1:59.446N 028:59.002W

Spindrift
David Hersey
Sat 8 Dec 2007 11:16

2:30 PM Friday 7/12/07

 

It’s been bucketing down for the last hour. Wind went NW. We’ve discovered that the Bimini and the Spray Hood could do with re-waterproofing, something I hadn’t thought of as we are so little in the rain.  My 3 colleagues are all asleep.  What else to do on a rainy afternoon?

Just got a couple of new weather reports and it doesn’t look like much wind ahead.

I imagine we’ll be motoring in a few hours.  Once we start we may continue for 24 hours or so just to get it over with.

 

So I make my afternoon cappuccino.  Why is it that everytime I sit down to enjoy it the wind goes back ENE and it’s time to gybe the main  and pole out the yankee? As I’m starting to prepare, Nik wakes up  and we do it together.  Boat speed back up to 8 knots.  Coffee cold. Very sticky and muggy inside and outside the boat.

 

We’re about 270 miles north of the Equator.

 

5PM

Steve’s got his head in the bilge again.  More fridge water pump problems.  Its air locked and the proscribed procedure for clearing it doesn’t seem to work.

He’s tried again and we’re waiting to see if it’s successful.

 

We rode the edge of the squall for a couple of hours but eventually it pulled ahead and took the wind with it.

So after 4 days and 2 hours and 805 miles, I hoist the iron mainsail.

That was a bit overdramatic. Less than 2 hours later the wind came back.

Well sort of came back. We could only make 4 ½-5 ½ knots so 30 minutes later it was back to engine… but not for long, for another 30 minutes.  The wind Gods are toying with us. Total engine hours 2 ¼.

 

Midnight

 

31 Degrees C (86F) below decks and its night time. Very dark night.  No moon, no stars. Nada. More rain and the wind has gone East to ESE which suggests we’ve gone through the centre of the ITCZ.   We could have sailed through but because of the weather reports I thought we had run out of wind and that the ITCZ was further South.  It was simply the transition. I didn’t get a positional report today; the TCZ must have shifted Northwards. We have 15 knots on the beam which is not supposed to be the case, but I’m not complaining.  We’re now over 1/3 of the way to Rio which is extremely good time for under 5 ½ days. 

 

Saturday 8AM 8/12/07

 

Beautiful sunny bright clear morning.  About 5:30 AM the wind dropped away and we’re motoring again. 

Steve is still battling with the fridge. The pump will push the cooling water into the compressor but doesn’t seem to have enough oomph to  pump it  through the hull fitting and the sea.  So temporarily he has connected the outflow from the compressor to the grey water tank and in turn it’s pump now empties  every few minutes.  He has rigged up an external indicator light so we know that the grey water tank pump is doing its job otherwise it would all be going into the bilge.

 

I thought I’d seen everything at my age but I’ve just seen Nik put a huge blob of strawberry jam on his cornflakes as though it was a completely normal thing to do. Maybe it is in Finnland.

 

9AM

 

Sailing again.  8 knots on Track.   ESE 14 knots on the beam. Last nights Boeuf Bourguignon sits on the stove awaiting a lunch date with Sotiris. Very nice it was too, but I think Steve is practicing for the Antarctic.  Major crisis averted as we now have a big bag of ice in the freezer and have turned off the icemaker which being air cooled is like having a fan heater running  24/7.  In this case it was 24/2.

 

There’s a nasty bit of chafe on the lazy yankee sheet which will have to be dealt with before we can use it again, the result of being poled out for a few days.

 

In case anyone should need our Rio Address here it is:

 

            Veleiro SPINDRIFT

a/c Iateclube do Rio de Janeiro
Departamento Nautico [diran]
av Pasteur 333 Praia Vermelha Rio de Janeiro
cep 22290-240 Brasil

 

Spindrift will be there until Jan 2nd and I’m hoping to fly home for Christmas.

 

Noon

Sotiris is keeping his date.  The noon to noon run was 175 miles, 52 miles of which were under engine (3hrs55mins)  We nearly put up the asymmetric spinnaker but as we dragged it to the foredeck,  the wind moved just forward of the beam(ESE), so we thought better of it.  We’ve got fishing lines out instead. True wind down to 10 knots.  Boat speed just over 6 knots.