DAY 6 (Thurs 19th Nov)

Last night proved to be uneventful, thanks to Captain K's frustratingly sensible decision just after dark to 'snuff' the spinnaker (the orange sail in the background of this picture; more about the poor lad in the foreground later). The wind was touching 20 knots, generating boat speed of up to and over 9 knots. The danger is that any more wind could have overpowered the boat, causing it to 'broach' - in short, the spinnaker pulls the boat over. In daylight, you might take the risk but at night such an event could seriously disrupt the port and cigars.

Snuffing the spinnaker essentially means bringing the sail down in its own bag, detaching a pole attached at right angles to the mast and pulling lots of ropes. Doing it at night can be difficult but the crew, illuminated by the deck lights, made a reasonable fist of it. Set against the star studded night sky, the flurry of activity on the foredeck would have made great footage for Kitkat's video. Unfortunately, the youngest member of Sinan's crew was at the mast, absorbing such gentle promptings as "pull the bloody green rope!" from the skipper. Stepping up to the mark, I had bravely volunteered to "monitor the wind speed" from the helm as the others swung about the foredeck by their safety lines. Before long though, I was being ordered to pull in or let out various ropes. Setting the orders to music went something like this: "Pole down, Pole up, Let the Spinnaker free... the Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we..."

While we are a generally happy bunch on Sinan, one dark spectre appears to have seeped into the vessel, possibly via the bilges: Boat Envy. It started back in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote, last Thursday night. We were invited to ('invited to' might be too strong a term, but we certainly turned up at) a yacht called Miss Tippy. A 56ft beauty (Sinan is 43ft), Miss Tippy is owned by the splendid Brian and Sheila, who are on a round the world trip with their three delightful children. As Brian served us G&Ts, we ventured into the boat's vast saloon. I was slightly disappointed not to see a white-tuxedoed Daniel Craig dealing the cards at the table, but other than that Miss Tippy appeared to have everything. With the G&T beginning to take hold I even thought I spotted a washing machine down there. Ridiculous! On closer inspection, it turned out to be... a washing machine.

As we relaxed in Miss Tippy’s capacious cockpit up top, Colin muttered: “They’ve even got a bigger flag than us.” They did indeed. Their Red Ensign wouldn’t look out of place on The Mall on a Royal Wedding day. Ours is more modest in size and reminds me of the flag we used to run up the pole when I was in the 3^rd Golders Green Scouts. “But we’ve got a defaced ensign!” hissed Captain K. This is true. The Royal Dart Yacht Club in Dartmouth (Sinan’s home) is one of the few in Britain permitted to ‘deface’ the ensign with its own emblems. The Royal Dart’s effort would tax only the mind of a Da Vinci Code fan – the ensign bears a crown and a golden dart.

Ensigns apart (which I marked down as a score draw), it was clear that Miss Tippy won on the all important “stuff” front. Being a light hearted bunch, Sinan’s crew thought this might be worth mentioning to Captain K occasionally for the first few days of the voyage. The results were, frankly, horrific. One quip too many about the washing machine saw young Kitkat banished to the port side deck to scrub Captain K’s laundry by hand (see picture). An innocent reference to the fact that Miss Tippy probably “went a tad quicker” than Sinan provoked an even wilder response: “Yes! But do they have an on-deck shower!” Before anyone (apart from Kitkat, who suddenly found one of his A-level books strangely compelling) could run for their bunks, Captain K was flourishing a bucket on a rope and a bottle of what he described – chillingly – as German sea water soap.

The details do not bear description here, but suffice to say I will never complain about the bathroom facilities in English provincial hotels again.

Nobody has mentioned the size of Miss Tippy’s ensign since.

We have daily 10am and 6pm roll calls with the other boats in the Blue Water Rally via the SSB radio. It's often quite hard to make out the other boats as we're all so spread out across the ocean. The 6pm call offers the opportunity to 'chat' with other boats, swapping stories, tips, jokes and so on. We still haven't been able to join in, presumably because the other boats can't hear us. This is disappointing as Captain K has been using his best Richard "Broadsword calling Danny Boy" Burton voice as he bellows: "This is yacht Sinan, yacht Sinan. Over". Invariably, all we pick up is the sound of thousands of crisp packets being scrunched at the same time. However, last Tuesday I swear I picked out a ghostly voice whispering: “Shhh everyone! It’s them.”

One scrap of ‘chat’ that we did manage to glean from a 6pm roll call was that a boat called Roundabout had caught a 6ft marlin. Way too big to bring aboard, the crew photographed this monster before releasing it back into the deep. Well done to them, we chorused, while privately dwelling on the fact that we’d let two decent fish off the hook in three days.

Today our luck changed. A whizzing sound from the rod signalled a bite and we swarmed around Sinan’s stern in anticipation. Captain K, a renowned marine life expert, immediately identified the hooked creature as a “big bugger” and called for his “special belt”. What was he going to do? Lash the fish to death for insubordination? It turned out to be one of those rod-holding straps favoured by proper fishermen, which made me wonder how it had ended up on our boat. Colin observed that it looked like one of those medical aids one sees advertised in The Daily Telegraph’s weekend section. Captain K said this wasn’t a helpful remark in the circumstances, as he struggled with what we all prayed wasn’t a wellington boot.

In the end all was well and the scorecard read:

3.5 pound dourade; caught Captain K; netted & killed (winch handle) RWD; filmed Kitkat.

(Colin held the first aid kit just in case).

Captain K was able to conjure up a delicious supper of dourade, sticky rice and mixed salad, followed by cherry crumble and custard.

As the sun melted into the ocean directly in front of our bow, life felt good. Until Kitkat pointed out that the rice had been cooked in CHICKEN stock.

Oh well, you can’t have everything.

RWD

PS: Don’t forget to make a donation if you can to Asthma UK. Visit: www.justgiving.com/atlanticoceansail