What's Richie watching
X86
Rich Carey
Sun 26 Nov 2017 03:10
Watched 'The Hitmans Bodyguard' - rather enjoyed. Two excellent stars (people that is - one from the old guard and one from the ascendant) - nice representation of the modern genre of tongue well wedged in cheek, action.
Finished Season2 of 'Billions'. Most excellent, although like all series, they do tend to circle back too often to what they know has already worked well, and that can be a bit boring. By no means representative of the decorum/quality of the series, I was immensely amused by the following scene: Two rich guys are talking about screwing with another powerful guy, when one says in a very dry, matter of fact tone "I can tell you what to do, if you really want throw a turd in the punch bowl" ... classic :-)
Right now watching 'The Expanse' - pretty good pulp scifi, although it won't stand the test of time. Scenery (space stations etc), is rather good, and the external space shots, take me right back to playing 'Elite Dangerous' on the Oculus Rift.
Back to the story in hand:
Dad reports that the Catamaran 'Pelican' is facing the wrong way. Here's the 'Pelican brief':
In Gibraltar, my ARC flag had finally caught up with me (the welcome to the ARC package), and I was flying it on the flag halyard. A big old 50 foot power trawler pulled in next to me and this guy (Paul), hopped off and started talking about the ARC and that he'd done it 6 times. Turned out that he was helping a friend get the powerboat back to Portugal, where the 50ft Prout Catamaran he had built himself, was sitting, waiting to go south for this years ARC. Paul worked for Prout Catamaran's for 20 years, until he finally built his own. I rushed off to the Pub with him and had my first chat with a real ARC person. We've established a good friendship since.
An hour after the start, Pelican crossed our stern by about 20 meters and headed East. A couple of days later then were off to our West, and days after that they were well west of us! The boat is built fairly light (without Freezers, other luxuries, and electric everything), and with his experience, I thought he would fly off into the distance. Thus clearly, there is something really amiss with Pelican. I emailed them yesterday morning, but have heard nothing.
He's 440nm from Las Palmas and 570 from Mindalo. If he's facing the wrong way, my guess is that their issue, and lack of forward progress, means that they have been forced to turn back to origin :-( . Unfortunately the Africa coast offers little in the way of ports of refuge, for repairs etc.
Bugger. He's the guy I most enjoy having a beer with, and was most looking forward to seeing in St Lucia :-(
In other news: After 6 days at sea, Bosun's puckered bum could hold out no longer ... he's a little lighter now!
Currently: I'm tapping away at 02:30am in a quiet sea with little wind. Motoring at 230 degrees, still towards the western tip of the Cape Verde group. We're in fuel saving mode, so, single engine low revs through the night. As the wind is still so light, we are moving at 3 knots. 3 knots is 3.3 mph. Walking pace is 4 mph ... Sailing is all about the long game!
Right about now, the change is starting to come through. The light southerly breeze is gently backing, and will continue to do so through today, becoming slowly, very slowly, stronger. By tomorrow we should be in the trade winds proper (finally), and starting to gently turn toward the destination. We're down to 20L of diesel left in the Starboard tank, and will be the same by 10:00am for the Port tank. Before the wind builds, we'll be siphoning 5 jerry cans into each tank (3 of 20L + 2 of 10L for each). Bit of a job, but Jorn is a big fella, so we'll crack that job without too much ado.
All's quiet in the dead of night, on x86.
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