Day 12 - The calm after the Tuna
Shalan
Fri 2 Dec 2016 07:36
15:04N 44:51W
Ahoy land lovers,
The days after a big event are regularly calm and quiet, however when at sea nothing is as easy as you'd hope - especially when you've had a tuna steak the size of a dinner plate the night before!
Following last nights halyard failure the crew were at their posts at sunrise and Gaetan was immediately up the 28m high mast to assess the damage. It soon became apparent that the spinnaker halyard had sheered under friction wear and tear and the halyard had dropped down inside the mast and coulldn't be pulled back out. Operations to re-thread the line through the mast were slow going with with Gaetan cannibalising both the tool box and fishing tackle & making a further 3 trips up and down the mast attempting to repair the damage. Following a number of unsuccessful attempts to route the line through the mast it was decided that we would run external rigging - a further trip to the top saw Gaetan return with a smile on his face, which was a welcome relief from some of the choice language we'd experienced earlier in the morning! Respect where it's due though, Gaeten delivered and kept us in the race - great work skip!
After a quick brunch, the code zero sail was retrieved from the forepeak crew cabin, repaired and promptly raised whilst we were also running on the main and genoa - some very nifty ropework! The genoa was subsequently dropped and we were off at a great pace.
Whilst running repairs were going on above deck, further repairs were underway below deck. In all the excitement of landing 'the Tuna', Tom's swimshorts became a casualty of war. Without getting too graphic, Tom's rear was getting a lot more breeze than normal! Whilst we carry a large number of spares onboard, unfortunatley a needle and thread wasn't one of them - no fear though we're an ingenious bunch aboard Shalan and after a failed attempt with fishing line a suitable replacement was found... dental floss! The crews blushes have since been spared and Tom's buttocks are breeze free again, as Borat would say 'great success'!
Lunchtime saw further tuna eating ensue and a check of the emails whereby Scoopz advised us that the market rate for a Yellow tail of our size would be c.$2,300! Around this time we subsequently discovered that a quarter of the fish we'd stored in the ice maker wasn't being frozen as we'd expected, in fact the ice maker was off and instead of freezing it was seemingly slowly boiling the meat. The stench when we opened the door was unreal and made the salon a no-go area for a number of hours whilst the smell escaped! Wasteful, yes. Costly, yes (theoretically). But we're sure the sharks/other fish enjoyed the free lunch!
Excitement is high as we creep under 1,000 miles remaining on the route guidance and strong winds remain - could we have caught the trade winds?
Obilgatory fishing update: after yesterdays haul we gave the rods, Captain Hook and Seaman St.Ains the day off. We're sure the clutches on the reels will be thankful for the rest, as are the crew!
Today's picture is a view from the top of the mast which captures both the Atlantic ocean and Shalan way below, we like to call it 'man on mast with sea and boat'.
Peace & love.
'Shalan out'
x
