The Third Man part deux

Christine's Atlantic Circuit
Peter Lansdale
Wed 30 Nov 2016 17:05
16:10.6N 032:16.7W
 
Well I'm back!
 
Of course you will all have read the earlier blogs, so here's mine for today.
 
Overnight the wind hovered around the 5 - 8 knot range which allowed us to deploy the genniker to accompany the main which has been lonely for the past 3 days whilst motor sailing. during which we overtook Ian and Glenda sailing on their yacht Lucy Alice. They aren't competing in the ARC but are en route to Barbados. Mindful they set sail from Tenerife the day before our departure and the size of the Atlantic combined with our choice of courses, passing within 1/2 mile is amazing.
 
Now back to the boring bit, the wind has steadily increased up to around 12 knots and at last we're stonking along in the correct direction, or so the skipper tells us! We've been pestering Peter since we left Portugal to get his sextant out(an instrument for measuring elevation of celestial bodies, sun, stars etc for our non sailing readers) in order to calculate our position. Well it appeared just before noon on the 28th with Peter hoping to sight the sun at noon, eventually a reading was established and he disappeared below to work his magic. He emerged today to proudly proclaim his calculation was only 35 miles from our GPS position. Well done Peter, even if it was 2 days ago!
 
So the majority (if not all) of the previous 3 days we've been bored out of our minds, I tried a game of I-Spy but when unable to use parts of the boat it finished rather quickly. Still sat on deck the skipper announced "What do you think of it so far?" there was a pregnant pause, I was waiting for the ghostly figure of good old Eric Morecambe to come wafting over the ocean with his ventriloquists doll to shout "RUBBISH!"
 
Onto today, the skippers little book of jobs has re-appeared causing the crew to scatter as far away as possible - not easy on a yacht.
Due to the wind picking up we started playing around with sheeting (nautical term - not a blasphemy) angle on the genniker to try and hasten or progress to a bottle or two of rum. As can be seen from the skippers photo's I think we got it right.
 
I'm the one looking at Peter's settings.
 
Well that's me up to date but keep watching this space!
 
Good news the skipper has got his sextant out again - 2 more days of peace.
 
The Third Man
 
PS If you're reading this Dave, hope you're getting better. Gaz