Day 5.1: The real Day 5 blog
Purple Mist
Skipper: Kate Cope
Fri 13 Jan 2023 14:23
Day 5.1: The real Day 5 blog
It seems yesterday I was getting a bit ahead of myself. Too many blogs and unfortunately 2 blogs in a day doesn’t make it 2 days. So welcome to the real day 5.
Anyway let’s start with a few stats
We’ve sailed 807NM in 4.75 days so that’s an average of 7.07kts or 170NM per day. In a straight line we have 2143NM to Grenada . Sadly boats don’t go in straight lines not least as Barbados is in the way , nor can we guarantee the same speed but to give you an idea we have something more than 13days left.
Weather is more of the same, 20-25kts in the day, 25 gusting 30kts overnight as the squalls come through. There are many more squalls at night, though not so many last night . I was hoping a good downpour might wash the salt from some shorts after “big wave gate” yesterday but they are still hanging there all salty. Sunrise was gorgeous with the sun shining behind the clouds . At night there is amazing phosphorescence, as the boat slices through the water, waves of light particles from plankton unfurl themselves - very magical.
Boat set up is still the same 2 reefs in the main and the storm jib. We’ve started to seriously think about plans to remove the spinnaker still wrapped on the forestay. We have seen our current results and let’s face it we need more speed. Claire is currently helming and looking for every surf of every wave
Nothing at all can be done on the spinnaker until the wind subsides- if it ever does! we think our options are to try and unravel the spinnaker from the deck level, or for Claire to go a little way off the deck up the forestay in a bosons chair ….but nothing like the height of the mast climb of “spinnaker gate”. Hopefully we can unravel and save the sail if not we might end up with the knife and scissors which is a last resort as at the moment the sail is not damaged and this will really mess up the Caribbean racing to loose this spinnaker.
Another option is to rig a temporary forestay with a halyard and try running a jib up that, I’ve a J4 we could start with to see if it’s viable. The tension would be horribly slack but it might work downwind. For the sailors reading this I don’t have an inner forestay only the one main one.
Claire is calling today “Cheese and Tomato day as after our glamour omelette breakfast , Dinner was cheese and tomato wrap toasties = 2 Flour tortillas stuffed with cheese and tomato cooked in a frying pan…..Claire of course added ketchup.
Meanwhile the furry family have started to get up to mischief again. Pinky and Perky Penguin have requisitioned the big S2 spinnaker as a bed. Grandma Clanger is doing a great job at the chart table keeping the Sat Comms working (she likes to talk to the moon where her fellow Clangers live…kids TV show )
Snoopy and Tiddles the cat are snuggling up with Claire helping her post traumatic stress post mast climb.
