Day 87 - Leg 5 Day 13 at Sea 'Greenwich Meridian and 10,000 miles'
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sat 19 Sep 2015 17:56
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The winds have been fairly consistent over the
past 5 days and haven't needed to use our engine at all. They have
ranged from 10 to 23 knots and varied between east and south south east.
Our speed has been slower than on previous legs and, although the Cape Verdes
are pretty much north of us, we have been heading in a north westerly
direction. The reason for this is that the winds are forecast to die to
the north of us but remain stronger towards the north west so, if the forecasts
are correct, we should need to 'make some westing' to enable us to keep sailing
and conserve fuel.
At around 07.00 on
Thursday we crossed the Greenwich Meridian, so we are now officially in the
west. Also, at around 14.00 that afternoon, we hit 10,000 miles since leaving Mackay. The total journey back to
Southampton will be just over 15,000 miles so we are two thirds of our way home.
If things go to plan, and barring any major problems, I estimate
that will be back in Southampton between 27 - 31 October.
Yesterday evening, we saw that one of the sail
battens had come apart. We have vertical battens in the mainsail and, as
they are so long, they come in sections fastened together with a screw
fitting. The first thing that we noticed was that there were 2 batten
ends in one of the sail pockets at the bottom of the sail. There
should only be one!! It was getting too dark to do anything last
night except remove the section of the batten that had dropped
down.
This morning, there appeared to be the same problem with
another batten, so the only thing to do was remove all 5 battens and drop the
sail, which isn't a quick job due to the overcomplicated way that the battens
are held in at the bottom of the sail. Once we had the sail down, we had
the added difficulty of removing two pieces that were stuck at the top of the
sail. It turned out that one of the battens had unscrewed itself, one had
almost unscrewed and one had snapped. We made the repair, locktiighted the
joints, rehoisted the sail and refitted the battens. The whole process
took us 5 hours so at least it passed a bit of time.
We are sailing along nicely now, although the wind
direction keeps shifting back and forwards by about 30 degrees and anywhere
between 12 - 18 knots. However, we are travelling in pretty much the right
direction and at a reasonable speed so nothing to complain about. If
things keep on as they are, we will bypass Ascension Island (we would only go
there to pick up fuel) and continue to Cape Verdes and should arrive in around
13 - 14 days.
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