifi and a restore…
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