AZAB Day 9 Mon 10th June - finally got the wind behind us!

Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Mon 10 Jun 2019 17:46
Position 39:18.9N 22:45.3W

Well last night turned out a bit rubbish for some reason. We stayed up late chatting and listening to podcasts, but when I put my head down the motion became really bad and we were slamming a lot, which was really annoying, and I couldnt sleep. Coupled with that, it is SO damp - everything is greasy with condensation/salt/seawater, and if youve ever been on a yacht thats been offshore for a week, it's pretty minging with fluff and hair and crumbs all mixed in. Tomorrow I am going to have a freshwater clean of the boat, as we are not short of water and I'll only have to do it anyway when we arrive. But it is horrible because even just sitting on a bunk cushion, or putting your head on a pillow, it's cold and damp!

After we'd thudded into a few waves, and I couldnt sleep, I got up to have a look at the bulkheads to check everything was all right. Unfortunately they are not. The reinforcement glass fibre work I did around the mast step has cracked and there is a 5mm gap where the mast has dropped from where I'd glassed it all in, and the small cross-bulkhead I added has sheared. I am not massively surprised to be honest - we have given Nutmeg such a pounding and she has slammed off a lot of waves in the last week. But it does mean that the mast is moving vertically up and down by a couple of mm and flexing the hull when we crash off waves. I've also noticed the fwd lower shrouds going a bit slack when we hit a wave. Now, on the one hand I could get very worked up over this; on the other, it is back to where Nutmeg was before I did the refurb - ie with some flex in her hull. I also suspect that when I did the glassfibre work, she was on the hard with no mast in - so it could be argued that I have glassed her up in her "non-tensioned" state and I should have done the glass work when she was in teh water with the mast in. Anyhow, it is not quickly fixable (not without a grinder - I do have fibreglass/resin on board) so I think my best approach is to try and take it easy on the way back (easier said than done).

Finally got some sleep around 0400-0930 when the wind freed off and we were fast reaching direct for the Azores. I have the radar guard alarm setup now, as well as AIS, and I get up every 45 mins for a look around.

Today has been slow - the wind has swung round to the North and dropped, so finally the wind is behind us, and I've poled out the genoa and we are in downwind mode, but only in 8-10kts of wind so we're only doing 4kts. But it is nice, the sun came out so we opened the hatches and tried to dry out a bit. Emilia's been sat on deck on wildlife watch; we saw a baby turtle! Not enturely sure why it was swimming along in the middle of nowhere on it's own, but lovely to see. ALso seen more PCPs (Psychadelic Cornish Pasties), AKA portuguese man o'wars, but not a lot else.

Emilia is definitely ready to get there - we both are - this has felt like a very long trip. Not surprising really, given the hectic worlds we both immediately came from and we dropped into this race without a lot of transition, so it's been a big "culture" shock. Emilia has started to watch the DTF (distance to finish) counter on the chartplotter; I know from previous experience that this is fatal, as it just gets slower/more frustrating the closer you get. The next frustrating lesson she'll learn is when we can see land... and it then takes another 24hrs to get in... (We can't see land yet!)

We have 145 miles to go to the corner of Sao Miguel, then another 20-25 miles after that to get to Ponta Delgada. So again, I'm not predicting an ETA but this isnt our last night at sea.