Little Pea's ARC14 Blogoramma - Life at 45 degrees
Littlepea
Fri 28 Nov 2014 18:25
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24:14.2N 026:02.7W
Tune of the Day: "When the Going Gets Tough", Billy
Ocean
Day 5. A challenging 24 hours. No
sooner had we finished enjoying Ben's second culinary masterpiece of the day
- Doggie Pie - and the wind swung around to the NW putting us on a beam
reach. After dark it started to gust 25+ kts and we could nolonger
hold our course. We had to bear off the wind, hand steering for long
periods during the night as Beryl (our trusty auto-helm) couldn't cope with the
gusts. The boat went over onto a 45' heel and everything down
below became pretty chaotic. The leecloth holding jags into his bunk broke
and he landed with a crash and led to a "Jags moment". Minkey spent a
sleepless night trying to get into any kind of position in the stern cabin
but mostly ended up twisted around duvet in an upside down
position.
We also broke the shackle holding up our headsail
and had an hour of drama while we dragged it out of the sea and replaced it with
our spare headsail. Our first major breakage and, yes, Mike was helming at the
time. After much faffing and grunting, we all fell into our bunks,
wet, salt crusted and frustrated that we had lost a couple of hours of boat
speed. Once settled, we attempted to lug Mike's dead weight up the mast to fix
the broken shackle. However, it only resulted in him gaining a few more bruises,
whilst swearing like a, well, sailor, and unable to resolve the issue due to the
lumpy seas.
The conditions are enduring during the day today
and it is truly horrific down below now. The boat cleaners will have one
heck of a job to do when we make landfall...
Here are some top tips for this kind
of sailing ("Life at a 45' heel
angle"):
- make sure you get the leeward (lower) side
bunk. Resort to violence if necessary
- failing this, just sleep anywhere where you can
wedge yourself in and not move.
- make sure you don't mind lots of physical
intimate contact with other men.
- if you do get thrown against something, make sure
it is soft enough to break you fall (like Ben for example)
- don't try to use the heads (that's boaty speak
for toilets). No, just don't...
And finally... A big shoutout to Team Indulgence
from ARC 2012 who are apparently following our blog. You'll be glad to know that
this time we did buy enough potatoes - so didn't have to beg, borrow or steal
from any Irish competitors on start day - and the diesel leak has been found but
we've not cleaned it up yet...
Don't forget to keep sending us your comments,
questions and problems to littlepeasailing {CHANGE TO AT} gmail {DOT} com They're
a massive moral boost for us all in these tough conditions.
Daily stats for today:
Max
Boat speed = 8.5 kts
Number of Reefs = Nil
Maximum Gust = 25 kts
Number of sails in the water = 1
Wildlife = Lots of birds - sorry Paul, we
weren't counting
Amount of Rain
= None Jags, Minkey, Ben and
Mike
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