Its all go go go
Sygitana
Wed 21 Nov 2018 16:15
the diary updating has been poor, my apologies. its been a factor of being busy and having a slight issue with my on board INTERNET settings making updating the diary problematic.
This should be sorted now.
We have been out twice now to clean the hull, test the new furler and get the genoa up.its feels good to slip the lines.
Its certainly a party atmosphere here and Gitana looks good dressed overall with signal flags as well as the ARC flag, the OCC burgee, Bristol Corithian burgee and now a Devon flag. Oh and not forgetting Axe Yacht club burgee as well.
We have now placed our meet and fresh veg orders. they arrive on Friday and Saturday. the meat comes vacuum packed and frozen to minus 20. once in my fridge it will keep for 7-10 days so thats pretty good news. the fresh veg will last as long as it lasts... i can see some interesting dinners being knocked up with whatever is about to go bad!
We have all the crew here now and the boat is feeling a little crowded all of a sudden. but the best bit is there are now lots of pairs of hands to help with jobs and getting it all ready.
tomorrow will see us uyp the rig again to place some foam padding on the spreaders to help protect the new main sail from chafe. we also need to do a final rig check and inspect the top swivel on the new furler now its in place. We also have a chafe point on a spi halyard that we need to find and eliminate.
Tonight is the big party here in Las Palmas. the theme is a night in Rio. those of you on Facebook will be able to see the crews costumes in all their glory. Dace brought face paint... i am slightly nervous.
I'll work harder to update once a day now on the final run to the start line. wind is looking very light for Sunday. we could drift down the coast of Gran Canaria for a few hours before we clear the wind shadow effect of the island. Initial thoughts are to head south until we get the decent breeze then turn west and run hard and fast for st Lucia.
all the best from Gitana.
James