Fw: Sadko update 13 June 2000

Sadko
Martin Lamport
Thu 14 Jun 2012 13:39
 32deg38'N, 50deg29' W.
The wind died last night and we motored for several hours with cloud cover and no moon.  It seemed rather murky, so kept our first radar watch.  Lightening flashed and flickered on the eastern horizon, like some distant Jutland.  About 0330 the wind picked up enough to sail again.
 
I take it all back!  At about 6 AM we successfully landed Dora, the dorado, a magnificent golden pelagic fish, reputed to be good eating.  By 0700 the spinnaker was up and we have run for 11 hours at between 7 and 8 knots, in the right direction, more or less east.  Hugo and Lou have taught me a lot about spinnaker drill, about which I was lamentably ignorant, and getting it up and down has become a reasonably slick operation.  Steering downwind in a rolling sea is another matter and I made a complete hash of it at first, until Lou kindly gave me some tuition.  It requires constant attention and anticipation from the helmsperson (Lou is brillant at it) to avoid building up an uncontrolable roll and yaw oscillation.  But we are all geting better with practice.
 
A big container ship passed close to us and Hugo called them up on the VHF to establish they were the Glasgow Express, bound from Rotterdam to the Dominican Republic. 
 
Dora, gutted and filleted, provided some splendid fish steaks and a Peruvian style ceviche for our evening celebration.  This party was for crossing our first time zone boundary, so we are now only 3 hours behind GMT and more than half way to Flores.  Tomorrow's will be for counting longitude in 40s rather than 50's.  The social whirl is killing me! 
signing out
Martin