ARC Log - Day 12 - Halfway Party

Sulana's Voyage
Alan and Sue Brook
Thu 2 Dec 2010 19:27
15:01.3 N 35:36.0 W,

Day 12 and our position, as at 18:00 UTC on the 2nd is still as tricky as it
ever was. This is getting tedious in the extreme! As you can see from our
considerable change of Lat/Long, we certainly shifted gear and Sulana did
her very best to get us out of our hole of yesterday.

We really hauled it yesterday, big time, to use the vernacular of youth.
Once we had the new 'Bad Boy' Light Genoa up and working, its extra power
became immediately quite apparent. We spent a very long time last night
tearing along at between 8 -9 knots in the pitch black, with hours of
torrential rain to cap it all off in the early hours before dawn, when we
spent an entire watch surrounded and enveloped by a giant Triffid.

The trouble was that all of our night's sailing was spent at a heading of
around SW, whilst others were (or must have been?) clearly sailing due West.
Or were any motoring? Then, just to round it off, we had another hour or so
of almost flat calm, left slatting around, yet again, in choppy seas without
sufficient wind to get her moving again. We really could not afford that,
but, given we have decided to avoid headwinds like the plague and cruise
across like a proper gentleman's yacht should, we were left with little or
no alternative, but to continue to slug it out to the South and West.

Dawn was a dank affair in the rain, with full cloud cover, no respite and no
sun for a few hours.

Even our personal morning greeting from the Long-Tailed Tropic Bird, which
has visited us over the two past mornings and circled the yacht twice before
continuing his way, got delayed. Today he did not arrive today until well on
in the afternoon.

So, to raise the spirits on board a bit, at lunchtime we held our halfway
celebration Hawaiian party, with music, a Conga around the cockpit and aft
deck, complete with fancy dress outfits that were superlative, to say the
least, all topped off with a glass of pink fizz and a delicious meal of
lightly grilled Marlin in a Hoisin? sauce.

After all these efforts Ben has retired to the forepeak to sleep it all off,
and has been given at least 24 hours of full R & R. He has earnt it!

Meanwhile, Sue has suddenly become a true stalwart in the crew. Yesterday
she was to be found in the galley mashing the spuds! When asked where her
magic electronic, anti-motion sickness wristband was, she answered, "Oh, I
have forgotten to put it on!"
Now there will be no stopping her, as she has truly found her sealegs.

We are not too far now from our turning point in the ocean, where we think
we can finally turn to the West and head straight for St. Lucia, whilst
still avoiding the further headwinds that are forecast for our area in a day's
time. We really just want to be able to put up our spinnaker now and get
down to running in the Trades, as we were sold from the outset. We have had
enough of this close-hauled stuff and bouncing around in leftover slop.

The trouble is that now, if things do not heat up soon, very soon, we could
still be forced to submit to motoring, even after all this effort to avoid
it. We have still got around 1,450 miles left to go and now only about 10-11
days left to do this in, if we are to be able to get Peter to St. Lucia in
time for his flight on the 14th, which was the latest likely date given him
by Alan, we might add!. It doesn't seem right to be contemplating this now,
after so much hard work by all the crew, but we have got to start getting
realistic about how many 150 miles/day days we have got in us ahead. It
might be a very tight-run thing.

Even if we ignore his flight and forget his considerable commitments back
home there is the very real deadline of the 17th,the cut-off date for
finishers and then, on the 19th, we have Ben's flight home and the arrival
of our family for their Christmas holiday, also to consider. We need to get
Sulana ready for that, too!

However, none of these are as important as the concept of having fun and us
all getting in in time for the parties ashore. If we cannot finish this
voyage in under 23-24 days overall the fun of it may start to pall on us
all. We are more than fine for food and drink, thanks to Ben, Fiona and Sue's
efforts in Las Palmas. We have no worries about water, or fuel either, but
nonetheless the pleasure of trying to complete the trip without motoring
changes quite quickly once one realises how many of one's other competitors
have already finished, if one target was to try to win one's class.
Difficult to know who has not yet motored, though!

Ah well! Let's see what another night develops to torment us with.....


JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image