Little Pea's ARC 14 Blogoramma - Yeah it's all about the chafe, 'bout the chafe...
Littlepea
Fri 5 Dec 2014 17:30
|
16:56.7N 42:18.6W
Tune of the Day: "Canned Heat" -
Jamiroquai
Day 12. Life on board Little Pea is becoming
unbearably hot. We are down to the minimum amount of clothing that modest
dictates and have started spending as much time as possible on deck
as down below is now really uncomfortable.
However, heat is the least of our problems at
the moment. Someone once said that chafe is an ocean sailor's biggest
nightmare, and they were right. So far we've chafed through sheets on a dodgy
lead and now - just as the sun had set - the spinnaker halyard which was holding
dear Babs aloft snapped sending her into the drink and the remaining rope
shooting down the mast. Nightmare. It was all hands on deck as we struggled to
haul her back on board, then prep to launch Daisy - our smaller spinnaker - on
the spare halyard in Bab's place. All was well, until the predicted stable
breeze decided to throw a fit of it's own, danced around the compass rose, and
sent us flying due south - not the direction we were hoping for. So, Daisy (due
to her cut) had to come down and be replaced by our slower, but dependable,
Genoa Sail (the ever reliable, "Debs"). Debs is now working in
partnership with the Dutchess in a "goosewing" combination to keep us
moving on a steady and gentle track, albeit our progress is painfully
slow.
As dawn broke this morning, Minkey was thrown back
to his younger days of tree surgery and sent up Little Pea's rig to assess
the chafe situation and see if we could run a new halyard. The sea wasn't
exactly the kindest to poor Minkey - who liked the experience to being worse
than climbing trees during the "storm of '87" - was unable to fashion a
durable solution. We are now working on some innovative solutions
from the deck but, in the meantime, are unable to launch our spinnaker
kites.
To make matters worse, the wind is now down to
only 8-10 kts and, despite her best efforts, LP is slogging it out, rather
than gliding through rhe waves with her usual style and elegance. All in
all, the past 24 hours have been very frustrating...
However, spirits are being kept high. We
fixed the rudder stock with Tesco's Finest Olive Oil which solved the
infuriating squeek that started out of the blue 24 hours ago and has deprived us
of sleep even more so than Mike's snoring. Mike has had a productive
afternoon coiling pink string which was birdsnested. The highlight of
the day today is that Ben is on mother watch and we are all looking forward
to see what delights will come out of the galley later.
**LP Agony Aunt Feedack:**
Well done to Miss Pickering's Maths class for
correctly calculating that we're not going to make the waypoint in time. We've
put up (and brought down) all the sail we can, we are praying for more
wind. We do like your suggestion on loosing some weight and would
welcome suggestions.
Thank you also to Amanda Jagger for the suggestion
of a Little Pea receipe book. This is actually in proress as our
dependably purser, Minkey, has been keeping an acurate records of all on-board
dining experiences, for future publication.
And one more for today:
Q: What is the difference between a nautical and
statute mile?
A: One nautical mile = 1.15 statue miles.. The
reason for the difference, is that nautical miles take into consideration the
curvature of the earths surface. I kt is equal to 1 nautical mile per
hour. Daily stats:
Max
Boat speed = 9 kts, but in totally the wrong
direction
Number of spinnakers used = 2 (Daisy & Babs)
Number of broken spinnaker halyards = two
Maximum Gust = 20kts
Number of Flying Fish = A fair
few
Number of Whales = nil
Amount of Rain = nil
Advent calendar highlight = .A baby Gruffalo
with a half melted head.
Jags, Minkey, Ben and
Mike |