Grinding down the miles.
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sun 29 May 2011 05:10
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Sunday 29 May 2011 0942 Local time 0442
UTC
12:41.06S 065:03.40E
There is nothing quite so intoxicating as standing
on the windward deck of your steed while, on nothing other than the
wind, galloping through the open ocean, to new countries, new
adventures. It should also be noted that there is nothing quite so sobering
as standing in that same spot and being completely dunked in the cool salty
Indian Ocean as it spots you enjoying a moment and hurls a bucketfull at
you!
This passage has been hard work. Sleep is difficult
to grab and the conditions are constantly changing. The weather is very squally
for the last 24 hours and we have had some torrential downpours. Wind in the
squalls has been upto 30 knots and the gradient wind has been ranging from 20 -
30 knots but mostly 26 knots.
All that is fine except that the wind is right over
the beam. With any scrap of sail we are off like the clappers and next thing you
know we are hard on the apparent wind. So we would be heeled to starboard
if the sea was flat, but it is not, so we roll to windward when large seas pass
under us.
The wind is Force 6 occasionally 7 and the sea
state is rough occasionally very rough. We have had some 5 metre seas come
across our beam but mostly they have been 3 - 4 metres but on the beam. Most
seas pass under Rhiann Marie but the motion is hard to do very much
in.
Anyway not to worry just over six hundred miles to
go!
Trish has been doing well and is keeping her moral
up. I have been doing all the cooking and am trying, contrary to my
insensitive nature to make things as easy as possible for her. This is her
last big ocean passage so I guess that, and my stern lecture about the fact
that it is just simply unacceptable to let her moral slip, is keeping her
going.
The rudder stock head bearing won't stay fixed
tight so that needs to be looked after too as well as my wife. Water is still
ingressing somewhere so the bilge pump slurping is my constant companion. The
Jib furler won't furl out so it looks like it is developing the same fault as
the Genoa furler motor suffered from. Hey ho.
The forecast is for conditions to moderate
tonight when you can look forward to my blog moaning about not enough wind or
not quite from the right angle........
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