Sorry that the blog is a little late today, it's been a somewhat full on 24hrs - and not because Iain gave us food poisoning!

 

Let's start with what you're all eagerly waiting to hear about - Iain's lunch. The crew will agree that his sausage and egg open sandwiches were a resounding success. Aided by Sous Chef Minkey, the BLT inspired open sandwich filled a hole and didn't come back up again. Great relief to all!  Confidence bolstered, Iain now progressed onto a sausage & egg breakfast this morning and even went a little riske by adding toast and baked beans.  There now appear to be no boundaries to his new found enthusiasm for cooking now and he is promising to provide further culinary masterpieces, provided it is based on sausage, egg and beans..

 

The afternoon of sailing saw us pounding along at some of our top speeds so far towards the Caribbean and we continue to move up the position rankings in our class. Come sunset the wind was steadily increasing, and entered "beast mode" after dark.  We were doing everything we could to drive the boat hard and fast, and resist reducing sail but by 3am, the gusts were too much and we decided to take in some sail and slow down before we broke something.  This certainly helped stabilise things a little but we all had to endue our toughest night a sea so far - uncomfortable sea swell that threw us all over the place and had the boat pitching and rolling.  The boom shuddered as we fell off the front of waves and the sails flogged.  Down below the noise was horrendous and no one got much sleep. 

 

Finally, as dawn broke, the conditions started to ease and then our next drama began.  Mark, who had been on watch started his rig checks just before handing over to the upcoming watch.  He suddenly noticed that the clevis pin (a vital pin that keeps the boom attached to the mast) had worked its way loose in the night and was about to drop out.  All hands on deck for an emergency stop before disaster struck - if that pin had come out the boom would have uncoupled from the mast, causing goodness-knows-what in term of boat damage and, almost certainly, putting us out of the race.  Yet again, all the crew scrambled out of their bunks bleary eyed and, once again, went into fix-the-problem actions.  With Mike in his safe place, behind the wheel, Mark, Minkey, Ben and Iain worked to reposition and secure the pin before we reset the sails, gybed the boat and started to put some more South West direction into our course.  This time, rather than chest beating, we merely sat in quiet reflection about what had, all in all, been a very hard night until someone suggested putting the kettle on.

 

Anyway, now settled on our way again, and in calmer winds and a much smoother sea, the crew, all rather exhausted have spent a quiet day of catching up on sleep.  Mark has started fussing about mess and Ben has started complaining about how hot it is getting, both of which are positive signs that normal routine is becoming restored.  Mike still hasn't change his boxers.  Iain, once again had a day of firsts -  cooking at sea (well, cooking anywhere, actually) and swinging a rubber mallet at a clevis pin in his underpants in the pre-dawn half light.

 

Theia Crew

 

 

 

Gybes: 2

Tubes of araldite glue used: 2