A Final Pivot
Ninaofsouthampton
Tue 1 Jun 2021 16:21
With under 200 miles to go, our final challenge is to run in a faster time than Big Bear. Like Pivot, she left 3 days before us.
A happy crew. Blasting along in the sunshine but in a surprisingly chilly wind. One more night at sea. Looking forward to a proper sleep especially after a bumpy ride last night with apparent wind rising above 30 knots from time to time. Exhilarating stuff but you can have enough of a good thing. Wind lighter now I’m glad to say.
Matt back to being the engineering legend. This time using an unconventional technique to unblock a toilet waste pipe. He sat on the hand pump to considerably increase pipe pressure. Despite his careful dieting on chocolate biscuits, he still weighs quite a bit! Some concern that the projectile blow piped out of the blocked pipe may have shattered the holding tank - but bilges smell OK. Matt has not confessed as to whether this new technique was planned or was a mere coincidence of the boat lurching at the wrong ( or right ) moment. Anyway. Another pump fixed and working. Apparently the boat owner, whoever that is, had not been maintaining the pipes properly with regular doses of vinegar to stop calcium building up. Oh dear.
Fresh food is finished but Ross conjured up another Fajita special with tuna and sweet corn filling. Classily warmed up; so tasty with a just baked feel. The man is a genius in the galley.
Nick pretty relaxed today. Maybe didn’t sleep so well. He normally spends a good few hours on the wheel each day. Axel, our Danish autopilot, has been doing the heavy lifting today. Also, Nick may be relaxed because it looks like we will put in the fastest time and he doesn’t need to probe his encyclopaedic knowledge of Racing Rules to identify potential disqualification issues. Some may remember the Dog Island cheats coming out of St Maarten. I wouldn’t call him competitive. More fanatical!
So landfall expected in daylight tomorrow. Hoping the island of Pico with its volcanic mountain will look magnificent. We will see.
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