Southern Princess Day 7 12z 21:39N 34:19W
Southern Princess
John & Irene Hunt
Sun 2 Dec 2007 12:08
Our day revolves around UTC. All reports, radio scheds etc are all UTC so
while locally, 30 degrees west, we are two hours ahead of UTC all of our
clocks except Irene's are on UTC while hers is on local time other wise
meals would be all out of wack with daylight.
Yesterday afternoon was a busy time. Glancing aloft I noticed some fuzzy
stuff around the self furling genoa halyard. This indicated chafe so we
bought the sail to the deck and sure enough the main genoa halyard had
chafed right through to the core while the secondary halyard was just
showing signs of starting. Shortened the main halyard by cutting of 2-3
metres off the top end and then we sewed heavy leather chafe guards around
the halyards before pulling them both up again and getting the sail set.
Took 5 minutes to type this but in reality about 2 hours work!
Needn't have bothered really as this morning it is strapped to the guard
rails not to be used again this trip. The bow sprit, which is fitted to the
stem head fitting, was starting to pull the whole lot out of the deck with
the weight in the sail so we can't use it. I think it will be quite easy to
fix but not until we get to St Lucia. Interesting to watch 1/4" stainless
plate flexing!
Daily we get ARC reports with not only weather and positions, they also
report on problems throughout the fleet. One of the Open 60 racing yachts
spilled boiling water on a crew member who was taken off buy a freighter for
medical treatment. Another yacht was boarded by illegal immigrants which
were taken off by the Spanish Navy, another has some loose keel bolts and
heading for the Cape Verde Islands while a couple of others haven't left Las
Palmas yet.
Haven't put out a fishing line as yet but soon.
Helen, no whales and no dolphins although we did go through a school of
flying fish! And there is always a couple on deck each morning which have come aboard during the night.
Cheers
Southern Princess