Transat Day 11 - 4th December 2008 - close encounters

Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Thu 4 Dec 2008 12:56


Position: 16:49:30N 34:12:40W

 

Transat Day 11

 

Today’s fun and games have included dismantling the Aries (the boys), baking cakes (the girls), and seeing a couple of other yachts.

 

The wonders of technology – I emailed Dad & Sarah to get me an email contact for Aries, and within an hour, both had responded with information.  An hour later, I had the daughter of the Aries designer give me her expert views on our problems.  Pretty impressive really.  Anyway, to sort out the issue with the blade kicking up required me to lie with my body hanging over the stern of Nutmeg whilst I unscrewed the blade.  The wate is very blue and very warm – but I am not tempted to swim!  Once aboard it was clear that there was some damage to the sleeve, and I managed to replace the sleeve with a suitable spare, and re-fit the blade.  So at least it now has no play in it.  Unfortunately it still won’t hold a course, but we have eliminated one fault and are awaiting further advice from Aries.

 

Whilst Rob and I were doing this, Sally and Pam decided to bake a cake, and created a very successful pineapple upside-down cake based on the well-used Tana Ramsay orange sponge recipe (it’s the one with E & J’s mucky fingerprints all over the page).  It is very amusing watching Pam cook, because now and again she misinterprets a European ingredient – tonight she put Garam Masala into something that needed marsala wine… It was very tasty. 

 

In the afternoon, we converged with “Chandelle”, an Ovni 435 who was on starboard, heading slightly north of west while we continue slightly south of west.  We spoke on the radio – they were French Canadians, just two of them plus their two cats, and they were baking bread while we were baking cakes.  We took photos of each other.  This morning, the same thing happened – a non-ARC boat called “Mowana” – a French Feeling 39 heading towards an island near Guadeloupe where they have a house – a father and son team this time.  Nice to speak to new people, and to feel that you’re not alone on this big ocean.

 

It’s starting to get a bit squally.  Two boats have reported 50+ kts of wind in squalls about 60M to the NW of us.  We had 18-20kts in patches during the night.  We need to refine our reefing strategy because I am nervous about furling the 2 jibs round the furler because of the extra strain it will put on it.  I think we will drop the 2nd jib at dusk so we are left with a simple sail plan.  It is extremely humid and very cloudy.  Again, the night was pitch black and it is difficult to even distinguish between sea and sky.  It makes for very difficult steering as you are effectively steering with your eyes closed.

 

Just as I was doing the 1200 radio net, we caught a fish!  We only threw the gear over for the fist time yesterday.  It’s a lovely little dorade, all yellow/green.  Very pretty.  Hopefully tasty too.  Pam and Sally brought it in amidst shrieks and giggles, and subdued it with a shot of vodka (finally managing to use that vodka for something!!)  Then we caught something else, so heavy I couldn’t actually pull the line in, but it got away.

 

Hope all’s well

 

Ollie x