In the void
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Fri 7 Oct 2011 12:25
|
Friday 7th October 1132 UTC 1232
BST
09:37.02N 021:04.97W
Wind: 3.4 Knots dead ahead!, COG 004 Deg True, SOG
8 Knots
Yesterday as I was writing a whisper of breeze
filled in and backed so I had six knots of wind at 120 degrees on
starboard. During my typing I noticed it backing and shot out to the
foredeck and got that spinaker up so that when I finished writing we were doing
4 knots and pointing more or less north. That carried on through the afternoon
at one point hitting a high speed of 5.7 knots for a milisecond but often
shuffling along at 3.5 knots.
The conditions were beautiful with open ocean
all around and the feeling of really truly being out there. Then a bunch of
bloody dolphins came along and spoiled my peice and quiet! They were performing
good style with a couple of manouvres I have not seen before. One or perhaps it
was more than one, was tail dancing along the surface like it was a
Salmon on a hook! Another seemed, just as he was landing back in the water from
his exuberant jumps, to be snorting out causing a "blow" spout like a
minature whale! They were quite small - unruly teenagers I
suppose.....
Another strange feature of yesterday were the large
rafts of floating drifting seaweed. Quite strange 1,000 miles from
anywhere yet when passing through the rafts that distinct "fresh?" seaweed
smell could be sensed.
In the past day or so I have come across several
ships, particularly between 6 and 7 degrees north. They seem to be shuttling
back and forth between Brazil and West Africa.
At the end of the afternoon and my heroic struggle
to insist on dramatically reducing my VMG through use of the big spinaker,
she gave up the ghosting and just slumped. Limp.
So in what rapidly became a flat calm I got
everything away and on with the iron horse which it seems is the only thing for
these latitudes. But don't despair I told myself this is what was expected and
planned. Watch the ocean - calm. Calm....
Lat night the moon that has been waxing
to three quarter full these past days shone a beautiful glimmer on the deep
midnight blue. However it was so calm I was concerned that my radar was not
working. No matter what seeting I tried it on I just could not get even a tiny
bit of clutter to tell me it was working. That's quite spooky and would
seriously compromise my safety in the next thousand miles wher there will be
much more marine activity. Eventually with warping all the controls and settings
I could get the tiniest little bounce from what was probablty my stern mounted
Fortress anchor! I could cautiously accept it was indeed working.
Working off the radar at night is a great comfort
in terms of your ability sleep and I set two alarm zones. This is all fine for
cat napping but the real problem comes when you are in very squally conditions
as of course we have had in the ITCZ. You can only filter out so much of
the rain on the radar and some of these
squalls are huge enough to blanket a fleet of supertankers so it is difficult to
get any rest at all. Last night however having passed into clear skies I should
have been able to catch up on some sleep - except that nagging concern about
whether the radar was actually working or
not!
Now a great mystery. Those of you who are long
term readers will remember the problem we had with our fuel consumption rate on
that long becalmed "drift" to Sri Lanka. On that trip after doing a very large
service on the Yanmar including stripping off and de-coking the turbo, our fuel
consumption was down to about 40 hours from a 900 lire tank. This was bizarre as
I had kept accurate logs of previous fuel consumption and I knew that I could
rely on having 56 hours from one 900 lire tank without problems.
Obviously I know and understand the variable of
engine revs etc. But we always steam at 2,000 revs. On the Sri Lanka trip
which after my accident was a dash to get across the Bay of Bengal before the
South West Monsoon set in, both Trish and I noticed that the engine was putting
out more black smoke than normal......
On this trip I have barely used a drop of fuel
since Capetown until hitting the Doldrums in the last couple of days. I always
log the engine hours at departure on any big passage and indeed after every fill
up. I have now had 54 hours - OK at 1900 revs - engine use from this
tank so far, almost all in the last two days in the Doldrums, yet I
still have between 1/4 and 1/3 of a tank left on the guage. I am sure I will
exceed 60 hours and leave enough in the tank to avoid any problems. Assuming the
guage has not developed a fault. Even if it has I have already had as I have
said 54 hours. On the Sri Lanka run we got just over 40 hours - and remember
that smoke? I have to think that I got some very dodgy fuel. Can fuel be
"thinned" or "diluted" with something? The fuel was picked up in Thailand?
Mmmmm - strange. Anybody had something similar happen to
them?
Thoughts aboard Rhiann Marie are turning ever so
slowly to the "home straight". I have been starting to do a few wee jobs -
titivating things and making small repairs here and there. The weather forecast
from north of the Cape Verdes is showing that I will be on the wind for the
whole way up and some good tactical tacks will be called for in the last
800 miles or so. At the moment it is unlikely that I will actually cross over my
outbound track until I am quite close to the Canaries and it is my plan to stop
in at Las Palmas, Gran Canaria for few days. I have to prepare to live
at an angle now for five days or so and get used to pitching again instead of
rolling!
Trish is planning to visit me for a few days
because she in missing me and I don't know how to use the washing machine. She
has been angling to do the run from the Canaries to Gibraltar with me
but I am not sure...... Did she not say just a couple of months ago that
she never wanted to do another passage whose mileage had more than a single
number in it? My goodness she must think showing me how to use the washing
machine is very important
..................
Quote of the day: "It is better to be roughly right
than precisely wrong!" John Maynard Keynes
The wind has now veered! - But dropped to 2 knots
...............................
|