working it!
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 18 Nov 2009 14:37
|
After two days sailing we are now at position
24:23.59N 020:23.38W. We have been working the boat hard to get her to
go as deep down wind as we can in very light airs. Personally I find this harder
work than battling with heavy weather. At first light this morning we got the
boom a bit further out and the preventer rigged and the pole on the genoa with a
new guying and downhaul arrangement - none of which sits well with a yacht meant
for two up sailing ... The wind direction has been largely North or North East
and light and for a 36 tonne yacht this is not the best of conditions. The
Atlantic swell is impressive in scale but Rhiann Marie glides comfortably over
them with little or no yaw or pitch and only very slight roll at the slower
speeds. Life aboard is very comfortable and at times with 15 knots
over the quarter we have been doing 10 knots and you would not know it below. We
have now made 360miles VMG to our waypoint off Cape Verdes with almost 400 miles
sailed.
The first 24 hour period we sailed 186 miles and
the second we sailed 176 miles. With any wind at all in the right direction we
are confident of turning in regular 200 mile plus days.
Now that all aboard seem to have found their sea
legs and a daily pattern of life is just starting to establish, it's time to
remind all crew and especially new crew not to get complacent regarding safety.
Chef Afrin, substituted occassionally and backed up by Trish is providing
us with great meals and Housekeeper Afrin is doing a great job, substituted and
backed up by Trish, of the housekeeping. I fear its a matter of time
before the ironing board comes out - I can see it now... I have already had the
experience of calling Trish up for the midnight to 0400 watch only to find her
tonging her hair. I think they do it to annoy me. How are we to have any
credibility in our endeavours to sail round the world when stories like this
leak out?
The generator seems to need to be run for four
hours per day and this is much more than I had hoped for so we need to get to
work to reduce our power consuption. Tonight I will be secretly sitting up all
through the night to find out if the iron is being used and who is using curling
tongs - I will hunt them down.
Speaking of novice sailors irons and genoas brings
to mind an occassion when we were sailing as a family in Turkey on or boat and
just my daughter Rhian and I were on deck. We werte well heled and my view of
the genoa was blanketed by the main so I asked Rhiann to go forward and let me
know what the genoa was like when she came back to the cockpit i asked her what
it was like, she said "its sort of OK but it needs ironing!"
Looking at the weather it would seem that anything
representing trade winds are residing well below 20deg North and from what I am
seeing at the moment there does not appear to be too much northerly component in
the easterlies at that latitude, at least for now.
Thinking ahead a bit we are planning to have a
butter melting party at the weekend when we plan to turn right. We also hope to
have a St Andrews night on the 30th and perhaps fancy dress party another
night in between. At this evenings happy hour we will discuss our
plans.
|