Titania day 11 update: Life on board
Titania
The Dobbs family and friends
Wed 5 Dec 2018 20:27
|
16 04N 48 46W
Some of you may be wondering what happens on board a
yacht that has been at sea for 11 days with the prospect of another 3 or 4 days
to go before we get to St Lucia. Many questions spring to mind: do
you anchor at night and all go to sleep? how do you eat and drink? isn't
it really smelly with 8 men in a confined space? can you only change your
t-shirt every 5 days to make you still have a clean one to go ashore at the far
end?
Titania is large yacht and very well equipped for long
distance cruising. Think about the fact that we are 68ft long and the
smallest boat on the ARC is 30ft long. We have a washing machine and
tumble drier which mean that we can wash clothes during the voyage so
nobody needs to use both sides of their underwear (the inside and the outside)
and everything dries in about 10 minutes when you peg to the guard rails in the
sun and wind.
There are 4 bathrooms (called heads on a boat) each with
its own loo, wash basin and shower and everyone can shower at least once
a day. Fresh water is made on board with a very powerful watermaker
that converts sea water into into drinkable fresh water at over 200
litres/hour. We run this once a day to top up the fresh water tanks -
usually after Freddy's showers.
The boat sails constantly with 2 people on duty (watch)
at any time and the others sleeping, cooking, cleaning, writing their latest
novel and helping out in more complicated maneouvres that need more people (eg
putting up the spinnaker). Richard and Todd are not in the regular watch
rota as they are needed to supervise the rest of us or fix complicated stuff
like the icemaker (the cubes sometimes come out joined together), the
frothy coffee machine or the masthead lights - leaving 6 people
working 4 hours on/8 hours off. Night watches may sound unpleasant but
they have been very rewarding on this trip with amazing night skies, shooting
stars, warm winds and Titania bowling along at 10 knots through the dark over
1,000 miles from any land. I might add at this point that we have an
excellent autopilot which can keep a really steady course - very useful at
night when you can't see any reference points on the horizon to steer
towards.
The on-board entertainment systems are currently being
studied by Airbus to use as a model for the next A310. Movie night was
about as close as we have come to crew row when the choice of 2,000 films
resulted in no decision at all and Richard had to mediate and we got one of the
many yachting disaster movies. Todd worked out how to get the Kiwi
sub-titles so he can understand the words after too many hours in the engine
room. Sound systems are also top-class with everything from
drum and bass to Beethoven playing on deck and down below.
Catering has been a feature with everyone taking a turn
at producing meals accompanied by canapés and mocktails. In fact, the
competition to make the best canapés has become so intense that we shifted
the meal pattern to a larger meal at lunchtime and only canapés in the evening
with a top-up for those of that need to keep eating. We have large and
very good fridges and freezers to keep food fresh and we still have fresh
vegetables! Pity those on the racing yachts eating freeze dried meals for
the 11th night in a row when we tuck into our freshly baked bread.
Early in the trip we caught a couple of mahi-mahi but
nothing for the past week to supplement the ship's stores as the wind has been
too strong to slow down and land the fish safely. It's a shame but maybe
that can be remedied in the next few days as we close in on St Lucia - the rum
punch is calling.....
Simon
Canapes again! |
