Tuesday 5 December 2023
The Adventures of Tin Man
Andy Topp & Steve Arnold
Tue 5 Dec 2023 19:03
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14:40.40N
49:01.52W what three words :
veils.impatiently.optimal
The Atlantic keeps teasing us a little but so far (and I
say this whilst simultaneously touching / knocking on every piece of wood Tin
Man can offer up) we have only had a bit of rain and a moderate but manageable
increase in wind. Last night we were treated once again to an absolutely
stunning sunset - the clouds looked like smoke rising from a candle, the burning
wick of the sun as it was extinguished over the horizon. Unlike anything I've
ever seen.
That started the night off in spectacular fashion and
the remainder of the night also did not disappoint. As we finished dinner, on
the horizon on our rear port quarter we noticed several flashes of lightining,
off in the distance. By the time I came on shift at 11 it had calmed down, only
to reignite an hour or so later. There is very little you can do about lightning
when you're on a sailing boat. Sitting in water, with a giant 25m metal pole
sticking in the air is not the most incognito way of travelling through a
thunderstorm. Thankfully the storm's position meant it was unlikely to track our
way - our theory being proven correct as we watched it pass forward and past us
on our port side about 10 miles away. We did feel sorry for the sailing vessel
near us that would have been right in the middle of it all, but we listened
carefully to the radio and all seemed fine.
The waning moon rises later and later, so once again we
had a full sky of stars until the clouds came in and the moon filled the night
sky with light. I even managed to get a couple of reasonably good photos of
Orion and Taurus for my niece back home, as my mum has been explaining to her
where we are and what we can see. The pitch darkness also meant a return of the
bioluminescent wake from the back of the boat which also never stops being
amazing. The cherry on the icing on the cake last night was witnessing several
brilliant shooting stars explode across the sky leaving a bright trail behind
them.
I have (we have all actually) struggled a bit lately
with the night shifts and fighting to stay awake. The previous strategy of lying
down and either reading or listening to something has failed me, so my strategy
last night was to busy myself with as many things as possible. Jooj and I did
some modeling on our average speed with some projections on when we would arrive
based on different average speed assumptions. I looked for the constellations I
already know and tried to learn a couple of others. I watched the lightning in
the distance, and watched on the charts with glee as we edged past another yacht
a few miles away. Keeping busy is a lot easier than fighting closing
eyelids.
Having caught the side of the passing thunderstorm it
did get a bit sporty over night with winds up to 26/27 knots at times. This has
been relatively sustained throughout the night and all through today meaning our
speed has gone up and our average 'velocity made good' is well above what we
need it to be to get in on Sunday. At this rate a late Saturday arrival could
still be a possibility - something I had ruled out yesterday. As I write this we
now have fewer than 700 miles until we hit our St Lucia waypoint and cruise into
Rodney Bay.
The increased winds have made conditions on board a
little more challenging with the boat pitching about 45 degrees roughly once
every minute. This meant sleep was also more challenging as we got thrown around
the boat all through the night, sleep resembling more of a core workout than a
rest - at one point I had to put my foot on the ceiling to steady myself in
bed!
We are now starting to see boats here and there; the
first few we've seen in a long time. As we get closer and closer we should start
to see more and more, as the remoteness of our Atlantic experience starts to
recede.
Having had a few nights respite from the flying fish,
Andy and Will were treated to a night time visitor on their watch over night.
With the deft use of the dustpan they managed to save the winged creature and
return it to its natural habitat - another very lucky flying fish!
We have had a bit of an unfortunate incident on board
today whilst changing the gas bottles over. The valve on one of the full bottles
broke, spewing liquid gas and what looked like dry ice all over the cockpit. It
goes without saying that fire, particularly a gas explosion, on a boat is
sub-optimal. With the auto pilot motor running just a few inches away from the
action the spark potential was high, and the risk of allowing the bottle to
discharge itself on board was too much. We made the very very difficult decision
to jettison the bottle, still pumping out gas, into the sea. We had only a few
seconds to make the call and get rid of it. When we set out to sail across the
Atlantic we wanted to ensure we did so in a way that had as little impact on the
ocean as possible. It really jars with all of us that we had to do this, but our
safety and that of the boat came first, and even with the benefit of hindsight I
would make the same decision again.
The higher winds throughout the day mean we haven't had
to change our sail plan for two days now and it will remain the same overnight,
so as we go into the evening there is no fuss and we won't lose any headway.
The final tragedy to report today is that the final bag
of Haribo sweets has been consumed and we now only have about three rich tea
biscuits languishing in the cupboard. There is a strict rationing system in
place for after dinner chocolate too. On the alcohol front, Jooj has been trying
to come up with inventive ways to drink Aperol when you have no prosecco to put
it in, and has been using sea water to cook with as we find ourselves almost out
of salt! What has been really satisfying about the provisioning is that aside
from the odd questionable apple we have had to lose over the side, we have had
virtually no food waste.
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