7 Dec - It's only a shower
Moulin Rouge
Philip Barltrop
Thu 9 Dec 2010 13:20
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Water, a life source, a friend and also at times a
foe. During our time on board Moulin Rouge we have certainly seen a lot of
water, in fact some days, we see nothing but those of us on board and water, but
this night we were all to experience a new phenomenon.......
Chris and Andy had settled down for the 9pm to 12am
watch and all was appearing to be quiet, so Andy let Chris have an easy night
and relieved him from his watch. Ten minutes later a call from the deck
and Mark and Chris were on deck having donned lifejackets to find Andy in a
Squall with sails backed and 28 knots of wind from nowhere howling through the
rigging. Philip sprung to action activating the Night sun deck lamp and
all set to trying to tame the sails in the challenging and torrential rain
conditions. Andy was prepared in full waterproofs, Mark was wearing his
pyjama trousers, whilst Chris was wearing shorts. Comments were made
subsequently that although cold rain, it was fresh and as refreshing as a
shower. Subsequent to the squall passing by, Chris and Andy restored the
sail plan with second reef mainsail and full headsail for the following
watches. During the squall, Andy did also manage to help provide some
shelter for a little sea bird that had landed on board. The bird was seen
by some later watches still on board, but we now assume the rested bird has gone
back to join its friends.
Following this first Squall, Andy and Chris both
completed the watch scouring the horizon for black patches that could be the
next Squall.
Colin and Ben were woken for a watch change at
midnight and managed to avoid a soaking by tactically manoeuvring past two
further squalls then handing over the watch to Philip and Mark at 3am.
Mark and Philip were hit again by a couple more squalls and after two changes of
clothes were relieved by Andy and Chris who were led to believe they were
just exiting a squall under headsail. Chris and Andy sat in that squall
for 2 hours trying to escape its clutches by increasing speed, decreasing speed,
altering course, but could not escape its grasp. Philip remained up
monitoring the radar seeing this ever growing squall. The final successful
tactic was to slow the boat down to about 1.5 knots and let the squall overtake
us.
Ben and Colin were not to be let of scot free in
this catalogue of soakings. They resumed watch from Andy and Chris at 9am
and then endured almost three hours of driving rain as we headed south
away from the Squall zone.
All in all an epic night - special thanks must be
noted for the valiant and consistent work of our seventh crew member Ray, who we
feel this passage would not be possible
without...........
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