Changing fortunes
Neroli
Charles Tongue
Sat 6 Dec 2008 16:02
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16:54.50N
41:07.00W
Changing
fortunes..........
We eventually
motored for seven hours yesterday and it was lovely to dry the boat, clothes etc
before showers all round and more model making. Painting the camouflage markings
on a 6" long plastic model while the boat rolls through 90 degrees
produces interesting results which are unpredictable, to say the least. Shortly
after nightfall a gentle breeze picked up and we turned off the engine and
sailed gently at 5kn under mains'l and genoa. Within an hour the breeze had
increased to give us a steady 6 - 7 kn in a calm sea and under a starry
sky.
 Lou, Charlie
& Henry enjoying a 'downwind' breakfast.
Everyone
enjoyed their watches and we caught up on our sleep. At daybreak we hoisted the
kite (spinnaker) again and were enjoying breakfast in the warm sunshine when
black clouds came rushing towards us from the SE. We tracked it on our radar and
it was clear that we were going to face more squalls and tropical rainfall. We
dropped the spinnaker, furled away the mains'l and let out half the genoa at the
clouds opened. On this occasion we were not hit by he 50+kn that we had
previously experienced but at least we were prepared! Soon we were back
to full sail but still decided that a coffee with a dash of whisky was
justified! Thanks to our spell of motoring through the calms of yesterday we
logged 136 nm for our noon day run.
The ARC
handicap system suggests that only 24 of the entries out of a total of 225
should be slower than us but we estimate that there about 100 yachts behind us
which is cheering - although we are not, of course, pushing ourselves! The
leading yachts must be due to arrive within the next day or so and we still
have over 1,000 miles to go but Neroli and her crew are in good heart and
seem to be breaking through into a more settled pattern of tradewinds although
they still seem to be disrupted by a series of small depressions. Henry
nearly caught two big fish this morning but both got away before he managed to
reel the in. The skipper is happy to enjoy his lunch in the cockpit 'maxing out'
at 8.7kn - let's hope it lasts!
Saturday
06.12.08 1600 GMT
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