miles and miles
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Mon 23 Nov 2009 17:33
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Yesterdays party was a great success and though
there was no problem with crew moral (why would there be?) the party gave
everyone a further boost, which is good because I would like to put the pedal to
the metal for the next couple of days. We are at 17:53.53N 030:40.99W
at 1200 UTC November 23rd 2009. Our last three daily runs have been 202nm,
230nm and 220nm and we have 1800nm left to run. If the wind stays above 20 knots
we have the possibilty of doing 450 miles over 48 hours., Of course along with
that goes the possibility of breaking something and the certainty of reduced
comfort. So on balance I think we will put the pedal to the metal! Yesterday we
reefed down both genny and main to improve comfort (further!) and to allow
our makeshift stage to come into play for the party. It will have cost us about
16 knots off our daily run but a worthwhile investment in comfort and safety.
Not much else to report today. Yesterday's awards ceremony saw Craig take the
prize for most distance covered safely in one watch (40 miles - equalled by me
and closely followed by several 38's a 37 and regular 36's). Safest
pair of hands prize went to Angus, Best overall contribution to Enjoyment
aboard went to the Murdo. Two special awards were also made to Roddy for
outstanding meals from the galley and a Bravery award to Trish who
had never done a full night sail before departing Gibraltar to sail across
the Atlantic and round the world. The depiction of butter melting decended into
multiple over acted farces played out by the boys and videod by Trish.
We all made complete idiots of ourselves but luckily being in the middle of
the atlantic nobody will ever know about it.
For the past two days we have ben trying to contact
Blue Magic our friends Mark and Chris Dewey on a Discovery 55, who are several
hundred miles ahead and North of us, by SSB we seem unable to speak to them
though we hear them faintly. Currently we look to be on track, though it is
still very early days and anything can and will happen, for a crossing of about
18 days which has been my median estimate all along. We may also be slower and
take up to 21 days but there is limited possibility to improve on the 18 day
passage time.
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