Tuesday 2am

Purple Mist
Skipper: Kate Cope
Tue 4 Jun 2019 10:11

47:27.042N. 010:22.694W
02:25 BST

Summary
Currently very damp after huge rain squall
Total ginger consumed about 15 big chunks
Seasickness still under control
Bobby had to cook dinner as it makes me feel a bit too sick.
No great Atlantic bake-off being made anytime soon.

Well I thought Monday was going to be an uneventful day but nothing is ever easy on a boat.

For a start we were still hard onto a W or SW breeze so it was another day of living at an angle. This is getting very tiring but good for the waistline as I don’t have any appetite. Just chugging plenty of crystallised ginger

I was struggling with what update to give. After resuming racing we have been slowly catching back the fleet. I might have imagined given we were doing so well we would have been zooming past the slower cruisers but each one is proving a challenge ... still they are good targets. We currently have AJ Wanderlust in sight.
Fluke J105 was easy to overtake as he was heading home. Apparently his mast was panting (= waving about) and despite calls to riggers he couldn’t work a fix so was heading home. I’ve also learnt British Beagle was dismasted. So clearly some dodgy weather out there.

So we were enjoying the sunshine and navigating through some minor squalls. It could almost have been the Caribbean as the squalls were very distinctive and mostly we routed around them
Then we get a new weather update and a big low pressure and high winds were upon us and sure enough with mark 1 eyeball there was a massive line of towering cumulonimbus clouds ahead.
We have been sailing on the J2 ( big jib) so far and just reefing it for the 20kts however different forecasts were suggesting anything up to force 9 gusts so we immediately swopped to the J4 ( littlest jib next stop orange storm jib) and reefed the main.
Now swoping jib sails in 20kts is not easy as they want to escape over the side and as we were both clipped on the lines all get in the way but we made it just before dark. Bobby did a great job retrieving half the sail from the sea.
About 20mins later Bobby was asleep and we got hit by a massive rainstorm , I was SO!! pleased we had the J4 on as Purple Mist handled like a dream and just zoomed along very stable.

So for over 2 hours we had rain , rain and more rain. My waterproofs are ok but not to stand up to that onslaught. So I’m now a bit damp. I spent a lot of it sat inside controlling the plotter from my phone ...cool remote feature but still have to go outside to trim sails.

2am and we are now sat in lightwinds still with small sails up going quite slowly. We debated whether to unlease more canvas however until we get more weather it’s not clear what lies ahead and it’s a pitch black night so we are playing it safe and staying with less sail area.
As I write the wind is climbing and our speed is back up so think we made a good call. Still slightly anxious to know if there is stormy weather ahead but as the wind has gone NW it’s a good sign.

Finally only one tiny Photo for Rob to put on his mantlepiece - st Mary’s lifeboat coming to his help.

For those of you with my special boat email thanks for the messages of support they really mean a lot. I can only send social media outbound so no Facebook but understand there has been a flood of messages .

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