Day 12: We need to drink more water
Purple Mist
Skipper: Kate Cope
Thu 19 Jan 2023 17:02
Day 12: We need to drink more watwr
Overnight the wind was a very friendly 8-14kts so the former naughtiest sail on the boat , the S3 spinnaker, redeemed itself by staying out all night without complaints (or wraps) merrily speeding us along. It was pitch black again which is always a bit disconcerting though there is really nothing to bump into. Both of us admitted to getting this funny feeling that some creatures will appear from the deep sea and drag you under. How must those sailors of long ago felt I wonder?
Anyway talking of creatures we have a pet!!! It’s official after 2 visitations we have adopted a whale and have named him Willy. Willy was alongside us for a little while this morning sliding in and out of the waves blowing at us.
With the light winds again I ran a new routing and it said …”go south until the butter melts” ….well not quite but the best escape from this area of light winds is to harden up, hoist the code zero and head south into what looked like the most humongous of squalls. We needed more wind so off we go squall hunting.
It started to lightly rain and normally we might shelter but feeling pretty sticky after 12 days with no shower we both decided to let ourselves get totally soaked. What a laugh that was, it was like a horizontal shower as the wind increased. I was rotating myself so it could blast each bit of me. Then we noticed fresh water pouring off the end of the boom - it was captured by the 1 reef which makes a fold. I stuck my head under to give my hair a good drenching . We then filled a water bottle. It actually tastes delicious and very soft on your hair and skin
Anyway enough of this girly rubbish, who needs clean hair? Back to performance as we are making the boat go fast as well as jumping around in the rain. #Multitasking . We have the zero out and are playing the angles to achieve some really good speed. Currently flying along at 8kts heading more south and the boat feels very balanced.
And finally..…why do we need to drink more water ? I’m building a chimney with the bottles to vent the efoy fuel cell hot air outlet out of the main hatch. . Normally this vents hot air under the chart table and is a welcome boost of heat on a chilly channel crossing. In these foreign climes this extra heat is torture.
