Day 8 - on a super-roll again 22:47 N 031:35 W
Ticketeeboo
Sue & Alan
Wed 8 Jan 2014 13:12
Culinary delights yesterday included superb bacon (from home) egg and tomato in toast (for lunch) and spag-bol (Alan reheat of the type must not be spilt on clothes) for an easy evening meal. We're eating well, although not to Sue's suggested meals itinerary! Diet is varied and no complaints from the consumers. In-between we each hit the sack for an hour or so to replenish energy reserves.
We are one of seven yachts presently calling-in to the grossing group net and at 1900 UT we exchanged safety & weather information as well a little banter. It seems just about every yacht is eating fresh fish? Some woppers being caught as well?
We replenished our port water tank during the day and just before I handed-over to Ray at midnight the washing machine went on. I'm due to put the genny on soon so will need to check the wash is finished ready for going 'chinese laundry style cockpit drying' come daylight.
0500: This is a notable occasion because we are seeing big ship "Suez Neptune" overtaking us on like-for-like course, doing 18kn. A real scarcity and I'm keeping good eye on its course & position. We're sailing on the wind and it could come too close for comfort and if this looks likely I'll be giving them some stick on VHF very soon and in plenty time to avoid and early visit to the heads.
We're getting the stronger winds, as promised in recent gribs and now have good course and speed. It is very lively, as expected it would be, and at 0400 hand-over we agreed in these conditions we feel the yacht sails more smoothly at higher speed. Hence, we're going to let her sail up to maybe 9kn before reducing sail more. The only sail we have out is our 'poled-out' genoa which is set between first & second reef. To quote Ray after he reduced sail earlier during the night "The wind went up and we were doing 8½kn so I reefed in a bit. Then the wind went down and we began to 'wallow' so I had to let it out again". We don't do 'wallow' so we'll try and keep our speed up and wallow-not. Also, first rain during Rays watch so cockpit is wet tonight. This reinforces advantage we have being able to night-watch in comparative comfort from inside saloon - one of the features high-up on our wishlist before Ticketeeboo was built. I think Ray is getting used to this (Sandra beware!!!!!). Overn
ight reception of BBC R4 & R5 is now barely readable and I am presently resorting to listening to BBC World Service. Warraloadawoffle! Why is it BBC World Service hardly reports anything on what's going on in UK? THey seem to have given-up on UK News in favour of being a world-wide cultural act with loads of unadulterated woffle. (Bit like our blogg eh???? "Giz a job, I can do that!")
1130: We're still here so the big ship called Suez Neptune passed us without any problems. Their radar continued to swipe us until well after 0800. Washing went out on our temporary line (the bright yellow one, which is a mono filament with a life of it's own) so we looks good to another ship passing close-by.... no chance!
Ray took responsibility for doling our our breakfast cereal. We think this might be our last packet and we won't know until we can open various cabinets without fear of loosing contents everywhere? I was in the cockpit when ray passed me mine. "Gee, that a lorra cereal" me thinks to myself? Ray joins me in the cockpit ans says "I think I might have put too much cereal in!" Some understatement, as he went on to say "It's a new packet and when I came to put it away I realised it's nearly all gone!" It looks like our supply of breakfast cereal will come to an end before we drop our hook next? Not a problem in long run because we can always resort to likes of bacon butty or sausage butty (me lips are watering)! After longer than 10 minutes trying to do my breakfast bowl credit I have to admit to dumping some because enough can be enough when it comes to rabbit food.
Ticketeeboo feels good. Despite having almost 2 reefs in poled-out genoa I have seen up to 10.3 kn speed over ground (if I had put SOG some non-sailors might have thought me mispelt soggy?). Typical SOG is 7kn to 8kn and this is lots better than wallowing around being bounced from one wave to another at lower speed. Importantly, we have been able to successfully hang a left, which is enabling us to head further south in anticipation that we can only head westward in another day or so, when winds are expected to veer a little and reduce too (back to previous conditions). Neither of us will be spending ages in the gally, preparing exotic meals today. It'll all be reheated Ray or Alan gourmet stuff, which leaves spectacular stains when spilt!
Had my daily walk round the deck. It didn't last long! All seems well and oh boy, am I so glad we took the opportunity to fix/sew our sails when we had the chance.
In last 24 hours: We have sailed through 149 NM of water. Barbados is now 1691 NM away and our distance run made good is 149 NM and we have now completed 1/3rd of the passage in our first 7 days. Pretty good for couple of old farts eh?
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Ticketeeboo MMSI 235071989 Callsign 2CED3, Ham = m0hng
At 08/01/2014 08:23 (utc) our position was 23°09.63'N 031°09.79'W
http://blog.mailasail.com/ticketeeboo
www.winlink.org/dotnet/maps/positionreportsDetail.aspx?callsign=m0hng