Day 12 - Regina's First Atlantic Storm
Regina
Espen Aalstad
Thu 6 Dec 2007 22:32
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17:27N 42:04W
Today I woke up to the sound of rain against my
hatch and the thumbing of feet overhead as my parents performed yet another
gybe. It had apparently been a quiet night, but the wind was increasing. After
having tumbled out of bed, bumped around a few times and gone through my morning
rituals, I made it out into the fresh, but extremly wet air. Both my parents
were soaked from head to toe, but dad was still in shorts. Finally the
sun came out along with the bread from the oven and we could dry up
and eat yet another delicious breakfast.
"Close the hatches, its going to
rain again" ... I was brushing my teeth and since the rain had not started yet,
I thought it could wait. Wrong! Instead I got a free shower as the water
trapped in the sails came tumbling through the hatch in the bathroom...oh well.
The morning went and soon our little storm was starting to build up. At around 1
the wind kicked in (followed by drizzling rain) and after a while the wind was
up to 30 kts and the boys had to take over as Mum and I retreated
into the warmth. Mum called grandma for the first time to tell her all is well
and calm, 5 minutes later, the instruments twitched and showed around 35 to
40 kts wind and big black clouds came up behind us. To sum it all up; we
could in the end log max 44 kts wind and a top speed of 14.9 kts with 2
reef and a small genoa. Radio contact with Baila Baila warned us that we
shouldn't head too far north... We think we managed to avoid the worst part
of the storm as the arc control tells us that a couple boats have logged 50 kts
max and even bigger waves (if this is possible) because of a
"stationary area of thunder cells". Radio contact also tells us that a few
boats have got damage to their sails (Kallioppe III tells us about
there 1.5m rip in the main sail).
Dinner: Pasta carbonara..mmmm, no tuna fish ;)
Current weather: around 20 kts wind and no rain.
Dark.
xxx Elin
(position at 1200 local
time)
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