Another frenetic day has passed in a fervour of activity, but culminated in
the crew relaxing in the Cat Club Bar. It all started at just after 0600
hrs, with the first job of the day being the attachment of the dodger on the
windward side which Charles finished before 0630 hrs. This was rapidly
followed by the unfurling and furling of the Genoa to ensure the furling
drum had the correct wraps around it and everything was in order. After
this the Boss, otherwise known as "John of the Chuddies" ascended the Mast,
this delicate operation was controlled by Kuki on the windlass and Charles
providing the muscle - it took a couple of attempts to get the halyard
running cleanly but once it was all aerial work was done in about 20 mins,
with the Boss returning to deck still intact. Next came a vitally important
part of the day, Breakfast - bacon butties provided by our cook, Crazy Kuki.
The Staysail was fetched from the storage locker, hanked on, raised &
lowered and then packed in its bag on the foredeck. At this time Franklin &
team from A&F Sails arrived to fit the pramhood over the companionway - and
an awesome piece of cloth and plastic it is too! Next up was filling the
diesel tanks and spare jerrycans, this involved the precarious operation of
passing the hose & nozzle across from the quay and Osprey so that it could
reach. Once full the jerry cans were strapped down in the highly
sophisticated stowage rack created by John & Charles. The final major work
for the morning work period was the fetching of and cleaning of the cockpit
cushions - so now the cockpit feels habital.
After 7 hours a halt was called, and off to the Cat Club Bar for a well
earned rest and some time to catch up on emails etc. This was followed by
another meal from Crazy Kuki - egg mayo sandwichs, with Charles's being at
least half the length of Osprey (Seriously, it was that big). Both Charles
& John have been heard to remark that "they have never had food like this on
a yacht before, and aren't we meant to be losing weight on this trip". Then
the men decided that enough work had been completed to allow a small siesta,
whilst Kuki went off shopping.
Later in the afternoon John got the watermaker up and running, and Charles
was used as the guinea pig to check the final product - suffice to say he is
still alive. Then it was onto playing with the whisker pole for the
cruising chute - another new addition to Osprey. After a bit of head
scratching, and reading by John, the men decided it was fairly straight
forward and that the design did indeed facilitate easy deployment. It is now
lashed in place along the port side, ready to be rigged once we hit the
horse latitudes.
The final mission of the day was to try to sort out the boat laptop, which
seemed to be playing up and not sending/receiving emails. A combined effort
by John, Charles and his Macbook, with Kuki providing moral support in the
form of entertainment, did seem to sort some the problems but the speed of
connection here is proving troublesome. Then it was back to the boat for
supper, another CK creation - frankfurters, onions and potatoes fried up
with veggies - a huge plateful as the calorific intake was looking a little
low for today.
The final installment of todays blog concerns the real commander of this
motley crew, he was introduced yesterday and goes by the nom de guerre of
"SuperCharged Ted" Whilst "John of the Chuddies" is on paper the skipper,
SC Ted is the actual master - still overseeing everything from his now
protected vantage point on the companionway. He is reasonably happy with
the work completed by the said motley crew of John, Crazy Kuki and Charles
whose contibution is the brawn.
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