Friday 5 June,  2015

North Atlantic Ocean  37 16.3N 46 03.4W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: BST -3.0; UTC -2.0)

As forecast, the wind gradually has  veered round to the SW.  Squeezed up on to to ridge of higher pressure between a trough and a cold front (They can’t touch you for it! – Ed.), Serendipity has had good south west winds now since Wednesday. The sea has got lumpier as the wind has built (now SW 23-30 knots) and the crew are still lurching around below in the recurrent familiar but impromtu game of Geriatric Blind Mans Buff as they try to find their way safely around the boat.  However,  progress has been good. With a generally favourable current, we have made good  190+ miles a day for the last three days – 800 miles to go.

Life on board has generally fallen into its usual routine.  However, there is a new “Elephant in the Room”  I call her ‘Nellie’.  Now, I havent lived  with teenage girls for long periods and certainly not in space in which there is only one loo/bathroom but I am beginning to understand the frustration that must bubble up when one of them hogs the only bathroom in the morning at at time when everyone else in the house also has an interest in immediate access.  ‘Cos on Serendipity, SOMEONE, takes vacant posession of the forward heads  for circa 30 minutes every morning, generally between 7.30 and 8.30.   This is around this time that the “off watch” emerges  to restock their sugar levels (Terry seems to be able to pour his cereal into a bowl even  before he wakes up!)  get a caffiene fix, to prepare themselves for the day – and, as they say, go through the motions. (Like clockwork they are! )

These latter needs can only be satisfied in the ‘heads’  and so most mornings there is a dark cloud in the saloon as those with a remaining interest in access to the heads wait – patiently - for SOMEONE to finish their morning ablutions and beautification. Eventually, a fragrant SOMEONE emerges with a beatific  smile while the rest of the crew each try to get first in through the door!

I say “patiently” but I can see fuses burning.  Today, I had to make the after cabin facilities available in order to prevent ‘an accident’ so even I now have n interest….. 

We are now runnning along at 8+ knots, a scrap of headsail poled out to windward, the staysail to leeward and a mainsail with five of our seven reefs taken in.  It is reasonably stable but the waves make it quite rolly and uncomforatable – none of us slept well last nigiht.   The rolling is also a bore because it shakes up the boat and now seems to have exposed some kind of electrical fault in the  freezer. Its normal operating temperaure is circa -18 ^o  to-20^o C; periodically we have seen it fall to as low as -9 ^o  degrees.  On inspection, the compressor has stopped working.  I am not yet sure why but so far simply disconnecting and remaking all of the connnections in the electrical supply a couple of times has each time seemed to fix it.   We still have an awful lot of food – it would be a bore if we had to chuck it away, so  fingers crossed……

We expect the cold front to the north of us to trash us in the next four or five hours then the wind to veer into the NW – back on to starboard gybe (which is better for the generator issue) and then , sadly the wind will die and become light and variable for most of the remainig journey.  ETA?   Wednesday 10^th.

Aahh yes the Generator. It failed again late yesterday afternoon when  the intake filled with air. An unexpected combination of waves and autopilot correction contrived a surfing near - broach while the crew were playing Scrabble on the cockpit table.  I was in the lead and was gutted when we had to call a halt to the game in order to allow the generator to be inspected and then fixed and for Richard to take his evening sunsight.

Aaaahhh, Aaaaah Yes. Astronavigation.  For some reason, aspiring Yot navigators all get very excited about  this. There are classes all aver the UK full of people (either Yotties or people who are free that evening because their preferred  yoga class is full) unravelling the mysteries described by Marc St Hilair (an interesting American who got lost off Bishops Rock) and learning about the Sun’s declination, GHA , LHA and of course how to look as if you can make sense of Sight Reduction Tables (curiously those prepared for Air Navigation are preferred by sailors).    The practical reality franky takes all the sex out of Sextant!

Richard  practises Celestial Navigation.   Indeed, I think this alternative term, “Celestial Navigation”,   better connotes the underlying thesis of the process – namely  a series of repeated prayers to  a divine being in the heavens seeking guidance on passage; a ritual performed at least three times a day in which one waves around an angular metallic instrument while incanting a random series of numbers which your assistant is supposed faithfully to record on your behalf – together with the precise time at which you utterred them!   Richard then takes that faithully inscribed document below and is very, very quiet for a long time.

In due course, a broad grin spreads across his visage as he pronounces that he is now fairly confident about where  we were, ……. err  …..  yesterday!   More accurately,   in my humble experience, the only certainty in Celestial or Astro Nav is that where ever your calculations place the boat at a given time is the only place in the planet (I don’t think it is possibel to conclude you are on a different planet, but I am open to it), the only certainty is that where ever you calculate you are is precisely the one place on the planet where you definitely are not!  

A note on the sartorial front. The first long trousers emerged on deck yesterday, allegedly to keep the sun off rather than the warmth in. But, at night, fleeces are now prevalent. Right now, Terry is on deck wearing his  foulies waiting for the cold front to wash the decks on its way by – they need it.  Oh, and there is now the  familiar, but long forgotten dampness beginning to form on most surfaces below -  common on all yachts in temperate waters. Deepest Joy!

And ……. still no-one mentions Nellie!