Thursday 7 December 2023
The Adventures of Tin Man
Andy Topp & Steve Arnold
Thu 7 Dec 2023 22:58
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14:56.86N
054:34.92W
What three words :
drinkers.knotted.trickling
I'm sorry these blogs, as few as there may now be left,
are getting later and later. Today we had to change our ship's clock back
another hour as the sunrise was becoming too late - we are trying to keep
sunrise and sunset to around 6-7 am, and pm but it was well past 7:30 this
morning. I know it's nearly 10pm in the UK but here in the western
Atlantic we are now just about to have our dinner.
After the blog sent last night we ate and then settled
into the evening watch system. We are noticing more and more changes - a bit of
odd chatter on the radio, some more birds (although birds have been present with
us most of the way which has been quite puzzling). We are also noticing that the
air is much more humid the more west we get and there is a bit of a dampness in
the air we haven't had since leaving the Canary Islands.
We also had to interact with the first commercial vessel
in a long long time - a tanker carrying hazardass cargo showed on our AIS charts
with a course that would being it within 200m of us and as it was a 200m long
tanker with hazardous chemicals on it we thought that was a bit too close for
comfort - our usual strategy is to ensure a passing distance of at least 1
nautical mile with any larger commercial vessels. I hailed them on VHF and spoke
to a weary sounding guy on the other end, advised him we were under sail and
that we were limited in our choice of heading and asked what his intentions
were. It may sound weird to anyone who isn't used to the rules of the sea but
our little 14m long sailing boat, when under sail, is higher up the pecking
order than a 200m long tanker. No one ever has absolute right of way as everyone
has a responsibility to avoid a collision, but as the 'stand on' vessel we have
a duty to maintain our course and heading and allow them to make corrections to
avoid us. He advised they would turn to port and we passed them a short while
later. This might not sound that exciting but for us it was - it reminded us of
the early days on our UK to Gran Canaria leg where we were spending the whole
night threading the needle through the busy shipping lanes of the English
Channel and the entrance to the Med.
Despite a moody looking dusk the rest of the night
passed uneventfully. I woke up to catch the late sunrise and we settled into our
morning coffee gathering. It was a relatively uneventful day - we had two noons
due to the clock change, and Andy cooked us a Spanish Tortilla for lunch using
up some of the eggs and the last of the potatoes I had forgotten we had.
WIth the wind shifting we kept being pushed more north
than we wanted to be and overnight that continued so at first light Sam, Will
and I decided that it was time to gybe the boat (turn the stern through the
wind) to change our heading and stop going north. This meant that instead of the
wind hitting us from the starboard side at the rear, it now hit from the port
side rear. So we changed all the sales over and got underway. As the morning
progressed the wind dropped sufficiently that we could get the spinnaker out and
we had a great sail most of the day.
However, early this afternoon the Atlantic decided that
18 days of mostly sunshine and easy sailing was enough and it decided to serve
up some spicey conditions. Without warning the wind shifted dramatically from an
easterly to a southerly. As we have the auto pilot set to hold our angle to the
wind, not our heading, this wind shift meant the boat suddenly turned us due
north. Whilst this in itself isn't an issue (the boat just gently changed its
course and carried on, and the spinnaker kept flying nicely) such a large wind
shift is a harbinger of something more interesting - in this case a squall. We
got the spinnaker down without fuss, and switched to the standard white sails as
the wind picked up and then dropped again. A check on the radar confirmed a big
squall to the south and we were getting the gusts on the edge of it, as well as
the rain. Our first proper soaking this entire trip.
The wind picked up to around the mid twenties and as we
were on an upwind sail to maintain our heading it felt like we were flying along
with the toe rail on the side of the boat almost in the water as we healed over.
It was exciting and it was the type of sailing that Andy and I are well
accustomed to in the UK (although in the UK it isn't accompanied by warm gusts
of wind, just very cold ones!).
As quickly as all the excitement arrived, it went again
and we are now back to our normal downwind sailing plan. What made the whole
thing much easier was that it all happened in daylight - at night everything
becomes a little bit more challenging. In anticipation of more squalls coming
through we have reefed the sails down (reduced their size) to ensure we are
prepared in case - we may sacrifice a bit of speed over night as a result but
we'd rather that than have to do reef in the dark and when it's blowing 28
knots.
The only other odd thing that happened today was that we
sailed past a floating chest. Had we not had the spinnaker up we would have been
tempted to investigate further - it was the kind of wooden chest that looked
like it would have had money or gold or diamonds in it. One more thing we will
never know the truth of.
With fewer than 400 miles to go and almost 2700 miles
done it is now starting to feel like the end is firmly in sight. We are all
coming to terms with the fact that we have probably only two more full days at
sea left with our arrival still most likely sometime around Sunday morning. I
think the thought of creature comforts again are becoming more of a reality and
that is creating a nice sense of anticipation for our arrival. Still, we do have
two more full days and three more nights to get through at least so still plenty
of adventuring to be done - if this afternoon was anything to go by at least.
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