good evening
our position at 2000 sat 11th june is
36.01.16N 005.59.82W
the first point of order tonight is that its James' birthday. I made a card
and did two hours of his watch so he could sleep longer-- im glad he only
has one birthday a year because it was horrible.. I ended up dancing to Cee
Lo at the back of the boat around a metal wire holding the mast up to stay
awake!
as you know im not so very yachty yet and james and Liam( first officer- but
there is only him left now) are having a bit of trouble stopping me fiddling
with bits of the boat that seem to work but dont look right to me.
Yesterday i noticed these long metal poles in the sails that give them some
shape and run vertically up the sail at about a metre distance and are made
of very strong tensile metal.( the longest is about 15m long!) they are held
in place with a velcro fastner and they looked a little loose to me so i
asked if i could re velcro them all.james reluctantly agreed and so using a
wooden spoon handle as my batten knife i did a reallt thorough job and all
looked neat and tidy.
last night my watch was 3-6pm.. All day i was fretting about waking up and
then had to try to devise a strategy to stay awake but could think of
nothing. james didnt trust me on my own so he slept in the cockpit to keep
an eye on me. After one hour i was a bit bored and the wind had really got
up so i woke james and said we should sail. he agreed and we went about
slowing the boat turning to wind moving bits and bats and then letting out
the main sail. its really massive and i was pleased as we also let out the
genoa and then we started flying. just as we went past the 8.2 knot(nautical
mph) mark was so proud---- until batten number three fell out onto the deck.
now james was really awake and at 4 am we had a problem on our hands. Even i
was a little surprised as i really did do a good job and immediatley knew
james and liam had fiddled with my work after i finished! it took James and
Liam more than a frantic hour to sort it all ,out a cup of tea to calm the
nerves and my watch was over. see i neednt have worried about staying
awake--- it was easy
tonight i want to say hi to golly hes a new reader to the blog-- get used to
him hes coming across the Atlantic
speak later
Marshall
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